|
 |   |
|
EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Multimedia Central Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities Work in Sports
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
|  |
That winning Q school feeling
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- The ultimate goal of every caddie each week is to carry for the winner. To be in the final group, feel the butterflies jumping in your stomach, hear the roar of the crowd as you walk up the 18th hole, get a hug from your player and take the flag off the final hole. Last week at the LPGA Qualifying School the goal was a little different. Caddies just wanted to survive. Because of some horrific past experiences -- Laurie Rinker-Graham quitting after two rounds (1993), Lee Rinker three-putting three of the final four holes (1993) and Liz Early making a double-digit score on a par-3 (1994) -- I swore I would never again caddie at the Fall Classic. Well, just like all of the caddies before me who said that they were retiring from the field only to return -- yeah, that means you, Chuck Parisi -- I decided to go against my first inclination. The reason that most caddies prefer not to work Q school is that they have nothing to gain from the experience and everything to lose.
I once told a player I would only go to Q school for $1,000. She said I was crazy. Allison Finney overheard the conversation and said I wasn't. Finney had been through the torment of caddying at Q school. "The caddies are underappreciated at Q school," Finney told the player. "I don't blame them for not working. If I were you I would pay Tom $1,000 -- that is cheap." Last week, I caddied for Sue Ginter. While I didn't get the high stakes I was asking for, I did work because the stakes weren't that high. Ginter finished No. 129 on the 2000 money list, so she already had non-exempt status on the tour for next season. Regardless of how she played, she wasn't going home empty-handed. When I originally took the appointment I thought the average 20-25 exempt cards would be available. But after the fact I found out there were a scant 14 cards open; now the pressure was on. I had caddied for Sue once before -- in 1998 at East Lansing, Mich., during her rookie season. To be honest, it wasn't the most pleasurable experience. She missed the cut and was very, very, very upset and told some players that I was a terrible caddie. During the past two years, however, Sue and I have become good friends. As we were leaving the New Albany Classic on Oct. 1, we crossed paths in the parking lot. At the time I didn't know she was on a mission to find a caddie, but we had a brief conversation on the matter and I got the phone call the next day. Besides breaking my pledge to not caddie at Q school, I broke another sacred rule of caddies: I stayed with my player. Normally you would never want to do this, especially at Q school. The last thing you need is to see your player 24/7, especially if she is playing poorly. But since I had use of a three-bedroom condo on the beach (thank you, Chris Sutton, the No. 1 LPGA groupie), I thought I would be hospitable. Well, luckily for me, Sue shot a first-round 68 last Monday. It was an easy four under and it made the rest of week go really smoothly. She was just one shot off the lead and in good shape. Staying with Sue actually was fun and entertaining. Besides her unusual exercise regiment -- walking on her knees around the condo, middle-of-the-night runs, sit-ups and stretching, constantly looking at her swing in the mirror -- a wacky diet including some boring seven-grain cereal for breakfast and her desire to watch the presidential debates, Sue was the perfect roommate. The shakiest part of the week came at the beginning of the second round. Some absolutely clueless volunteer (normally I am thankful for all of the volunteers) asked, "How far is it to clear the water?" off the first tee. The lake, which is more aesthetic than a danger, normally doesn't come into play. After cringing, Sue said it was "about a 45-second breaststroke swim across." Then her ball almost took a swim. She hit this low duck hook, and I thought for sure all of Monday's hard work was going in the drink, literally. Miraculously, the ball hit on the other side and rolled back, but stayed three inches short of the lake. Sue shanked the next shot -- probably because she was still flustered -- but then scrambled to make a great 5. She then settled down and shot one-under 71 on the day. Now all of sudden our attention turned from just getting the card to winning. Sue shot a solid even-par round on Wednesday and was in a three-way tie for the lead heading into the final round. All week I preached to her to be aggressive. I told her she was one of the best players in Daytona Beach, and she proved it in the final round. As we left the practice tee Thursday morning, I said, "Lets go have some fun and win this thing." And that is exactly what she did. Sue cemented the victory with back-to-back birdies on 11 and 12, two holes she bogeyed the day before. She put the nail in the coffin on the 14th hole when she staked a 7-iron to four feet. As we walked up the 18th fairway, I had a pretty good idea that we had a four-shot lead. I have had that margin walking up the last fairway before, but this time it was different. There was a small crowd and no one knew where any players stood because there was no scoreboard -- and they probably didn't care. Sue wanted to win, so she asked me, "Do I need this [birdie] putt?" "I think you can six-putt," I replied. She would make the par, I would get a hug, but there were no cheers, no big checks, no trophies and no flags (even though Sue joked that I should take it). But a win is a win. To me, it was as good as winning a major championship. Sue also didn't care if she didn't win any hardware for her parents' mantle. She had her exempt card for 2000, and that's all that mattered. "I don't have a trophy to kiss but I will kiss my exempt card every week next year," she said. Tom Hanson, a regular contributor to Sports Illustrated's Golf Plus section, is a longtime caddie on the LPGA Tour. Click here to send him a question or comment.
The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
