Movin' on up

2002 was a year to remember for Jerry Kelly

Jerry Kelly dumped an armful of belongings on the hood of his Mercedes courtesy car -- we were standing in the players' parking lot at East Lake Golf Club following an early round of the recent Tour Championship -- so he could finish our interview about his 2002 season. We had a lot to talk about. Kelly got the first win of his PGA Tour career at the start of the season in Hawaii, scored a second W at the Western Open near Chicago (almost a home game for a Madison, Wis., native), made the 30-man Tour Championship field for the first time -- and was about to finish sixth on the 2002 money list with more than $2.9 million, make a hole-in-one in the final round and place fourth in the Tour Championship, thus securing a berth in every major championship in 2003. It wasn't just the best year of his seven on the big tour, it was a great year.

MAILBAG Remember, if you've got a story about the worst golf course you ever played, send it in. I'll use your anecdotes for a Best of the Worst tribute, coming soon to theaters near you. Last week I mentioned a beat-up track in Brookline, Mass. I thought it was the George Wright Muni, but Boston-area letterwriters say it may have been Putterham Meadows, also nearby. I played them both but can't remember which was which, since the date of my rounds was somewhere around 1985. Your mail: In your opinion, which of the Silly Season events are worth watching? I also want to say I improved my game dramatically by putting my graphite Callaways (firm) in the closet and switching to Cleveland steel (stiff) TA-5s. You can't force graphite but you can jump on steel all day. I'm 64 and playing to about a 9. —Bob Rayno, Mazatlan, Mexico Likely story, El Bobo. No way I'm giving you seven shots. As for silly events, I'm a sucker for match play, which is inevitably more interesting than stroke play. That means the otherwise irrelevant UBS Warburg Cup and the Hyundai Team Matches. I also kind of like the Skills Challenge, if that's even held anymore. Hate the Skins Game. No money, no interest, no personality, no interplay. I also like Punt, Pass and Kick. Won a Lions helmet when I was 9 because my punt landed on the chalk. What is your prediction for the upcoming UBS Warburg Cup? Do you think this year's event will turn out to be an epic like the first one, in which the U.S. team eked out a one-point victory only after Larry Nelson defeated Frank Nobilo, Mark Calcavecchia exorcised his Kiawah demons and Arnold Palmer (at 72!) defeated Gary Player? Which matches would you follow if you were in attendance? —Victor Canseco, Elk Grove Village, Ill. Like you, Jose, we're all on the edges of our seats for the return of the Warthog Cup ... sorry, Warburg. Actually, I will be in attendance, but most likely I'll be hanging around the media buffet and the TV screen by the bar. I'll pick the non-U.S. team to win, only because I give Player the edge in what will undoubtedly be a rematch against Arnie. I'd also look for a match of Ryder Cup captains, Curtis Strange vs. Sam Torrance; that could be fun. Also, congrats on being one of the few people in America who knows what the Warburg Cup is and that it's coming up this weekend. Your friends over at ABC made a great observation during the Tour Championship. The guys pointed out how corporate-sponsored tents have swallowed most, if not all, of the available viewing space around the greens at any given tour stop. What has compelled the tour to suddenly make the closing holes (especially greenside) Corporate (Tent) America? Having attended the Western Open, I know that the Tour Championship's hospitality tents are not an aberration. It seems like the average fan can't get near the 18th hole drama anymore unless he/she works for Kraft, PriceWaterhouseCoopers or Coca-Cola. What's your take on this? —Chris Lindy, Evansville, Ind. Glad to see you made it back across the Atlantic after your flight, Lindy. It's true, the tour is all about the almighty buck. The average fan gets crapioca. (That's a word I made up, but I think it's universally understandable.) One of the worst offenders for years has been the Buick Classic at Westchester, where the 18th green is surrounded by corporate seats. Oh, there's one public grandstand on the right side of the green, but thanks to a large tree, you can't see the fairway from the stand -- it's an exciting par-5 that many players go for in two -- only from the green. So the fan who has walked the first 17 holes gets to the 18th and is shut out. This is common, too, at the U .S. Open, where the limited public seating is probably full by the time you get there. Looks like golf is no different from baseball or college football. You want a good seat, you have to cough up the Benjamins in advance. What is the best way to store golf balls during the winter? —Vik, Midland, Mich. Ship them to Phoenix, then go there to keep an eye on them. Actually, I don't know that anyone has proven that temperature, humidity and conditions affect these new two-piece balls, although I would recommend against storing them in extreme heat, extreme cold or, say, underwater. I know TaylorMade started vacuum-sealing its balls -- it had done tests on the old balata-covered balls and found detrimental aging performance -- but with the new balls, I think you could stick them in your basement and leave them, assuming it's going to be at least 50 there. Great to hear from my former hometown, Midland, where my high school had one unique nickname, the Chemics. Midland is headquarters to the Dow Chemical Co.

"My family has been trying to get me to say that, but I won't," Kelly said. "I felt like there was a lot more I could've done this year. It was definitely a monkey off my back to win, and a relief to know I could play my own game and win, but I've got to play my game like that a lot more often. I'm climbing such low rungs on the ladder to where I'm trying to get that winning didn't really rock my world. I'm still improving, I've still got a long ways to go. I feel kind of unfulfilled about the year, to be honest."

