Although he dismissed IMG’s suggestion that he change his wedding date, Curtis did allow the company to talk him into trying to play two tours in 2004. Almost no one can pull that off, and those who do seemingly succeed doing it—Ernie Els, Sergio Garcia—usually end up tiring themselves out in the process, even if they play well. Players even have a term for those who spend a lot of time flying from continent to continent in the pursuit of money: being “IMG’ed.”
Curtis was clearly being IMG’ed in 2004 and 2005. In his rookie year, he had only played in twenty-one tournaments on the PGA Tour, in large part because he didn’t get into quite a few events the first half of the year, and then cut his schedule back the second half of the year after winning the British, in part to play overseas, in part to get married and go on his honeymoon.
There was absolutely no reason for him not to play a full schedule the next two years since he had access to any tournament he wanted to play in after his win at Royal St. George’s. In 2004, though, he only played in twenty tournaments because he played in Europe seven times. The continental shuttling showed up in his play: he won a total of $500,818 on the PGA Tour, making just nine cuts. He had one top-10 finish, a tie for eighth at the Memorial. He didn’t do nearly as well overseas. His best finish was a tie for 42nd at the Deutsche Bank Invitational in Germany.
A year later he cut back on the European travel, making only four trips to play overseas, and added four events to his U.S. schedule. But he still overtraveled. He improved to $594,000 in earnings and 129th on the money list, but that was hardly the level of play he was looking to achieve.
“I lost my confidence for a while,” he said. “I probably traveled too much, especially in ’04, but it was the kind of opportunity it was hard to say no to because you don’t know if it’s ever going to happen to you again. Still, it did get disheartening at times. I didn’t think my win at the British was a fluke, but I know there were people who did.”
Looking back now, Candace often wonders if having the chance to play so much affected Ben’s game. After being unsure about whether they could afford to buy a house in Ohio, the newlyweds bought one there and a second house in Orlando after the win at the British. For a golfer, the Florida house seemed to make sense: having a winter home to go to when the weather turned cold so that year-round practice was easy and sensible.
“Except I don’t think it helped him,” Candace said. “Ben has always been a ‘put the clubs up for the winter’ guy. That’s what he did all his life. I think it helped keep him fresh. When he started playing again after a break, he was fresh and excited to play.”
Not long after their children were born, the Curtises had to decide where they would live when the children were old enough to start school. The decision turned out to be easy: Ohio. “It’s home,” Ben said. “And I like winter. Growing up there worked out all right for me, so why not for them?”
In the fall of 2004, Curtis was invited to play in the Dunhill Cup, which is played at St. Andrews. He was invited in part because he was a recent British Open champion, and in part because IMG runs the event. On the way over, he and Candace and his parents flew into London and took a drive to Royal St. George’s, since his parents hadn’t seen the place where he’d had his moment of glory.
“I knew there was a spot in the clubhouse where they had a plaque with the names of the players who had won the Open at St. George’s,” Curtis said. “I wanted my parents and Candace to see it, so, after we’d walked around a little, we asked someone if they could direct us to the room where the plaque was located.
“The guy we asked was happy to tell us where it was, but there was one problem: they didn’t allow women inside the clubhouse. I had to go and see the club secretary and explain the situation. He finally agreed to make an exception—just the one time—although he asked me if we could please not stay very long inside.
“So we went inside, looked, and left.” Curtis smiled. “They’re probably still talking about it over there.”
After the lost years in 2004 and 2005, Curtis decided to limit any play outside the U.S. to a July trip for the Open Championship and perhaps one other trip in the fall for something like the Dunhill Cup. The new schedule worked. Curtis played in twenty-six events on the PGA Tour and won twice. Coming off two years in which he had finished in the top 10 a grand total of three times, the improvement was more than noticeable.
His first victory since the British Open came sixty-four tour events and almost three years after St. George’s. The circumstances were slightly different. Playing in a tournament whose demise had already been announced—the Booz Allen Classic outside Washington—Curtis won going away, leading from wire-to-wire. But the tournament was jinxed. Rain pelted the course all weekend. The golf course was so saturated that the leaders couldn’t finish until Tuesday. By then, the access roads were in such bad shape that no spectators were allowed to come watch the finish.
