COMMENTARY : Kite’s Consistency Makes Him All-Time PGA Money Winner

It was bad enough blowing last year’s U.S. Open with a ghastly final round 78. Poised to win his first major championship, Tom Kite suddenly lost his iron grip and did a complete nose-dive.

It happened, and Kite woke up the next morning to read his obituary. A man who built his career on the rock of consistency was being reduced to pebbles.

“People said I’d never win another golf tournament, that I was finished,” Kite says contemptuously. “That’s just the opinion of so-called experts who don’t know diddly.”

The so-called experts have never been much taken with Kite. Sure, he wins a ton of money, and yes, he’s as persistent as a Texas mosquito, but steadiness and consistency don’t make hearts race with excitement.

Seve Ballesteros is either very good or very bad. Greg Norman grabs a golf course by the flagstick and tries to strangle it. Tom Kite credits his success to the fact that he avoids mistakes.

“I’m pretty good at managing my game around the golf course,” Kite says. “I obviously have a pretty well-balanced game.”

That’s why his performance in the U.S. Open at Oak Hill Country Club was so out of character. One stroke ahead as the final round began, Kite made a triple bogey on the fifth hole and finished in a tie for eighth place.

But think twice before writing off Kite. He rebounded from his U.S. Open debacle to win the Nabisco Championships in October and pass Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson as the PGA Tour’s career money leader. The Nabisco victory was worth a cool $625,000.

Fiercely proud, the 5-foot-8, 150-pound Kite made his point loud and clear.

“I didn’t think I was finished,” Kite says. “It was a matter of showing other people what I was made of.”

The 1989 PGA Player of the Year, Kite is playing better than ever at age 40. He won three tournaments last year and set a new single-season record with earnings of $1,395,278. Though he has won just 13 tournaments in an 18-year career, Kite’s paychecks have exceeded $5.6 million, which is a record.

Kite started today three strokes behind leader Payne Stewart in the $1-million Pebble Beach National Pro-Am after shooting a 69 on Thursday.

Kite won the tournament in 1983, when it was still called the Crosby, shooting a course record 62 at fabled Pebble Beach.

“I have a really nice love affair with Pebble Beach,” Kite says. “That’s probably my favorite course in the world, and Cypress Point is probably my second favorite.

“We play an awful lot of great golf courses on the tour, but we don’t play any the caliber of Pebble Beach. That’s because there simply aren’t any.”

The love affair has been tested a couple of times recently. Kite lost a playoff to Curtis Strange in the 1988 Nabisco Championships at Pebble Beach, and fell one shot short of Mark O’Meara in last year’s Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

“I still remember my disappointments,” Kite says. “But you have to move on. You don’t have a choice.”

Tom Kite Sr. taught his son the game at an early age. Young Tom played some Little League baseball in Austin, Tex., but golf never had much competition when it came to keeping the boy’s attention.

“Golf was all I did,” Kite says. “Being as small as I was, I didn’t have much choice.”

He became an accomplished player, but there was another kid in town who always seemed to get the headlines. A kid named Ben Crenshaw. It took many years for Kite to step outside Crenshaw’s charismatic shadow, and while they remain friends, the experience clearly shaped Kite’s stubborn, I’ll-show-’em character.

“When you’re 13 or 14 years old, that hurts,” Kite says. “You don’t understand at that age that the so-called experts aren’t really experts.”

Crenshaw and Kite were teammates at the University of Texas. Crenshaw won the NCAA individual title in 1970 and 1971, and they tied for top honors in 1972, after which both players turned pro.

“I always knew I was going to make it,” Kite says. “I felt that if (Crenshaw) could make it, I could make it, because I was extremely competitive with him.”

Kite finished among the top 60 money winners in 1973, his first year on tour, and has not had what could be considered a bad year since. Since 1981, when he topped the money list after finishing in the top 10 in an incredible 21 of 26 tournaments, Kite has been the most consistent player in golf.

He doubts he’ll ever match the weekly precision of 1981, now that he has three young children and spends less time on the practice tee. Last year marked just the second time in his career that he won more than one tournament.

“Certainly I would love to have the consistency I had in 1981, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to get it again,” Kite says. “I’m not able to get that momentum going as easily as I did.

“But when I get in contention, I play better under the heat. I may not win every tournament, but I’m going to come very close.”

During a recent golf telecast, Johnny Miller marveled at the way Kite remains enthusiastic about golf this long into his career. Kite is perhaps the finest iron player in the game, and he didn’t get that way by accident; he spends as many hours as anyone on the practice tee at tournament sites.

“The whole deal with playing well is staying excited,” Kite says. “If you can stay excited and stay in shape, there’s no reason you can’t play well into your 40s or 50s. I’m still excited about winning golf tournaments.”

His peers respect his consistency and work ethic, though Kite disagrees with those who call him an overachiever.

“Overachiever or underachiever is someone else’s perception of what you should be able to do,” Kite says. “The trick is not listening to critics. Don’t listen to people who say one player ought to be the best when he’s not the best.

“I haven’t found anybody in my career who can come close to looking into someone’s heart or gut.”