Golf World - April 30, 2012

and just have that belief anything can happen.” And now he has four career wins, including a major.

Steve Johnson of the Hank Haney Golf Ranch near
Dallas, who worked with Curtis for several years begin-
ning late in 2007, paints a familiar scene of a young man
suddenly immersed in a world of success. “There were a
lot of distractions,” Johnson said about Curtis’ downslide.
“He has two young kids. He was in the process of building
a huge house in Ohio. I think it was a function of off-course
distractions. He didn’t want to practice.”
The Texas Open celebrated its 90th birthday this year,
and the winners list reads like a who’s who of golf—Hagen,
Hogan, Nelson, Snead, Palmer—until recent years. Some
blame the lack of top players on their dissatisfaction with
the Oaks course as much as on the fact that the tournament
is played midway between the Masters and the Players,
making it a good place on the calendar to take a week off.

That schedule problem will be fixed, at least for next year, when the tournament moves to the week before the Masters in what feels like a quid pro quo for the extension through 2018 Valero signed in February, along with a $1.2 million pledge to The First Tee of San Antonio.

Some of the course issues will also be addressed—four of the most severe greens will be re-done. But even more than that, players want to see some of the in-between areas around holes

cleared of cactus, brush, rocks and other nasty stuff.

The Oaks course has pace-of-play
issues—one of the reasons they played
threesomes from two tees on Sunday—
“Playability for the everyday golfer is much more impor-
tant than rebuilding the greens,” Steve Flesch tweeted
on Saturday about landscape off the fairways.

Curtis, who was 74th in the field in driving distance but second in driving accuracy, first in greens in regulation and third in strokes gained/putting, was fighting it on the weekend, no question about it, but he fought it successfully.

After making no bogeys while playing the first 36 holes in
10 under par, he double-bogeyed Nos. 1 and 8 Saturday as he
grinded his way to a 73. The 72 on
Sunday was more of the same. It
was not pretty, but it was all about
not giving up.

Although the birdie putt Curtis rolled in on the final hole was window dressing, the tears he cried as he used a TV interview to say hello to his wife and children were real. That’s who Curtis is. “Happy to be here,” he said with more than a little emotion. “I wish I would have been here before this.” It felt very much late Sunday like Curtis will be here again, and that the next time it won’t take nearly six years. n

Filling a void: With many big names absent, Huh (left) and Every took advantage of the opportunity, sharing second place two strokes behind Curtis’ winning total of nine-under 279.

overComing DoUBLe troUBLe

There have been 25 stroke-play events on the PGA Tour since a player won a title with two double bogeys as Ben Curtis did at the Valero Texas Open: Keegan Bradley at last year’s PGA Championship at Atlanta AC. Bradley not only doubled the par- 3 fourth hole in the first round and the par- 4 first hole in the third round, he also tripled the par- 3 15th hole in the final round. Between Bradley and Curtis, seven players captured PGA Tour titles with a double bogey the week of their victory.

Carl Pettersson 2012 RBC Heritage tiger Woods 2012 Arnold Palmer Invitational steve striCker 2012 Hyundai TOC luke donald 2011 Children’s Miracle