Rock Solid Performance: Lowery again finds victory
By Art Spander, Special to PGATOUR.com
PEBBLE BEACH -- It's game that knocks you down, that gnaws at the confidence, destroys the psyche. It's a game where a good shot sometimes turns into a bad break, which is what happened to Steve Lowery.
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Before he made his own breaks.
Lowery is a champion. Again. After 199 tournaments. After a season in which he felt a wrist snap and his hopes fall. After two double bogeys in the same round.
That was Saturday, Day 3 of the $6 million AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am. That was roughly 24 hours before 47-year-old Steve Lowery, beating the great Vijay Singh in a playoff, won the AT&T.
Of all the qualities a person needs to be a success in golf, arguably the most important is perseverance. There are going to bad bounces. There are going to be competitors shooting remarkable scores. So you have to push yourself onward and onward.
Lowery did that. Through the years. Through this AT&T.
Two doubles, on par-5 holes, on one, the 10th at Poppy Hills, where he felt he would be on in two and the wind knocked his ball into a pond. But he also birdied six holes on that back nine, shooting 34 for a 70.
"I told my family if I win this tournament,'' he told us, "it's because of the bounce-backs after the double bogeys.''
And he did win. He came from three shots behind Singh in the final round at Pebble Beach, went one shot up, then when they ended up in a tie at 10-under par 278, birdied the first extra hole for the victory.
"Relief,'' he said of his immediate thought when the 7-foot putt fell. "I'm really proud of the way I played the golf course today. Pebble Beach was really tough.''
So we must agree with Lowery, who in his 68 Sunday had a front-nine 31 that included five birdies and not a single bogey.
Lowery seemed almost nonchalant about breaking through. He was playing 2008 on a Minor Medical Exemption after injuring the wrist virtually a year ago, when he hit a shot off the eighth tee in the final round of the FBR Open at Scottsdale. Maybe he didn't want to expect too much.
Now he can expect to see Augusta National again, having qualified for the Masters, and expect to compete where he wants, this $1.080 million first prize and the win providing more than he needed to get back to full exemption status.
Now he can recall that both of his previous wins, in the 1994 International and the 2000 Southern Farm Bureau Classic also came in playoffs.
Persistent. Resistant.
That first victory, 14 years ago, as all inaugural wins, was big. But this one, may have been bigger, more meaningful.
"Absolutely,'' he said. "After what I've been through, the injury, at times I didn't play very well. This is absolutely the most meaningful. This course. Over Vijay.''
It was out on the bluffs above the crackling waves rolling in across Carmel Bay on this gorgeous, blue-sky afternoon where Lowery might have thrust himself from the ranks of the also-rans.
The ninth at Pebble is a 486-yard yard par 4 that tumbles and rolls, by statistics the third most difficult hole this AT&T. Lowery drove into a fairway bunker, and while Gary McCord on CBS was saying the ball couldn't both carry over the lip and travel far enough to the green, Lower hit a 4-iron 217 yards to 20 feet and made the putt.
"I'll tell you what,'' said Lowery. "The 4-irons on 8 and 9 were probably two of the best shots I ever hit.''
Lowery joined the TOUR in 1986. He's getting close to the Champions Tour, to our way of thinking. Not to his.
"I can't say why I haven't won,'' he said, reviewing a career he intends to keep following. "I've played a lot of good golf. I have a lot of runner-up finishes in my career.''
Nine, to be exact.
"But I play every tournament to the end. That attitude of some people looking forward to the Champions Tour, I don't know about that ... For me, I've probably played in over 500 TOUR events [519, officially]. I try to play as hard as I can and try to win.''
The trying can get frustrating, but finally, after more than seven and a half years, it was rewarding.
"I couldn't have given it any more in 18 holes,'' Lowery said of his day. I've been focusing all week. I just kind of told my caddie before the playoff, I've got nothing to lose.''
He had a tournament to lose, but it was a tournament he won. After 199 he didn't win.
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