Castle Rock – It is a given that golfers are never satisfied, even those on the PGA Tour. Tiger Woods, the best player in the world, chases history. Vijay Singh, the second best, stalks Tiger.
The 150th-ranked player wants to move into the top 125 to secure his PGA Tour playing privileges for the next year. No. 90 wants to move up 10 spots to gain entry into big-money events. No. 31 is hoping to knock No. 30 down a peg to reach the year-end Tour Championship.
For the better part of 11 months, players try to reach that next step. That process begins anew today with the opening round of The International, where a victory can lead to temporary bliss – or at least go a long way toward getting someone headed in the right direction.
“It took me years to win (a tournament), and now I’ve won twice,” Steve Flesch said. “But I want to win a third time, because I know what the benefits are of winning. At the end of the year, it’s really going to grind me to think of what I’m going to maybe miss out on.”
The left-handed Flesch was considered a rising star on tour after victories in each of the past two seasons. While he has won more than $500,000 this year, he has missed eight cuts – he had but six all of last season – and a single top-10 finish, in Phoenix in February.
As a result, Flesch ranks 100th on the money list and 73rd in the world golf ranking. While he’s almost certain to keep his card and exempt status for 2006, his world ranking isn’t good enough to merit inclusion into special tournaments such as the NEC Invitational, a World Golf Championships event, in two weeks, or the WGC’s American Express Championship in October, or the Tour Championship. Each of those events has purses of at least $6.5 million.
Flesch said in such situations golfers begin to fight internal battles. They start to wonder if their game is getting away from them.
“That may be harder to work through and accept than it is to lose your card,” Flesch said. “Nobody wants to lose their card; that’s the worst thing that can happen. But when your game is deteriorating or you can’t do the things you used to be able to do, that’s hard for a player to accept.”
Doubt begins to creep in, Flesch said.
“You can work as hard as you want, but you just might have to say, ‘Hey, I’m not as good as I used to be,’ or ‘Are these guys getting that much better that now I can’t keep up?’
“Those kinds of things are going on in your mind, and you still have to play good enough to stay out here.”
Three years ago, a largely unknown golfer named Rich Beem won The International with a spectacular Sunday finish still talked about on tour. Two weeks later, he won the PGA Championship at Hazeltine in Minnesota. In 78 events since, he has four top-10 finishes.
“It’s never any fun if you’ve been on that level and you think you belong there,” Beem said. “But I haven’t proven myself in the last couple of years. A PGA win can only take you so far. Once you win it, it doesn’t mean that golf is going to be easy for the rest of your life.
“I feel like I’ve been working pretty hard at it, but I haven’t had the results. I know what I need to work on; I just haven’t been getting it done. And if you don’t get it done out here, there are 156 guys who just want to step on you.”
Beem said his nemesis has been a balky putter. Last season he ranked 188th. This season he’s 202nd out of the 203 players who are ranked.
“Hopefully, one day it will click again and turn itself around,” Beem said. “You always hope for that day. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen those days in a long time. But I think they’ll come again.
“Once the confidence comes back, then the sky’s the limit.”
Anthony Cotton can be reached at 303-820-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com.
