David Duval, Tim Herron and Lee Janzen
The leaderboard at every PGA Tour event is full of intriguing stories each week, especially after the opening round. The Wyndham Championship now on in Greensboro, N.C. is no exception. Three golfers of a certain age—around 40 and up, that is—posted good scores in the first round. Can any of them win? Stay tuned.
Consider David Duval, who hasn't won since the 2001 Open Championship. He reached the world number one ranking, but that Open is the last of his 13 PGA Tour wins. He'll turn 40 on Nov. 9th. Duval shot a three-under 67 to start the Wyndham.
Next up is Tim Herron. He's 41, and hasn't won since the 2006 Bank of America Colonial in Ft. Worth, Tex. Lumpy, as he's known for his sizable girth, had won three other PGA Tour events before that. He opened with 65 at the Sedgefield Country Club, site of the Wyndham.
Then there's Lee Janzen. Yes, Lee Janzen. He has eight PGA Tour wins to his credit, including the 1993 and 1998 U.S. Open. He's not won since the second U.S. Open. Janzen also opened with a 65.
This triumvirate has played but one round in a four-round tournament. Their golf has been so sketchy that one low round doesn't necessarily mean they'll keep playing nicely. They have their battle scars. But they're still battling, and still fighting the good fight. Just now the idea is to back up one good round with another.
"There are a lot of good things that I did out here today," Janzen, who will turn 47 on Aug. 28th, said after his round. "Four of those is going to be a good tournament. I don't know if it's enough to win but it's a good start."
Four 65s wouldn't be good enough to win? That's 20-under-par. Let's say this: Janzen would take four of those right now. He's off to the sort of start that helped him to eight wins and his two U.S. Opens. So are Duval and Herron.
Call it one solid start for a threesome of guys trying to win after a long drought. One small step for Duval, Herron, and Janzen, and, perhaps, one giant leap for their confidence.
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Lorne Rubenstein has written a golf column for The Globe and Mail since 1980. He has played golf since the early 1960s and was the Royal Canadian Golf Association's first curator of its museum and library at the Glen Abbey Golf Club in Oakville, Ontario and the first editor of Score, Canada's Golf Magazine, where he continues to write a column and features. He has won four first-place awards from the Golf Writers Association of America, one National Magazine Award in Canada, and, most recently, he won the award for the best feature in 2009 from the Golf Journalists Association of Canada. Lorne has written 11 books, including The Natural Golf Swing, with George Knudson (1988); Links: An Insider's Tour Through the World of Golf (1990); The Swing, with Nick Price (1997); The Fundamentals of Hogan, with David Leadbetter (2000); A Season in Dornoch: Golf and Life in the Scottish Highlands (2001); Mike Weir: The Road to the Masters (2003); A Disorderly Compendium of Golf, with Jeff Neuman (2006); and his latest, This Round's on Me (2009). He is a member of the Ontario Golf Hall of Fame and the Canadian Golf Hall of Fame. Lorne can be reached at rube@sympatico.ca . You can now follow him on Twitter @lornerubenstein