Lehman Makes Most of Second Chance

The Ben Hogan Tour provided Tom Lehman with a route around a wall too high and enabled him rejoin golf’s big leagues.

And Lehman, 31, is making the most of his second chance on the PGA Tour.

In four starts among the game’s elite this year, he has not finished lower than 16th, twice was two shots back of the winner, ranks ninth on the season’s money-winning list with $135,422 and is fourth in scoring with a 69.47 average.

And the best is yet to come, he said.

“It’s encouraging,” he said of his fast start. “It’s encouraging in that I have not been playing my best.

“When guys win, you hear them saying they made everything they looked at, or hit the ball perfect. I haven’t had a week like that yet,” he said before a final practice round for the Buick Invitational of California that begins Thursday.

“If I had played my best, I would be discouraged,” Lehman said.

He played the PGA Tour without success for three years starting in 1983, lost his playing rights and was unable to make it back, unable to get past the stumbling block of the Tour’s Qualifying School.

He tried. Frequently. And he missed.

“It was a huge wall to climb,” he said. “It was too big a hurdle.

“It was a mental thing. I think there are a lot of guys in that situation over on the Hogan Tour,” he said.

Unable to compete on the PGA Tour, Lehman played the mini-tours for years. He played in Asia and South Africa and spent one year as an assistant club pro.

The Hogan Tour, that 30-stop circuit for aspiring pros, provided him with the route for a return. He won three Hogan Tour events last year, set a Hogan Tour record of $141,934 in winnings and was named that tour’s Player of the Year.

Perhaps more importantly, it enabled him to return to the regular tour.

“It’s a big step,” Lehman said.

But it does not intimidate him.

“I have some goals I’ve set this year,” he said. One involves a placing in the top-30 money-winners for the year so he can compete in the season-closing Tour Championship. Another is a placing in the top-10 to gain entry to the U.S. Open.

And those goals can be reached, he said.

“One important thing I’ve learned is not to try to change your game to get better. I’m still just playing my same game. The only way you get better is by practicing the right things. And that’s what I’m doing,” he said.

Two other factors have helped, he said.

“I was married five years ago. Marriage has been good for me. My wife has given me more maturity, has given me a stability.”

And, too, there’s the long road back.

“I wouldn’t change one second of the things I’ve done in the last few years,” he said. “I think it all made me a stronger, better person and a stronger, better player.”

Lehman faces a 156-man field that includes defending title-holder Jay Don Blake, PGA champion John Daly, Mark O’Meara, a winner at Pebble Beach in his last start, and John Cook, the only two-time winner of the season.

Others in the chase for a $180,000 first prize are Fred Couples, Steve Pate, Corey Pavin, Nick Price and Tom Watson.