As Tiger Woods goes for his seventh consecutive PGA Tour win this week at the Buick Invitational in La Jolla, Calif., Andrew Parr of London, Ont., is trying for his second win in a row as a professional.
If this is the first time the names Woods and Parr have appeared in the same sentence, there's reason to believe it won't be the last. Parr is one of Canada's most promising young players, and last week he started his professional career with a victory.
Parr, 23, won a Gateway Tour Desert Winter Series event in Rio Verde, Ariz., along with its $15,450 (all figures U.S.) first-place cheque. He shot four-under-par 68 on the final day of the three-round tournament and won by two strokes, thereby winning the first tournament he'd played as a professional.
Parr did it with birdies and eagles down the stretch. He birdied the 13th and 14th holes, bogeyed the 15th and then birdied the 16th and eagled the 626-yard 17th hole after ripping a 4-iron shot to the green. He was 55 feet from the hole, not exactly a putt anybody would describe as a good chance for an eagle. But he rolled it home.
"I thought then that it might be my day," Parr said yesterday from Mesa, Ariz., where he had shot 68 in the first round of the next Gateway event. He was a couple of hours away from starting the second round of the tournament, which will end today.
Parr isn't a member of the Gateway Tour, an increasingly popular series of tournaments whose mission "is to provide an environment where players can build the skills necessary to compete on the PGA Tour."
The Gateway Tour comprises two winter and spring series, one in Arizona and the other in South Florida. Players pay $10,000 to join the series of their choice. A non-member can purchase a spot from a member who for one reason or another doesn't want to compete during a particular week.
A graduate of Texas A&M in business administration, Parr was home in College Station, Tex., a week ago last Sunday and pondering a forecast for cold and freezing rain. He read about the Gateway Tour, learned one spot was for sale and bought it for $1,200. Parr flew to Phoenix, played a practice round on Monday and started the tournament on Tuesday. Then he won the tournament in a dream beginning to his pro career.
He plans to try to qualify for the PGA Tour's FBR Open in Scottsdale, Ariz., in early February and then play the Hooters Tour, another mini-tour, when it starts in March. "I'll also try to Monday qualify for Nationwide Tour tournaments and maybe for the Canadian Tour. My real goal now is somehow to get status on the Nationwide Tour."
Parr has a lot going for him. He's 6 foot 4 and 190 pounds and has a streamlined Ernie Els-like swing and an easygoing temperament allied to a thirst for competition.
Parr grew up playing the Greenhills Golf Club in London and, later, the London Hunt and Country Club, which has played an important role in Canadian golf. He also plays the challenging and exclusive Redtail Golf Course in nearby Port Stanley.
"Everybody has been so supportive," Parr said. "They back me financially and in other ways."
"He's going to be pretty special," Redtail co-owner Chris Goodwin said yesterday. "I've never seen anybody hit the ball like he does."
Goodwin said Parr has even developed his own shots. "In the last four years, I've seen him hit some shots you wouldn't believe," Goodwin said. "He has the most extraordinary flop shot. He faces to the right of his target and swings across his left toe. The ball comes down like glue."
Parr was 12 when his father, Dave, suddenly died. His mother remarried -- Robbie Nash -- a few years later, and so Parr became part of one of London's great golf families. Nash's father, Jack, won three Ontario Amateur titles and was a close friend of Sandy Somerville, a member of the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame. Parr is thrilled to have won two Ontario Amateur titles, thereby joining his step-grandfather as a winner of the provincial title.
Somerville, meanwhile, won five Ontario Amateur and six Canadian Amateur titles and the 1932 U.S. Amateur championship. He was the first Canadian to win the U.S. Amateur. In 1950, The Canadian Press named him Canada's athlete of the half-century. If Canada is going to have another member of the World Golf Hall of Fame -- Marlene Streit was inducted -- Somerville should be the one.
Parr knows his golf history, but isn't daunted by it. He's simply doing what he loves and showing the sort of progress that makes the word promising seem an understatement.
"I made the RCGA's national team two or three years ago," he said. "They provide everything you need to get better, in every aspect of the game, swing instruction, nutrition, fitness, the mental side. I've had tons of great experiences and gotten so much information. I think their programs rival anything in the world."
Parr was on the RCGA team that finished second last fall in the World Amateur in South Africa. But for a stunning run by the team from the Netherlands at the end, the RCGA would have taken the elite amateur team event. Parr was proud to be on the national team. But at the same time, his participation and the distance he had to travel back to play his next event might have had something to do with his not moving ahead in his attempt then to reach the PGA Tour.
At it happened, Parr's next event was the first stage of the PGA Tour qualifying school, in Georgia. The World Amateur finished on Sunday, he left South Africa on Tuesday, didn't get his clubs in time for a practice round on Wednesday and teed it up in the first round on Thursday. He shot 72, but ran out of gas and missed out on progressing to the next stage by four strokes. "I don't prepare like I had to there," Parr said. "I also learned that you need to try to win rather than just try to qualify."
For Parr, it was just another lesson. Now that he's won, and won early, he wants more success. The responsible young man e-mailed a note to his supporters in London after his win.
"It was great to start my career with a win," he said, "and I'm looking forward for the chance at winning on higher levels."
Everybody who knows Parr is confident he'll have plenty of chances, and that he'll keep winning, even on the PGA Tour.
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ON THE TEE
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On the tee
PGA Tour: Buick Invitational at Torrey Pines Golf Course (South and North courses) in La Jolla, Calif.
Champions Tour: Turtle Bay Championship at Turtle Bay Resort (Arnold Palmer Course) in Kahuku, Hawaii.
Nationwide Tour: Movistar Panama Championship at Panama Golf Club in Panama City. Seven Canadians are in field: Ian Leggatt, Chris Baryla, David Hearn, Brad Fritsch, Jon Mills, David Morland IV, Bryn Parry.
Asian Tour/PGA European Tour: Commercialbank Qatar Masters at Doha Golf Club in Doha. Canadian Rick Gibson is among entrants.