Wiser with age, Gamez takes more positive approach

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PALM DESERT, Calif. -- Too much about Tiger. So much about Tiger. GOLF CHANNEL is promoting him for next week. The writers have been asking where he is this week. But there's a reason.

As Robert Gamez more than conceded.

Robert Gamez has a more positive approach to the game these days. (Laberge/WireImage)

Robert Gamez

Career at the Hope

Year Finish Score Money 2007 T-65 -2 $10,250.00 2006 72 -5 $9,800.00 2005 T-69 -10 $9,447.00 2004 T-50 -16 $10,770.00 2003 T-51 -14 $10,656.00 2001 T-11 -23 $69,500.00 1999 T-43 -8 $8,766.00 1998 CUT -6 $0.00 1997 CUT -4 $0.00 1996 T-49 -9 $3,149.72 1995 6 -22 $43,200.00 1994 T-18 -16 $15,400.00 1993 T-60 -12 $2,365.00 1992 T-50 -12 $2,632.67 1991 T-23 -19 $10,560.00 1990 T-19 -14 $11,700.00

Gamez is playing well through four rounds of this Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, tied for second four shots behind Justin Leonard going into last day. He shot an erratic 39-32--71 Saturday, 1-under par.

"I've got a chance to win,'' said Gamez.

He is 39. He has been around. Been up and down. Like the lyrics of that Sinatra song, flying high in April, shot down in May. He knows how stressful and burdensome golf can be.

Which is why when someone asked him about the mental aspect, for the pros about the only aspect that matters, Gamez brought up Tiger. And Jack.

"At our level, the PGA TOUR,'' Gamez conceded, "it's 95 percent mental out here. And that's where Jack Nicklaus had it over everybody. And that's what Tiger does so well. He doesn't remember the bad shots or the bad week and things like that.''

Things a man of experience understand can occur. Things different sports psychologists have attempted to persuade him to ignore.

Things mere mortals, meaning virtually every player who ever swung a club the last 40 years, other than Jack and Tiger, Arnie and Tom Watson, have always confronted.

Things like confidence and desire, like doubt and double-bogeys.

Gamez had one of those doubles on the second hole at The Classic Club on Saturday. Which presumably, knowing the way it occurred, Jack or Tiger would not have made.

They would have been prepared. Robert Gamez was not.

Gamez loves this tournament, this 90-hole marathon on four different courses with different three-man amateur teams the first four rounds.

"This event's always been fun for me,'' said Gamez. "It's in my top-five tournaments of the year.''

The Classic Course, the only one north of Interstate 10, is being used a third year. Bob Hope Chrysler Classic directors decided to change a few holes. What used to be the seventh is now the second.

"I just never got the mindset to play one and two,'' said Gamez. "Whatever tournament I'm in I look at the first couple of holes, and when I'm on the range, I try to hit the shots I need to play... I got to two and forgot it was a 470-yard hole, and I had 210 or something to the hole, and the wind was blowing and I just came over the top of it.''

The "only bad shot'' Gamez said he has hit the first 72 holes plopped into a lake. The overnight leader was now second, and a bogey on eight would drop him lower.

In another time, Gamez might have given up subconsciously. But this is not another time. He had four birdies and no bogeys on the back nine.

"Some of us,'' Gamez said, "me especially, think about the bad things that happen. I'm trying to be more positive and not think about the last shot I hit. It seemed to work this week.''

Pro-Ams are beneficial, Gamez explained. He spends so much time helping his partners, who Saturday included the comedian Tom Dreesen, he forgets about his own problems.

"Here, Vegas, Disney, I love the format of these tournaments,'' he said. "Pebble. Up there Tom Dreesen and I just go play and have a blast. I don't have time to think about my bad play so much.''

The career has been unsteady, full of promise, full of disappointment. His second year on TOUR, 1990, Gamez was a two-time winner and finished 27th on the money list.

Never since has he been that good.

There were injuries, a back and hand in a 1998 car accident. There were concessions, mentally that is, Gamez saying one of his faults was when he wasn't in contention he stopped trying.

Finally in 2005, after a silence of 15 years, Gamez was a winner once more, taking the Valero Texas Open. But in '06, it was a return to the depths, and last year despite a tie for third in the Children's Miracle Network Classic presented by Wal-Mart, he was just 132nd in earnings and lost exempt status.

While packing two weeks ago to fly to the Sony Open in Hawaii, Gamez received a call from Bob Hope Chrysler Classic tournament director Mike Milthorpe offering him a sponsor's exemption.

"I was really happy to get that phone call,'' Gamez said understandably.

It was different coming out of the University of Arizona in 1989. "I was too stupid back then,'' he said laughing. "I had a lot of confidence. But my first fix, six years on TOUR, I gave up a lot. If I wasn't in the hunt, I gave up.

"Now I kind of hang in there a little bit more. Obviously it showed today. I just hung in.''

As someone in fractured English once wrote, we get too quick old and too late smart.