Not in a Funk

The hottest golfer in the world (well, close to it) showed up at the NEC Invitational at Sahalee Country Club almost by virtue of the flip of a coin. His name is Fred Funk, and he has finished second three times within six weeks.

After another good showing at the PGA Championship two weeks ago in Minnesota, Funk wasn't sure if he'd qualified for the NEC based on World Ranking points, a complicated system that's impossible to figure out without a computer, a slide rule and three nerdy geeks. He definitely wanted to play somewhere last week, and he'd made a commitment to the Reno-Tahoe Open. So he and wife Sharon flipped a coin to determine where they would fly from Minneapolis, Reno or Seattle. Seattle won -- and Fred almost did, too. He got into the NEC field by .02 points and made the most of it.

MAILBAG Do you have any explanation for why the PGA Championship has produced twice as many one-time winners (who also never won any other major) than the Masters and U.S. Open combined? Here are the stats for the period 1946-2002: Masters 13, U.S. Open 13, PGA 26. —Arvid Sponberg, Valparaiso, Ind. Probably because the PGA used match play to determine its champion until the late 1950s. Match play is an exciting format to watch but a lousy way to determine the best golfer or the best anything. In a 64-man field, the winner ultimately beats only six opponents. For instance, in the World Match Play Championship, somebody only has to beat Tiger Woods once to eliminate him from the tournament. In a stroke-play event, essentially you've got to beat Woods four days in a row. Big difference. Just read Ship-man's column on winners and losers at the PGA. What's the dirt on Tiger and Butch Harmon's breakup? Were sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll involved? Let's have a poll: Who will go sniveling back to beg forgiveness? I urgently need your subterranean view on the matter. —Vijay Thadani, Maputo, Mozambique I like that subterranean reference, Vijay, and I like your name. You just sound like a golfer. No one's talking about the divorce yet but my guess is, Butch was just a little too public. He provided USA Today with diaries from a couple of majors this year, and while they were hardly behind-the-scenes stuff or revealing, giving up anything about Tiger is kind of a no-no. Maybe Butch wasn't available as often as Tiger wanted or maybe Tiger really just does need a little space. Can you explain to me how Phil Mickelson can be considered a better golfer than Ernie Els? I haven't followed golf very carefully, but it seems to me that the times I do watch, Els is consistently in contention while Mickelson consistently chokes (British Open, International and PGA Championship, just to name a few). —Phil, Phoenix Is this some kind of a trick, Phil, to get me to say what I really think about you? If it is, then I agree with your pick -- go, Steelers. If not, then let me state the obvious. You've won 21 times, Phil. That's more than Ben Crenshaw, a Hall of Famer. That's more than Tom Kite or Curtis Strange and all but a handful of guys who've played in the last 30 years. And you're still only 32, Philly Mick. Win one major and you'll instantly be vaulted into the ranks of the best players in the last 50 years. Yes, Ernie's got three majors but he hasn't won in the U.S. anywhere near as consistently as Phil and if you look back on his record, he's blown his share of events when he was in position to win-- see: PGA at Riviera, for starters, which was his for the taking but went instead to Steve Elkington. I read a recent article of yours in which you said you were a 2 handicap. I have been reading your material for years now (dating back to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) and don't remember it being that low. Has your game improved since focusing your writing on golf? If so, to what do you attribute the improvement? —George Helf, Greendale, Wis. Three things. Step 1 was taking some lessons in Milwaukee from Gary Mattioli, the best and most positive teacher I've ever been around. He simplified the golf swing and made me understand what I was trying to do. Knowing what you're trying to do right is far better than trying to fix what you're doing wrong, believe me. Step 2 was working on my short game. I had nowhere to do that as a public golfer in Milwaukee, as few county courses had practice ranges, nor would they let you chip on the practice green. Adding a 60-degree sand wedge and switching to a balata ball made a difference, as did chipping into a bucket filled with water in my backyard from 30-40 feet away. Chipping is based on feel, feel is based on repetition. Chip for 30 minutes every day for two weeks and you'll see a difference. I did. Step 3, moving from Milwaukee to the Northeast lengthened the golf season for me. So did my new job, covering golf, which enabled me to travel to warm places to cover tournaments in the winter months and sneak in a few rounds, which almost made it seem like the golf season never ended. In Milwaukee, as you know, you may go six months without swinging a club. If Milwaukee could just be transported to San Diego, it would be America's best city. Especially if Bud Selig, the man who killed baseball, was left behind.

Funk briefly tied for the lead Sunday after he birdied the opening hole, then watched Craig Parry pull away from the field. Funk had to hole a nice birdie putt at the 18th to share second place with Robert Allenby; otherwise, he would've fallen into a tie for third with Tiger Woods.

"That putt was big," Funk said. "I figured that was probably a $150,000 putt."

This string of success has been a big reversal for Funk, who became the people's choice at the PGA because of his unique name, his smile, his fist-pumping, and his waving to and genial interaction with the crowd. When news outlets revealed how Funk was helping his brother fight alcoholism, crowds warmed to him even more. Those good feelings were still in place at Sahalee, where the galleries heavily rooted for this 46-year-old underdog.

