COLORADO SPRINGS — Teenagers aren’t supposed to cry, but Gunner Wiebe must have shed a tear — or a torrent — last fall when his father, Mark, became the 12th player in Champions Tour history to win in his debut, 10 days after his 50th birthday.
Gunner had watched his dad’s golf game go painfully south after undergoing elbow surgery in 2001. In golf lingo, Mark Wiebe couldn’t crack an egg during his last six years on the PGA Tour, or when he dropped down to the Nationwide Tour, for that matter.
“Obviously, his winning (the SAS Championship near Raleigh, N.C.) meant a lot to him and our family, but it meant a lot to me personally,” said Gunner, 19-year-old sophomore on the University of San Diego golf team.
“I remember when we’d go out to Cherry Hills, our home course where he’s played for 20 years, and I’d watch him not break 80,” he added. “I know that was hard on him, but it was every bit as hard on me. I was just starting to play in national junior tournaments and he was really struggling. I’d tell him some technical things about his swing, but I couldn’t seem to help.”
Gunner is toting his father’s clubs this week at the U.S. Senior Open. The son is more than a caddie. In a role reversal, he has become Mark’s unofficial swing coach. Spectators shouldn’t be surprised to hear Gunner, who caddied for Mark last week at the Senior British Open, mention something to his dad about his takeaway.
And, oh, by the way, when they play together, Gunner routinely outdrives Mark by 30 yards. Mark will return the favor next week by caddying for Gunner during a U.S. Amateur qualifying round.
“We’ve worked a lot together on both our swings,” Mark said.
Wiebe is among dozens of 50-somethings who are celebrating a renaissance on the Champions Tour. But few, if any, have come back from so far down. After the elbow surgery, Wiebe made no money on the PGA Tour in 2002, 2003 and 2005. He earned $25,435 in 2004 by making two cuts in six starts, hardly encouraging.
Banished to the Triple-A level, Wiebe made the cut in only 16 of 61 starts on the Nationwide Tour, with just one top 10.
As Wiebe describes it, it was if the muscle memory in his golf swing had disappeared the moment he woke up from the elbow surgery.
Winner of two PGA Tour events in the mid-1980s, Wiebe also has difficulty explaining why the light bulb suddenly came on again when he turned 50. All he knows is it happened during a stretch of six Nationwide events last summer. He combined to shoot 30-under par.
“I really liked my game for a change,” he recalled. “I felt like I had a little bit of swagger back.”
Wiebe notched his second Champions Tour win in April, the Cap Cana Championship in the Dominican Republic. He ranks 11th on the money list with $735,061. His best earnings year on the PGA Tour was $511,414 in 2000.
“Nobody likes to see a fellow player fall off the world,” Greg Norman said. “That’s why it’s great to see somebody like Mark Wiebe come back. It’s a tough game out there.”
Tom Kensler: 303-954-1280 or tkensler@denverpost.com
