Defending Champion Keeps It Loose

By Ken Klavon, USGA

Kettering, Ohio – Up until last year, the closest the genial Peter Jacobsen had ever gotten to ‘winning' a major was in the 1996 cult classic ‘Tin Cup.'

Remember it? Roy "Tin Cup" McAvoy, a fledgling golf pro who never quite tapped into his potential, qualifies for the U.S. Open only to self-destruct at the 72nd hole. The subplot had a beaming Jacobsen taking home the prize, something that the 2004 U.S. Senior Open champion cracked should have been turned into an epical masterpiece.

These days the 51-year-old Jacobsen, always self-deprecating but never one who will utter a pejorative word toward another … unless to gain a light-hearted laugh of course, is as much known for his wisecracking ways as he is for his golf prowess. Consider the following:

• During Senior Open Media Day in May at NCR Country Club Tom Meeks, the USGA senior director for Rules and competitions, explained that an abundance of honey suckle on trees had to be removed in time for the July 28 start.

• After seeing one, ahem, nameless reporter chunk his tee shot without the use of a tee on the 202-yard, par 3 13th at NCR, Jacobsen lamented, "You know why Fuzzy Zoeller doesn't use a tee sometimes? Because he's good."

• While taping a segment for a Dayton, Ohio, television news crew, Jacobsen feigned that he had lost his short-game touch, chipping wildly past targets on the range.

And he makes no bones about his chances this year against a field that will include newcomers Greg Norman and Curtis Strange among other stalwarts Raymond Floyd, Hale Irwin, Tom Kite, Gary Player, Craig Stadler, Tom Watson and Zoeller.

"I am going to win this year, I can tell you that right now," he said, pausing for effect. "Honey suckle or not."

Don't misconstrue Jacobsen's message. The player with seven career PGA Tour victories may be

Peter Jacobsen had a clogged leaderboard and the Bellerive course to contend with last year. (USGA Photo Archives)

a jester with a palette of jokes at his disposal, but remember this too: he's as serious about his craft as any other player who has played the game. It's just that he likes to have fun doing something he loves instead of making it look like he's planning his next prostate exam, as he told PGA Tour.com last year.

Jacobsen has maintained a level of notoriety because of his humorous and personable ways. He became the average golfer's adopted son. Payne Stewart, Mark Lye and Jacobsen formed a band called Jake Trout and the Flounders that also included the likes of rockers Darius Rucker (Hootie and the Blowfish). Jacobsen served as a vocalist, substituting silly and catchy golf-themed lyrics into well-known songs. This year he's marketed himself as that "guy who has fun," evidenced by his ‘Plugged In' show that runs on The Golf Channel.

At Bellerive Country Club outside of St. Louis, he had a valid reason to keep himself in stitches after his implausible Senior Open victory. Less than three months removed from surgery to reattach a torn labrum to his left hip, Jacobsen limped his way around the course (ala Kirk Gibson after his pinch-hit homer in the 1988 World Series) enduring an excruciating 36 holes on the final day.

"It was hot, it was in the middle 90s, the humidity was at 97, 98 percent," said Meeks. "If there was any player in the field that made the cut that this hurt, it was Peter Jacobsen."

The decision to cram the final 36 holes into one day came after torrential rain flooded the course that Friday, deeming it unplayable for those without a canoe. Jacobsen had entered the championship having already withdrawn from the Ford Senior Players Championship and British Senior Open because of pain. His wife, Jan, urged him to try and gut out the Senior Open if he could.

Through the first two rounds, Jacobsen not only surprised the masses but also himself by taking the 36-hole lead by one stroke (7-under 135). Then came the Sunday marathon.

"If there was going to be one guy who was going to complain about 36 holes on Sunday," said Jacobsen in May, "it was going to be me. Because I thought, ‘If there's one thing that's going to keep me from finishing this tournament, it's going 36.'

"I actually said to [USGA vice president] Walter Driver on the first tee, ‘I may not finish the tournament.' And he looked at me like I was crazy and said, ‘I think you'll do fine.'"

That he did.

Over the final nine holes, while it appeared the championship was Tom Kite's to lose, Jacobsen wouldn't capitulate. Birdies on 10 and 11, then a crucial 12-foot putt to save par on 16 kept him within striking distance.

When Kite double-bogeyed 18 to plummet from the top, Jacobsen seized the moment. He eventually two-putted from 30 feet at the 72nd hole to win. The two lasting memories he has from the moment are, what else, comical.

"The funny thing about the whole final green was that when I walked up on the green I marked my ball about 30 feet and someone yelled from the grandstands, ‘Hey, how's it feel to win your first major?' I turned to the guy and said, ‘Let's wait a minute. This is a hard putt,'" said the second-youngest to win a Senior Open, behind Dale Douglass. "And I putted it down to about two-and-a-half, three feet. And I turned to my caddie and said, ‘Mike, I think it's straight in.' He said, ‘Yeah, it's straight in.'

"So as I'm over my putt going through my pre-shot routine, when I looked at the [video]tape [later], Mike's behind me and he's got the pin trying to figure out how to take the flag off. He was much more confident that I was going to make it than I was."

This year in many ways has been a rebirth for Jacobsen. Battling two years of injuries made him frustrated. He's played well in 2005 but that's more of a byproduct of finally being healthy again after undergoing arthroscopic surgery on his right knee in February to clear out a cyst and to repair a torn ligament. The surgery was a consequence of the more serious hip operation. Being on crutches for six weeks forced him to rely more on his right leg and it consequently wore out the knee.

Following the surgery, he tied for third at the Blue Angels Classic and posted a T-6 at the PGA Senior Championship.

Next up was the U.S. Open at Pinehurst. In a twist of ‘Tin Cup' fate, it was Jacobsen's first Open appearance since 1996. Exempt by virtue of his Senior Open win, Jacobsen said going in that he had no intentions of being a ceremonial golfer, just happy to be there. He proved it, making his first cut in a major since the 1997 PGA Championship, then going on to carve out an ace at the ninth hole on Saturday that left him flirting with the lead through 54 holes. His tie for 15th finish earned him an exemption into next year's Open at Winged Foot.

Jacobsen rebounded nicely, picking up his second major victory (Ford Senior Players Championship) on the Champions Tour three weeks later. It was also his only other victory on the tour through 13 events.

Now, for the big kid who played in his first USGA at age 15, the Senior Open is on the horizon again. Player is the last competitor to win consecutive Senior Opens and Jacobsen would love nothing more than to add his name alongside the South African and Miller Barber, the only other golfer to win consecutive Senior Open titles. Yet he also understands the difficulty of doing it.

"You've got some players out there who have won with great pedigrees, who fully understand what it takes to be a champion," he said in a moment of levity.

He was then asked, even at age 51 with the competitive juices still flowing, whether he'd prefer to have a one-stroke advantage, be tied or be a stroke behind on the final day of a major.

"I think the situation changes. I think if you're a real champion golfer," he said, "you'd answer, ‘I think I'd like to be tied, because I want to be able to put the pressure on myself to see if I have the character to make a birdie or hit the shot under pressure.'"

Pressure or not, the man whose face was left off promotional placards promoting the Senior Open around the Dayton area will again be a force to reckon with.

Honey suckle or not.

Ken Klavon is the USGA Web Editor. E-mail him with questions or comments at kklavon@usga.org.