Players Championship : McCumber Wedges His Way Into Lead

Mark McCumber, a self-proclaimed ham who likes birdies almost as much as he likes people, gave up a career as a landscape designer to play professional golf.

“I’ve planted a lot of palm trees,” he said.

Obviously, this is one golfer who knows a green from a hole in the ground. At 36, McCumber is clearly an aged ham. His best shot is probably a slice. It’s just too bad he was playing on Bermuda grass Thursday, or he could have been ham on rye.

McCumber moved here in December, and on the first day of the Players Championship, the local boy made good. McCumber shot a seven-under-par 65 and took a one-shot lead in this $1.25-million event.

Just off the pace are Curt Byrum and Greg Norman, and they’re both a shot ahead of six other golfers tied at 67--David Frost, Tom Kite, Fuzzy Zoeller, John Mahaffey, Ed Fiori and David Ogrin.

McCumber’s round was one under the TPC-Sawgrass course record. It included an eagle-3 on his finishing hole, the 582-yard No. 9. He knocked the ball 112 yards into the hole with a sand wedge.

Here is the progression of his thoughts:

--When he hit it: “That’s gonna be good.”

--As it was rolling: “That’s real good.”

--When it disappeared into the hole: “That’s great.”

That’s what it was, all right. McCumber needed only 24 putts, including just 11 on the front side.

“It was the best putting round I can remember since I’ve been an adult--about two years,” he said.

But until he teed the ball to start his round, McCumber had no clue what he would be up to. He said he was nervous and edgy, eager to impress the hometown fans.

“I’m a ham,” he said. “I like people--playing in front of people--but maybe I’ve tried too hard to impress in the past.”

Norman tried pretty hard to catch him. Three under par at the turn, Norman was five under par when he reached No. 16, which measures 497 yards to the flag, with water in front of the green and sand behind it.

Norman’s second shot, a 2-iron, put him 14 feet from the cup. He rolled the ball in for his own eagle.

That tied him with McCumber, but Norman gave it back just as quickly when he three-putted No. 17 for a bogey. Byrum, who also had a share of the lead for two holes, bogeyed No. 18.

Norman played a symmetrical round, 33-33--66, that was marred only on the fifth hole, when he whiffed and wound up with a bogey.

“It was an air swing,” Norman said. “The ball never moved, it just dropped down a little.”

The last time Norman whiffed was in an Australian tournament last year when, in fact, he had consecutive whiffs.

“And that’s hard to do,” he said.

Something that was easy to do here was break par. There were 47 players one under par or better and 12 more who matched par on the 6,857-yard course with the comfortable, wide fairways.

Ogrin credited an improved mental outlook for his best round of the year. However, after finishing at five under par, he admitted to a split personality.

“I’m very serious on the course,” Ogrin said. “But my mind tends to wander, well, about two steps behind Mac O’Grady.”

O’Grady is 14 shots behind the leader after shooting a 79. He may not have had the worst luck, though. Bob Eastwood quadruple-bogeyed the 18th when he sent two balls into the water and then two-putted. Eastwood had a 70, but he could have shot a 66 if he had parred the hole.

Frost, the highly regarded South African, said he thought there was a key to his continued success.

“You just have to keep having the same, sweet thoughts,” he said.

Besides philosophy, Frost also dabbles in mathematics. He revealed his formula for figuring the winning score: “Take the first-day leader, multiply by 2 and add 1.”

Let’s see, 7 under par times 2 equals 14, plus 1 is 15 under par. Now that the winning score is known, all that’s left is to find somebody to shoot it.