After winning for the first time with thousands watching from the massive grandstands at St. George’s, Curtis won for the second time in front of about a dozen tour officials and volunteers.
“It was almost eerie because it was so empty, and it felt like we’d been playing the tournament for about a month,” Curtis said. “I really played well [winning by five shots], but we were there for so long, I almost didn’t feel as if I’d won. I felt more like I’d survived.”
Ironically, his second win that year was in another doomed tournament—the 84 Lumber Classic in Pennsylvania. This time, though, he managed to win on Sunday in front of actual spectators, beating Charles Howell III down the stretch. That victory helped push Curtis’s earnings for the year to $2,256,326 and got him into the Tour Championship (top 30 money winners) for the first time. Most important, it quieted a lot of the talk about his “fluke” win in 2003.
“It felt good to prove to myself that I wasn’t a one-time wonder,” he said. “I don’t think I ever completely lost confidence in myself, but I did wonder at times if I was going to find what I’d had that one week. Knowing I had it was a nice feeling.”
The same was true for Candace. “Ben’s such a gentle person; he’d never let his frustration show that much,” she said. “If he’d had the years he had in ’04 and ’05 without winning the British, he’d have been just another young player trying to find himself. But he wasn’t. He was a major champion, and people kept saying he’d fallen apart because he couldn’t handle the fame or the pressure. I was the one who had to try to pick up the pieces. I finally told Ben, ‘You just worry about golf. I’ll worry about everything else.’ That seemed to work for both of us.”
Candace missed the win at 84 Lumber because she was about to give birth to Liam. A little more than a year later Addison came along, giving the Curtises a boy and a girl and giving Ben all the more reason not to overtravel. His play slipped slightly in ’07, but he bounced back in ’08. Although he didn’t win again, he had his most consistent year ever on tour. He finished second in Charlotte, seventh at the British Open, and second at the PGA Championship.
He led the PGA after 54 holes and still had a chance to win when he came to the 17th hole on Sunday. Trailing Padraig Harrington by one shot at that point, he hit a five-iron that went straight at the flag but took a big hop into the deep rough behind the green. “I was probably just a little too pumped up at that point,” he said later.
From there, he made bogey, and Harrington won by two shots. Still, that performance clinched a spot for Curtis on the Ryder Cup team, and he played solidly in the U.S. victory—its first win over Europe since 1999. He capped the year a week later by finishing fifth at the Tour Championship and ended up in 17th place on the money list, his best year yet on tour.
“People forget how young the guy is because he was only twenty-six when he won the British,” Zach Johnson said at the end of ’08. “He’s got a world of talent, and he’s still getting better.
“I know firsthand now [having won the Masters in ’07] how differently people lo
ok at you when you’ve won a major. There are guys on tour right around Ben’s age who have won a couple times and made good money who are considered up-and-comers. Ben would be in that same class if he hadn’t won the British. Instead, you hear people say, ‘Will he ever win another one?’ First of all, he might; he’s definitely good enough. Second, if he doesn’t, how many players do you think would trade their wins for his major? It’s a long list, believe me.”
Sergio Garcia and Adam Scott would undoubtedly trade victory lists with Curtis. Both were turning thirty in 2010 [Garcia in January, Scott in July] while Curtis would turn thirty-three. Garcia had seven wins on tour; Scott, six. Each is considered one of the tour’s biggest stars, perhaps only a rung below players like Phil Mickelson, Ernie Els, Padraig Harrington, and Vijay Singh. Tiger Woods, even after the humiliating revelations about his personal life at the end of 2009, remains in another stratosphere as a player.
Garcia has been achingly close to winning majors; Scott has never come close. You can bet serious money either would trade any or all of his wins for Curtis’s three, particularly since one of those three is the British Open.
