So Close, Yet So Far to First PGA Victory : Paul Azinger’s Chance to Win Tournament Disappeared on 16th Hole

When you’re 26, new on the tour and relatively poor, you’re especially sore when you blow a major golf tournament.

This is what Paul Azinger did on Sunday.

He approached the 16th tee with a one-stroke lead. Cameras clicked and people winked. He was about to win the Shearson Lehman Brothers Andy Williams Open.

But he choked. He admits it. On the par 3, 201-yard 16th, he went for a birdie when everyone knows No. 16 is usually par for this course.

He tried pounding his tee shot.

It bounded way left.

“That shot cost me the tournament!” he yelled to reporters later.

Azinger’s shot landed in a bush or behind a tree and couldn’t be found. So he was allowed a provisional shot, another tee shot. He pulled out a three-iron (he had used a four-iron before) and hit this shot way left again.

But wait. Somebody had found his first ball in a bush, so the provisional shot didn’t count. And since that first shot was unplayable, he had to tee off again.

Azinger wound up with a double bogey and never recovered. He finished in a three-way tie for third at 205 and had to watch the Bob Tway-Bernhard Langer playoff on television.

“It was just a good hole to make par, and I tried to make a birdie like a dummy,” he said. “I wasn’t playing safe like I should have. Crud, I wasn’t thinking.”

When you’re 26, new on the tour, relatively poor and about to hit the big score, you get a little too excited.

“Golf is such a head game,” he said.

Azinger was nothing in 1983. He’d failed to get his tour card, so he played the mini-tour that year. He was just a good old country boy from Bradenton, Fla.

“But I got down there (to the mini-tour) and said: ‘Crud, I can compete,’ ” he said. “I said: ‘There’s nothing wrong with my swing.’ I realized then how much of a head game it is. My dad used to say: ‘Play one shot at a time! Play one shot at a time!’ It never registered, you know.

“But now, I work with my mental game with this guy, Mac McKee. He used to train boxers. You know what a head game boxing is. See how they stare at each other in the ring? They’re out there totally by themselves. Same with golf.”

So he’s not such a headcase anymore.

“Well, last year, I would have been so nervous, I couldn’t have eaten breakfast before I teed off today,” Azinger said. “I would have been so score conscious last year. But I ate breakfast today. Fruit and eggs and hash browns.”

And he played well, with a birdie at No. 13 and again at No. 14. He just missed another at 15.

And then came 16.

The $81,000 grand prize was staring him in the face.

That’s what he made all of last year.

“I choked,” he said. “I’m bummed out right now. But, crud, you only get this experience by being in that position. Next time, I’ll be better off.”

Now, if there can only be a next time.