Notions of Birdies and a Tour Card Inspire Career Change for Gonzalez

Amateur golfers for the most part are optimists. The misery of a long day of shanked drives and duck hooks can be wiped away by the splendor of a couple of pars on 17 and 18. Throw in a birdie on the back nine and notions of PGA Tour magnificence start springing up. Greg Norman couldn’t have done it better. Geez, maybe it’s time for a career change.

Even though a lot of weekend hackers momentarily have entertained such thoughts before reality suppressed them into a deep back bunker of their golfing psyche, Jericho Gonzalez--winner of the recent L.A. City Women’s Golf Championship--blasted them back out.

After playing the game off and on for five years, the notions got the best of her. In 1982, she quit her full-time job as a loan consultant at a Van Nuys bank to see if she could correct her grip and her swing, straighten out her slice and ultimately make the LPGA Tour. “I wanted to devote myself to the game,” she said. “I just thought I had talent.”

Some thought Gonzalez had one too many birdies in her head.

For two years she played 36 holes a day on courses at Sepulveda, Griffith Park and Hansen Dam. And while she managed to lower her scores a little, she lowered her savings account a lot. “Financially,” she said, “the decision to quit my job might not have been the smartest.”

She eventually took a night job as a waitress so she could continue feeding a notion that was turning into a nightmare.

All along, Gonzalez had been teaching herself, picking up tips here and there and incorporating them into a mishmash swing. In 1984, she played in a foursome that included Lenny Yearwood, a former Trinidad and Jamaican open winner. Yearwood offered some advice, then began coaching Gonzalez regularly.

“I saw raw ability there,” he said. “After playing a couple of times, I showed her how to use her hands, how to draw the ball.

“She had picked up a lot of bad habits. Her techniques were wrong. And she needed to work on course management and her attitude. She’d get down on herself too much. There was a lot of frustration because she had spent a lot of time practicing, but she had practiced the wrong things. We had to start all over again.”

Since Gonzalez had taken a new job as a real estate appraiser, she only played twice a week and practiced on the weekends under Yearwood’s tutelage, driving balls at a vacant lot just north of Cal State Northridge.

Her game gradually improved, but she wasn’t Betsy King.

Gonzalez played well in early rounds of amateur tournaments but often failed to hold up as the pressure built down the stretch. In the 1985 L.A. City Women’s Championship, she was in good position after the first round, but then “packed it in,” according to Yearwood. A year later, she was within two shots of the lead in the second round of the 54-hole tournament before again falling back.

Yearwood said Gonzalez understood the mechanics he taught her, but she was still playing “on raw talent” in later rounds of tournaments. “Her technique was good, but she needed more time to practice it. She had trouble staying aggressive when she was ahead or near the lead,” he said.

At last month’s L.A. City championship at Sepulveda, the 32-year-old Gonzalez finally put her game--and Yearwood’s--together. But there were nervous moments.

During the final round, with Gonzalez leading Santa Barbara’s Peggy Hogan by seven strokes, she bogeyed the fifth and sixth holes. Gonzalez then parred 7 and 8, but Hogan birdied both holes. The lead was three strokes and crumbling.

On the par-4 ninth, Gonzalez slammed her second shot into a tree. The ball bounced straight up and then dropped into a bunker 75 yards from the green. “It was a weak shot,” she said. “I bailed out. I was scared.”

Said Yearwood: “That was the point where she could’ve fallen back the way she had in the past. She could’ve given away the tournament right there.”

Instead, Gonzalez blasted a shot to within 10 feet of the flag and went on to win the tournament by three shots with a 54-hole total of 223. “From that shot on,” she said, “I knew I’d be OK.”

And the blast from the bunker blasted loose those notions again. Maybe Norman or Amy Alcott or Ayako Okamoto couldn’t have done it any better. Both the birdies and LPGA glory still are bouncing around inside her head.

She never has gone to the LPGA qualifying school held annually in September, but Gonzalez says next year she will.

“I want to play on tour. I think I can attain it. That’s what I’m striving for,” she said. “But I’m at peace with myself. I love golf. I feel free. I feel fulfilled.

“I’m in a good state of mind.”