And yet, Curtis remains in the shadows, the quiet kid from Ohio who put himself in the same sentence—a short one—with Francis Ouimet during a hot week in the south of England in July 2003.
“I would never ever change what happened that week,” Curtis said with a smile. “It was magical and unforgettable, and I love my life. I only wish I’d known some of the things then that I know now. But that’s the way things go. You learn as you go. I had to learn a lot in a hurry. It hasn’t always been easy, but I think I came through it all right. I took some falls, had some bumps and some bruises, but I’m okay.”
He smiled. “No permanent damage done. At least I don’t think so.”
19
Whatever Happened To…?
IT WAS ONE OF those early-summer days in the Washington, D.C., area, where the only reasonable place to be is inside. It was hot and humid, there were thunderstorms in the forecast, and the idea of playing golf would appeal to almost no one.
And yet, the driving range at the Country Club of Woodmore was packed for as far as the eye could see. Woodmore is not one of the D.C. area’s glamour clubs. It is several miles outside the Beltway on the outskirts of Prince George’s County in Maryland.
But during the first week of June 2009, Woodmore was the site of the Melwood Prince George’s County Open, a stop on the Nationwide Tour—golf’s version of Triple-A baseball.
“A lot of us go through denial when we first find ourselves here,” said Grant Waite, a past winner on the PGA Tour who was good enough to play in the big leagues regularly for ten years. “But after a while, you realize that you aren’t on this tour because of bad luck or anyone being unfair. You’re on this tour because it’s where your game is at this moment. The goal, of course, is to get it back to where it’s good enough to get back where you believe you belong.”
While the Nationwide guys, including twenty-nine players who had won at some point in their lives on the PGA Tour, were playing at Woodmore for a total purse of $700,000, the big boys—or, more accurately, the rich boys—were playing at Jack Nicklaus’s Memorial Tournament for a purse of $6 million, with $1,080,000 ($380,000 more than would be split up among all the players who made the cut at the Melwood) going to the winner. That winner would be Tiger Woods.
The driving range at Woodmore is about twenty-five miles from Congressional Country Club where the rich boys would be coming to play in four weeks. Twenty-five miles away by car, a lifetime away by lifestyle. The rich boys would be taking courtesy cars to and from the Ritz and the Four Seasons, host hotels for the AT&T National hosted by (and won by) Tiger Woods.
There were no courtesy cars to be found in the Woodmore parking lot. Many players on this tour drive their own vehicles from tournament to tournament. When they head home for the night while on the road, it is to reasonably priced hotels like a Courtyard Marriott, a Fairfield Inn, a Hampton Inn, a Country Inn and Suites.
On this humid Thursday, tucked quietly in amid the upcoming kids, the guys who have never made it and the guys, like Waite, who once lived the courtesy-car life, one could find Len Mattiace and Stephen Leaney.
Among the fans scattered around the golf course, there were some who knew the names, and others who would point and say, “Didn’t he do something big once?” Or, “Why is his name so familiar?”
Six years after each finished second in a major championship, Mattiace and Leaney could only dream about perhaps someday playing in another major. For Mattiace, it had been four years since he had played in a major at all—he missed a cut at the 2005 U.S. Open, and he had played in only two majors since 2003: the 2004 Masters and the ’05 Open. He had made the cut in all four majors in 2003, one of ten players to do so that year, but had not played a weekend since finishing tied for 51st at the 2003 PGA Championship.
“People talk a lot about what the difference is between first and second in a major,” Leaney said. “I’m not sure the biggest difference isn’t the five-year exemption.”
A major champion is exempt for five years, not only to play on the tour but to all the majors. The runner-up usually makes enough money to lock up his tour exemption for the next year and is automatically invited back to that major the following year. But that’s it. Leaney had played in all four majors in 2004—his best finish a tie for 17th at the Masters, one spot out of qualifying to play there again in 2005—but had played in two majors since then: the 2005 and 2007 PGA Championships. He had missed the cut in both. His last weekend appearance at a major had been the 2004 U.S. Open at Shinnecock, where he had finished tied for 40th.