This is the charm of Kelly, a dyed-in-the-Badger-fur Wisconsin man who brings a hockey player's attitude to golf -- he has been known to playfully check other players into their lockers as he passes them in the locker room; he went to the University of Hartford to play hockey, but the school dropped the program the summer before he arrived and didn't tell him, so he switched his focus to the links -- and considers being called a Cheesehead a compliment. It's also why, even though he's not one of the tour's young guns like fellow first-time winners Charles Howell III or Jonathan Byrd, Kelly is a player to watch. He turns 36 this month, he took his game to the proverbial next level this year, yet he is sure he can do better. Kelly is not satisfied. While that's an overly harsh appraisal of his performance, you have to admire his drive. He's definitely on the list of the top 10 tour players I'd most like to tailgate with.

"This year has been a steppingstone, still," Kelly said. "There were a few more lows than I would've liked. I wasn't able to be as consistent as I would've liked. I feel like part of the tour a little more, like I'm part of the tour's history. It's nice to know I'll always be in the books and be remembered for something."

The secret of his breakthrough year was mostly mental, he'll tell you. He didn't make any significant changes to his game, but he did try to make significant changes to his attitude. Kelly was known as an all-world hothead as an amateur and in his early years as a pro -- that old hockey mentality again -- but he decided to make that work for him in 2002.

"I really took a different course this year," Kelly told me. "I've always tried to relax. That's not true to my nature, so when this year started out I decided I was going to go after it starting with the first event. I didn't walk slow, I walked fast. Before, I'd try to relax and then when something went wrong, I went, 'Uggghh!' Sunday at Hawaii when I won, I didn't have a great first six holes, but since I was already keyed up and in that state of mind, it didn't give me a sudden rush of adrenaline. I already had the adrenaline going. I was already in the 'Grrrr! I wanna kill 'em!' mode, so I just kept on playing my game. And playing my game turned out to be good enough.

"I've gotta be me. In the past, I tried to relax and be patient and calm down, but that wasn't true to me. I have to be aggressive. By that, I don't mean shooting at every pin, I mean making aggressive swings through the ball on every shot. Just being me instead of somebody else. I definitely did that too often and found myself doing it again later this year, instead of going after shots with the gusto that I need. I used to get mad and try to calm myself down, and now I'm just not going to do that. When I get mad now, I'm going to use that adrenaline for the good."

When Kelly talks about how his year coulda/shoulda/woulda been better, he's looking at July, August and September, in the wake of his emotional Western Open victory at Cog Hill. What's that, you don't remember hearing his name much during those months? Right. He sort of hit the wall. At the Greater Milwaukee Open, a big deal for any Wisconsin golfer but a Holy Grail of sorts for Kelly ever since he lost the tournament in 1996 in a playoff to Loren Roberts, Kelly tried too hard. He left after missing the cut, a gigantic letdown, with twitching facial muscles, a thick tongue and no energy, and flew to the British Open. Despite a 103-degree fever, he shot a pair of 70s on the weekend and finished 28th at Muirfield. He thought he was on the verge of exhaustion. In reality, he was on the verge of severe dehydration. "I came home and finally was able to eat a bowl of soup on Tuesday, but I woke up the next morning and was history," Kelly said. His wife, Carol, ordered him to the hospital, where he received five bags of intravenous fluids and gained seven pounds in four hours. He had to return to the hospital two days later for another drip of fluids. "I was close to organ shutdown," Kelly said. "It was bad. They told me it would take two months to recover fully."

It was all part of a learning process for Kelly. When he suffered similar symptoms at the Michelob Classic at Kingsmill, he didn't waste time. He went directly to the medical trailer for two bags of intravenous fluids. "I didn't feel good the next two days, but at least it didn't last for two months this time," Kelly said. "I have to be aware that when the weather is hot, I have to be careful. That's the hazard of being a frostback from Wisconsin, I guess. Personally, I'm looking forward to it being 40 degrees and windy. I play in short sleeves in that stuff."

Not surprisingly, then, Kelly fared well in Atlanta when a cold snap hit the Tour Championship. He aced the 11th hole in Sunday's final round and ended up finishing fourth, winning $240,000. His last ace, he said, came at Riviera's sixth hole during the Nissan Championship.

Meanwhile, he's set to play in the Hyundai Team Matches with Chris Smith as his partner, and in the Shark Shootout with Scott Hoch. A more immediate goal is to move into his new house, which overlooks one of Madison's scenic lakes. Kelly obviously loves the location; he bought his parents' home and, after checking into the cost of renovating the place, decided it was cheaper and easier to knock it down and start over. So that's what he did. His contractor had hoped to get the Kellys -- Jerry, Carol and 4-year-old Cooper -- into the new place before Thanksgiving, but early December is now the target date. "It was my fault we got pushed back another month," Kelly said. "I've got some special pine hardwood floors going in and we had to have the right humidity for the wood, otherwise these 20- to 30-foot pine boards could warp right away."

Demolishing the old house was a little traumatic for Kelly's parents. "I didn't call my mom to watch the day they knocked it down," Kelly said. "But one of her neighbors told her when it was almost done, so she came out for the last hit and got a little emotional. My dad came out -- it was just a shell by then -- and said he wasn't going to get emotional, since he didn't build the house. But he did. There were a few tears. They know we have a house that matters. They're OK with it now."

Kelly's favorite room in the new house is his theater, which will have a 10-foot screen that can be divided into quarters, hooked to four satellite dishes so he can watch four shows (OK, games) at once. The room will have tiers with couches to maximize seating capacity. "It's the signature hole of the house," Kelly said. "It's going to be great."

Just like his year in 2002.

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.

 

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