Castle Rock – The biggest problem with becoming an overnight sensation is all the years of hard work it takes to get there. The toiling in golf’s minor leagues. The struggles trying to catch a break. Trying to make a name for yourself when the only words that roll off of the public’s lips – on the rare occasions when you’re mentioned at all – are “Sorenstam” or “Wie.”
But if you’re lucky, there comes a moment when you have the opportunity to create something positive from all the labors, to realize the dream that set you on the long, winding road to begin with. For Dean Wilson, that time came Sunday at Castle Pines Golf Club in the final round of The International.
Standing over a 6-foot putt on the second playoff hole against Tom Lehman, Wilson didn’t think about the fact his next stroke could give him his first PGA Tour victory, or perhaps make him the most famous Hawaiian native this side of Michelle Wie, or that he might finally put his stint as Annika Sorenstam’s sidekick to rest.
Instead, Wilson drew upon the idea that, while he had yet to come through at the highest level of the game, success – wherever one can find it – is a valuable commodity.
“There’s nothing that replaces winning, whether it’s at the amateur level, whether it’s at the State Open level, (or) internationally in Japan or Asia,” Wilson said. “That feeling I get, that nervousness, that anxiety and excitement. It’s always the same at any level.”
There was never a doubt about the putt. The only thing in question was what happens next for the 36-year-old. To be sure, as the ninth first-time winner on tour this season, there are some immediate benefits to be derived for Wilson – a check for $990,000 deposited into his savings account, as well as a spot this week in the PGA Championship at Medinah Country Club outside of Chicago.
Next January, Wilson will receive an all-expenses-paid trip to Maui, site of the season-opening, winners-only Mercedes Championship.
“There were a couple of fans out there from Hawaii who said, ‘You’re going to (tournament host) Kapalua.’ I hadn’t even thought about that,” Wilson said. “I don’t know about all the other perks that come with (winning), but I’m just satisfied, really satisfied, to have a trophy with my name on it.”
Beginning the day tied for seventh place, Wilson’s seven-birdie, two-bogey day was good for 12 points and a four-day total of plus-34. Lehman, the Ryder Cup captain trying to win for the first time since 2000, had 10 points to join the third final-day playoff in tournament history. Daisuke Maruyama and Steve Flesch, who could have joined Wilson and Lehman in the playoff but were left a birdie putt short on the 18th hole, finished in a tie for third with 32 points.
Zach Johnson, who grabbed the third-round lead by making an eagle Saturday on the 644-yard, par-5 opening hole, saw his chance at victory flutter away at the same locale Sunday with a double bogey that began an afternoon in which he fell to a tie for 13th.
Meanwhile, defending champion Retief Goosen ended the tournament on the opposite end of the spectrum, a minus-5 day sending him to the bottom of the 36 players who made the 54-hole cut.
“I’m looking forward to next week,” Goosen said when asked to assess his performance.
Lehman came into town thinking that his main concern would be evaluating potential members of his Ryder Cup team. Instead, thanks to being second in coming closest to the pin on his approach shots, the veteran nearly played his way into the dilemma of whether to become the first playing U.S. captain since Arnold Palmer in the early 1960s.
“This was one of the best ball-striking weeks of my career,” Lehman said. “In some ways, finishing with 34 points is unbelievable. It could have been a 50-point week the way I hit it.”
What ultimately betrayed Lehman was an inconsistent putter that was most evident at the 17th hole, where he left a 15-foot eagle putt short.
“It’s just no fun finishing second, but sometimes, guys just play better,” Lehman said. “If somebody else beats me, then you’ve got to kind of tip your hat. That’s kind of what happened today. Dean won the golf tournament.”
In 117 previous starts, Wilson’s best finish was a tie for third at the 2004 Valero Texas Open, but his most noteworthy tournament came the year before, when he played the opening two rounds at the Bank of America Colonial with the LPGA star Sorenstam in her historic foray onto the men’s tour.
“That’s what I kept telling myself,” Wilson said. “I’ve got to win a tournament so I can be known for something else.”
Never finishing higher than 98th on the money list, Wilson came to Colorado at No. 62 on the tour’s most bottom-line statistic, courtesy of four top-10 finishes in 2006 that suggested that, given the right set of circumstances, he might indeed break through at last.
He found them at Castle Pines. Wilson’s 11 bogeys and three double bogeys would have left him in seventh place, on the doorstep again, in a stroke-play event. However, under the modified Stableford scoring system, Wilson was good enough to put himself in position to triumph with a single putt.
“Growing up in Hawaii, there’s like an internal battle that you have with trying to compete with everyone on the mainland,” Wilson said. “It seems like I heard a lot of people saying it can’t be done, you can’t beat those guys, they’re so good. It’s just really satisfying to be here today holding the trophy.”
Staff writer Anthony Cotton can be reached at 303-820-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com.