Mattiace’s career and life had changed forever during a family skiing trip to Vail late in 2003. A lot of golfers avoid skiing because of the potential for injury. Early in his career Phil Mickelson broke a leg while skiing and gave it up after that. But Mattiace had been a skier for years, and the trip was an annual family event.
Vail had just had about 18 inches of new snowfall the night before the Mattiaces arrived. “Lenny is a good skier, but he wasn’t used to skiing in powder,” his wife Kristen said. “He lost his balance and fell, and one of his binders didn’t release the way they’re supposed to when you fall. The ski got caught behind his other leg, and he snapped both ACLs [anterior cruciate ligaments], both MCLs [medial collateral ligaments], and a bone in his left knee.”
He had to have surgery on both knees and then began what probably should have been at least a nine-month rehab program. For two months he was in a wheelchair, and when he began to rehab it was extremely difficult because he literally didn’t have a leg to stand on.
“The other people at the rehab center nicknamed him RoboCop, because he clanked whenever he tried to move,” Kristen said.
Mattiace could have easily sat out 2004 and been eligible for a full major-medical exemption from the tour in 2005. He asked the tour if, since he was exempt based on his victories in 2002 and his earnings in 2003, he could use his medical in 2005 but retain his last exempt year so that he would be exempt in 2006, regardless of how he played in 2005. No, the tour said, you can’t defer a winner’s exemption. There was also no deferring the 2004 Masters exemption he had earned with his second-place finish. If he didn’t play in 2004, he would have to earn his way back in 2005.
“He really didn’t want to miss the Masters,” Kristen said. “Hindsight is twenty-twenty, but looking back now it’s pretty clear he came back too fast.”
To put it in perspective: Tiger Woods had ACL surgery on one knee in June 2008 and played his first tournament eight months later. Mattiace had surgery on two ACLs in December 2003 and was back on the golf course three months later.
“I’m not sure anyone has ever worked harder to get through rehab than Len did,” Kristen said. “He was just absolutely determined to get better and to get back and to be ready for the Masters.”
He did get back, returning to play at th
e Honda Classic in March. His knees still hurt enough that he had trouble getting in and out of bunkers without help from his caddy. He missed the cut badly (79–78) but kept grinding, missing another cut at Bay Hill before somehow shooting 69 in the second round at the Players Championship to make the cut. He went on to finish tied for 33rd. That gave him some confidence going into the Masters, which was what he was searching for in Florida, but he still missed the cut, shooting 76–75.
“He was okay dealing with the pain,” Kristen said. “Len’s tough. It’s hard to tell when he’s hurting either physically or emotionally. But without knowing it, he was making swing adjustments to compensate for the knees that he shouldn’t have been making—it sent him into a tailspin for a good long while.”
Mattiace ended up playing in twenty-five tournaments in 2004, making twelve cuts. His highest finish was a tie for 20th at the John Deere Invitational, and he earned $213,707 for his efforts for the entire year. A year later, trying to hang on to his playing privileges, Mattiace played in a staggering thirty-four tournaments. But he made only nine cuts and had two top-50 finishes (T-39 in Atlanta, T-12 at Westchester); he was 191st on the money list after making $209,630 for the year.
Nothing Mattiace tried seemed to stop the downward spiral. He still got into twenty-two tournaments the next year on his past champion’s status and good-guy exemptions but made only six cuts and a little more than $66,000. A year later, the good-guy exemptions used up, he didn’t make a single cut in ten events. When he made four cuts in 2008, that almost felt like a breakthrough.
By the end of that year, Mattiace had decided he had to change his comeback strategy. Waiting around to get into PGA Tour events and playing occasionally on the Nationwide Tour weren’t getting it done for him. He felt healthy, felt as if he could play well again; he just needed a chance to do it. So, after playing better during a late-year trip to South Africa, Mattiace decided to play the Nationwide Tour full-time in 2009—he’d take the Grant Waite approach: if this is where my game is, this is where I should play.
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