Funk's sudden surge has seemingly iced him a spot among the top 30 on the money list, which gets him into the Tour Championship and exempts him for next year's U.S. Open and Masters (the top 40 get into the Masters). Now he's aiming for the top 20, which would earn him a spot in next year's British Open, and the $2 million single-season mark, which he's never reached. Besides entry into the NEC, Funk's good play has bumped him up in the World Ranking and should help him into the American Express Championship next month in Ireland and maybe the World Match Play Championship next year at La Costa. It's a pretty cool comeback for a guy who didn't qualify for any of this year's first three major championships.

After a draining two weeks, Funk will live up to his commitment to play this week outside Vancouver at the Air Canada Championship, another tournament losing its sponsor that may, like Reno, be played for the last time. "I told them I'd do anything to help," said Funk, "not that I have any power."

A remarkable ace

The shot of the week during the PGA Championship wasn't anything struck by Rich Beem or Tiger Woods, by the way. The winner is a 3-wood by David Mackintosh, a Scotsman who writes for the Buenos Aires Herald (and, no, don't ask). Mackintosh roomed with a friend, Tom O'Callaghan, who used to run Minnesota Golfer magazine and hang out with media types like Bob Drum. O'Callaghan built a four-hole course around his spread southeast of Minneapolis; four par-3 holes with two pin positions and several sets of tees. Each time you play a hole, you move the pin to the other cup.

O'Callaghan calls his course Backyard Country Club. Mackintosh borrowed some clubs to play a few holes. One he picked out was a classic MacGregor persimmon 3-wood. The opening hole is a 230-yarder to a green slightly blocked from view. Mackintosh hit the 3-wood flush and was pleased with the shot until he and O'Callaghan arrived at the green and found no sign of Mackintosh's ball.

"I walked up to the cup and said, 'Oh, s---, it's in the hole," Mackintosh said.

That's quite an ace. Not only is it a 230-yarder, but it may be one of the few holes-in-one made in the world this year with a persimmon club. "This one is special because of the club," Mackintosh told me. "Nobody plays persimmon anymore."

It was the first hole-in-one ever made at Backyard Country Club, and O'Callaghan promptly had the ball mounted. The ace was such a thrill, though, the twosome quit playing, told a neighbor the big news, then retired to the house and, as Mackintosh said, "We did our best to increase Johnnie Walker's profits a bit."

And another thing ...

CBS should give new analyst Lanny Wadkins a raise. He was right on the money when he said Beem's eagle down the stretch at the PGA made Woods blink and caused him to three-putt the 13th hole and bogey the 14th. Wadkins gets points for noticing and double bonus points for having the guts to mention it in a TV world that, let's be blunt, carefully bows to Woods. Tiger said Wadkins didn't know what he was talking about, but last week at the Senior tour event in Utah, Arnold Palmer was quoted as agreeing with Lanny. "It's the first time I've seen him lose it," Palmer said. "When Beem made that eagle, if you were watching Tiger very closely, you saw a change in expression on his face. I know him well enough to know the difference, and that's the first time I've seen it happen. I saw him get distracted for a second and quickly make two bogeys. That surprised me." Wonder if Tiger will find some ironclad commitment he can't get out of next March, the week he's supposed to be trying to win Arnie's Bay Hill tournament for the fourth straight year? Tiger does have a long memory. ... Beem lived in Berlin for 3 1/2 years, before the Wall came down, and also for 3 1/2 years in Panama. His dad worked for the government, Beem said, as a golf pro. ... After I walked past an elderly woman spectator at Sahalee one day during the NEC Invitational, she came rushing after me. "Are you Gary McCord?" she asked. Sorry, lady, my name is Vin Diesel. ...

David Feherty, golf's funniest commentator, pulled up in a golf cart near the ninth green last Saturday morning. "Now I'm a delivery service," Feherty grumped. Spotting Beem, Feherty walked out into the fairway carrying three videocassettes and handed them to Beem's caddie, Bill Heim. They were video of CBS' coverage. Jokingly asked if they were instructional tapes, Feherty replied, "Not golf instruction. It's how to read a magazine with only one hand." ... Next up for Beem, by the way, is two weeks off, then the German Masters, the American Express Championship in Ireland and the Texas Open at La Cantera in San Antonio. ... At least a dozen fans wore gray BEEM TEAM T-shirts during Saturday's round. They were mostly his wife's relatives from Idaho, who'd printed up the shirts themselves. On the front, below BEEM TEAM, was Beem's golf philosophy, as stated at the PGA: "Hit it, go find it and hit it again." On the back were maps of the three states Beem has won tournaments in: Minnesota, Colorado and Maryland, along with trophy cups, the names of the events and the courses they were played on. Atop all that, in red, is, "BEEM ME UP." Beem Teamer Dan Felton asked if I had noticed the error on the shirts. I said I had. The woman he gave the printing instructions to didn't know much about golf. Felton asked for BEEM ME UP to be printed in red. In her notes, the word red slipped down a ways and, as a result, appears on the shirt under the International, whose course is listed as Castle Red Pines. The family is thinking about selling the T-shirts online if there's enough interest. ... Paul Azinger is the reigning foosball king of the tour. He and Matt Kuchar teamed up in a downtown game room and decimated all comers in doubles play. "I'd be no match for him," said Kuchar, who played defense and let Azinger do the scoring. "He's really good."

Sports Illustrated senior writer Gary Van Sickle writes for the magazine's Golf Plus section and is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com. Click here to send him a question or comment.

 

Related information

Stories

Gary Van Sickle's Underground Golfer Archive

Multimedia

Visit Video Plus for the latest audio and video