Both sunlight, spotlight shine on Potter Jr.
PEBBLE BEACH — We are a million miles from reality here at the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am, which this week has turned into the world’s largest outdoor tanning parlor. Eat your frozen hearts out, Duluth and Des Moines. Fixer-upper homes in this ’hood sell for $20 million and have fairy-tale names, Bill Murray will try on your hat or sip your beer, and the sea lions get their tusks whitened.
Saturday, into this dazzling party stepped Ted Potter Jr., No. 1 (tied) on your leaderboard going into the final round, and No. 1,594 (or so) on the list of most-recognizable stars and/or golfers here in the Del Monte Forest.
By way of intro, Potter is a golfer. Saturday, playing the Monterey Peninsula Country Club, the 32-year-old flirted with carding the PGA Tour’s ninth all-time sub-60 round. He bogeyed the final two holes to finish with a 62 on the par-71 layout, and is tied with golf ’s No. 1, superstar Dustin Johnson, going into Sunday.
Your final twosome is the yin and yang of golfers. Johnson, tall and ripped, young and rich, striding the fairways with the swagger of a pirate-ship captain. Potter, old (32) and not ripped. He is 5-foot-11 and listed at 180, but that must be on Donald Trump’s scales. Potter looks like his workout partner is Larry the Cable Guy. Not rich. In his 15 pro golf seasons, Potter has made less than $4 million.
When Potter and Johnson tee off together Sunday morning, two strokes up on the pack, Potter will be the one with the round face and the bald head, kind of like Charlie Brown grown up, and Lucy Van Pelt might as well be steadying his ball on the tee.
“Obviously I played well today,” Potter said after his 62, “and as long as I can keep the nerves under control I’ll be fine.” Cool. How will he do that? “I wish I knew the answer to that,” Potter said, without a hint of a smile.
Hey, why not just pretend Sunday is Saturday, when despite how he looked or felt, Potter played like a guy who, in his 15th pro season, found the beautiful groove to his game.
Reading the greens here is like reading your wife’s mind — Don’t get too cocky, pal. On a 6-foot birdie putt on the 11th hole, Potter’s ball staggered like the last guy out of the Del Monte Lodge Tap Room, a straight putt that made about six hiccups before tumbling into the cup.
Potter played his first seven holes at 7-under.
He knew his final two holes (Nos. 8 and 9 at MPCC) were tough, windy ocean holes, so his closing bogey-bogey did not represent a choke job. Still, a sub-60 round puts you into the Valhalla of golf.
Potter said he thought about breaking 60 after he birdied his 15th hole to go 11-under. Then he thought of those two closing holes, and Potter is a realist.
You play 15 seasons, the majority of your tournaments in golf ’s minor leagues, and you learn a lot about the ups and downs and downs of the sport.
Potter’s dad put a club in his hand before he could walk. He was golfing well before he was 2. His dad made him some clubs, and the righty infant flipped the clubs and hit lefty. Lukewarm on book learnin’, young Potter turned pro out of high school, bound for glory. Two years later, as a rookie on the Nationwide Tour, he missed all 24 cuts.
In ’07 on the Nationwide circuit, Potter made three cuts in 20 events. Since his debut on the PGA Tour in 2012, Potter has played 84 tourneys and made the cut in less than half of them, 38.
He did win one PGA tournament, the 2012 Greenbriar Classic. Then in 2014 Potter stepped off a curb, broke his right ankle and missed most of two seasons.
Coming into this week, Potter had missed the cut in five of seven tourneys. But you never know when your game will magically click into place.
And you never know how long it will stay clicked-in.
“Sometimes it’s just one little swing thought that triggers you into the right direction,” said Potter.
All that’s at stake for Potter on Sunday is a glass trophy that will sparkle in the setting sun on the 18th green, on the biggest day of his golf life, and a winner’s check of $1,332,000, presented with the Pacific Ocean as the backdrop.
That victory ceremony doesn’t seem like a likely scenario for Ted Potter Jr., but they have tight security here at Pebble Beach, and reality is not allowed beyond the gates.