Lehman finally finds course to his liking
Leader ‘had really bad vibes’ here, but now says it ‘perfectly suited’ him
THE WOODLANDS — For the longest time, after struggling through a miserable, weather-plagued Tour School experience in the winter of 1989, Tom Lehman hated the Tournament Course at The Woodlands Country Club, which hosts the PGA Champions Tour Insperity Invitational.
Lehman hated the
place so much he refused to return for as long as he stayed on the PGA Tour.
Jay Haas also recalls getting off on the wrong foot, missing the cut in his first
visit and withdrawing after 27 holes the next year — “Not one of my finer moments,” he said.
But a close relationship with popular River Oaks Country Club teaching pro Dick Harmon, whose brother, Billy, was Haas’ caddie, made him more forgiving, and his decision to persevere paid off with a Big “I” Houston Open victory in a playoff 30 years ago this spring, a feel-good memory that has kept him coming back again and again.
Haas has missed one Champions Tour event in Houston since 2005 — he took home the title at Augusta Pines in 2006 — and has placed outside the top 10 only three times.
Lehman, who won the 1996 British Open after finishing second in the U.S. Open that summer, never did enter the city’s PGA Tour stop, even after it moved to the Humble area. He was scarred for life, it seemed. But, as a Champions Tour rookie in 2009, he returned and shot 8 under for the tournament, tying him for fourth and purging his demons.
Reflecting later on the opportunities he might have squandered, he could have kicked himself.
“All those years, I had really bad vibes,” Lehman said. “I just didn’t like the course. But when I did come back, I thought, ‘What the heck? This course is so perfectly suited for your game. You really missed out by skipping it.’ ”
Making amends
Lehman and Haas had traded Houston horror stories Thursday during the Insperity Pro-Am, then came out Friday and posted two of the day’s three best scores.
Lehman, 57, leads after a blistering 8-under 64; Haas, 63, is tied for second with Kirk Triplett after his 67.
Should Haas find a way to make up the threestroke deficit and prevail Sunday, he would become the oldest Champions Tour winner.
He’s already the second oldest at 62 years, 10 months, having taken home the trophy at the Toshiba Classic last fall.
The record belongs to Mike Fetchick, who celebrated his 63rd birthday by winning the 1985 Hilton Head Senior Invitational.
“For a while the course didn’t suit my eye,” Haas said. “But I decided I’d go just to see Dick and I wound up finishing fourth, before winning the following year by somehow shaking in a nervous 2½-footer (on the first playoff hole). I have good vibes about that win and I like Houston, the food here, the people.”
Lehman, who also was the 18-hole leader with a 65 in 2012 before finishing as the runnerup to Fred Funk, has been second twice in the Insperity and placed no worse than a fourth two other times in six starts.
His worst finish was a 12th-place tie last spring, although he was in fourth with one hole left to play before closing with a triple bogey.
He never did find an errant tee shot down the left side of the fairway. When Lehman passed the same spot Friday, he turned to his caddie, pointed at a towering pine and said, “That’s the tree that swallows golf balls.”
He admitted it bugs him.
Putting up a storm
John Daly is among a group of four players another swing back at 68 and three-time Houston winner Bernhard Langer, who remains the most consistently dominant player on the Champions Tour, lurks in a crowd at 69.
Houston favorites Fred Couples, trying to complete a Houston hat trick after winning the Shell Houston Open and an earlier incarnation of the Insperity, and Jeff Maggert, seeking a first title in his backyard, both shot 70.
Defending champion Jesper Parnevik is one more stroke to the rear after carding a 71.
By birdieing five of the last six holes on his front and the course’s back nine — three on putts of longer than 40 feet — Lehman put himself in position to win his second Champions Tour title of 2017, having conquered the Conquistadores in Tucson in March despite undergoing surgery in November 2016 to reattach a tendon in his elbow.
“I got off to a slow start in terms of the way I was swinging, but a fast start in terms of scoring,” he said. “I haven’t made three putts like that (total) the last three years.”