As essential as a good swing is to playing golf at the highest levels, it could be argued that mastering the mental side of the game, with all the mind games and internal battles that cram their way into the brain over 72 holes, also plays a major role in success or failure.
“In a lot of ways, your attitude is more important than how you’re hitting the ball,” Kenny Coakley said. “That’s something that I’ve had to learn the hard way over the last few years, that how you act really affects how you play.”
So how then will Coakley — who stands seven strokes off the pace — and the other players in contention at the 2010 HealthOne Colorado Open deal with the pressures inherent in a final round? How do you attack — mentally and physically — a Green Valley Ranch course known for its Sunday afternoon fireworks?
Given that, at the conclusion of Saturday’s third round, there were any number of players who had to be thinking they had at least a puncher’s shot at victory and the $23,000 first prize. Nathan Lashley, the winner at the Wyoming Open just a couple of weeks ago, held the lead at 13-under-par 200, but that was just one stroke ahead of Brad Fritsch, a member of the Canadian Tour, and Gunner Wiebe.
A rising senior at the University of San Diego, Wiebe is an amateur, so he wouldn’t cash a check with a win, but his name would be engraved on the same trophy that his father Mark, currently a member of the Champions Tour, won in 1986.
But today will be more than a three-horse race. There are six other players within five shots of the lead, and if that seems like pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, consider that Tom Glissmeyer of Colorado Springs shot a 7-under 64 on Saturday. Do that, or pull off a “Douma” — as in 2009 runner-up John, who birdied nine of his last 10 holes during last year’s final round — and who knows what might happen?
“I know the history of this event,” Fritsch said after his third-round 68. “So in some ways it’s hard to fight the urge to tell yourself that you have to go low. But I also have to believe that the chances will keep coming if I keep doing what I’ve been doing.”
While there was still a final round to be played, Saturday presented its own set of often vexing challenges. Play was agonizingly slow for most of the day, taking players more than five hours to complete their rounds. And while Lashley managed to stay in the moment as well as anyone in the final groups, shooting a 5-under 66, when his round ended he was quick to buttonhole any official in sight to express his unhappiness.
Other players similarly left the scorer’s tent in a huff, blowing past friends and family in a beeline to the practice range, or just giving up the ghost entirely and slamming their clubs in the trunk of their cars.
Just a couple of weeks ago, Wiebe was in need of an attitude adjustment, a “short fuse” costing him dearly in the later stages of the Trans-Mississippi Championship. There was the potential for a relapse Saturday, when he suffered a careless bogey on the 607-yard, par-5 ninth hole, putting him 1-over for his round.
However, Wiebe rallied splendidly, registering four birdies on the back nine to finish at 3-under 68. The key, he said, was somehow managing to keep his head, a commodity that will certainly be needed this afternoon.
“I had a talk with myself going to No. 10 and said to try and just give myself birdie putts,” Wiebe said. “I would like to think I can do that for 18 holes (today). I know that if I give myself 15, 16, even 18 chances in a round, I’d be hard to beat.”
Anthony Cotton: 303-954-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com
