LA JOLLA, Calif. — Not long after his third-round, 2-under-par 69 Saturday at the U.S. Open, Brandt Jobe stood on the driving range at Torrey Pines Golf Course, musing about how, after nearly two decades in the life, he’s now in the position of trying to find his way again on the PGA Tour.
“It’s kind of hard to explain it, and no one would really understand it, but it’s been hard,” Jobe said. “This is what I do and these are the guys I play with, and I’ve been out here just getting beat up by guys I felt I used to be able to beat, and now I can’t play with them.
“It’s a very demoralizing thing. It’s kind of like, ‘What happened to me?’ ”
That’s why, while most of the crowd was oohing and ahhing over the pyrotechnics provided by Tiger Woods, or wondering just how oldies-but-goodies Rocco Mediate and Davis Love III were managing to hang in there, there was still a sense of importance to Jobe’s day.
After struggling much of the last two seasons with injuries to his left hand and wrist, the former Kent Denver star may have made a definitive statement about his comeback prospects.
Jobe tied for the second-best round of the afternoon, moving him 34 places up the leaderboard, from 49th place to a tie for 15th. Of the top 20 players in the field, only Brandt Snedeker, who leaped 50 spots after his 3-under 68, made a bigger jump.
Given Woods’ perfect record when carrying the lead into the final round of a major, along with all the bodies he’d have to jump to get to the top, chances are no one is including the 42-year-old Jobe — a relative geezer in golf terms — among the list of players who might possibly walk away with the championship following today’s final round.
So be it, said Jobe, adding that sometimes it’s good enough to realize there’s still a little pep left in your step.
“Right now, I’m just building blocks,” Jobe said. “This round was good, and it showed me that if I play solid, I’ve still got the game to be out here after all the stuff I’ve gone through.
“And you need to know that, ‘Hey, I can still do this.’ But one round doesn’t do it; you need to do it in tournament after tournament.”
While technically listed as his swing coach, Mike Mc-Getrick realizes his job description, when it comes to Jobe, also carries a touch of pop psychologist. That’s why, not long after Jobe finished his round, the Denver-based teacher was on the phone from Colorado, hoping to reinforce the good vibes running from the player’s clubs to his head.
“Brandt is someone who has to prove things to himself,” McGetrick said of Jobe’s ongoing game reconstruction, which includes changing his normal left-to-right ball flight to a right-to-left draw. “Once he sees the results and likes where he’s going, the confidence is there, the trust is there.
“It takes time, but when that happens, then that’s when he’ll really start shooting low scores.”
When Jobe tees off this afternoon, the temptation would be to view the final round as almost a sort of referendum on the state of, and his place in, the game. Jobe will be bracketed by pairings featuring Love and Ernie Els, each a major champion. Playing alongside him will be Snedeker, 27, who contended in this year’s Masters and is regarded as one of golf’s future stars.
Mediate said Saturday that if someone were to go out and shoot, say, a 66, “who knows what might happen?” If that someone were Jobe, it might not be enough to overtake Woods, but it would certainly bring a smile to his face and likely would go a long way to alleviating the anxiety that, unfortunately, is currently as much a part of his game as his pitching wedge.
“This is just another piece of the puzzle, but I’ve just gotta start playing better,” Jobe said. “I need to get going and maybe this can be a way to kind of get my year started. I’ve changed practically everything in my game to make it work, so we’ll see.”
