He Doesn’t Care About Keeping Up With Joneses

Steve Jones, the U.S. Open champion, the guy who then tied for 70th at Memphis and at the Western Open, and missed the cut at the British Open, was so concerned about the shape of his golf game last week that he decided there was only one way to get really serious about preparing for this week’s PGA Championship in Louisville, Ky.

He went fishing . . . in Montana . . . all week.

If anyone seriously thought Jones would turn his life upside down after winning the first major championship of his 13-year career, well, you’ll probably have bait for dinner first.

The blue grass in Kentucky will turn bright purple before Jones ever again does anything he doesn’t have to, especially for something as mundane as money.

“I’m learning,” Jones said. “This is new to me. If I had won when I was 27 years old, I might have gone berserk, but being 37, I think the maturity has really helped.”

Jones knows what he is talking about. Right after he won the U.S. Open at Oakland Hills Country Club, where the pressure was so great even the golf balls seemed afraid to drop into the holes, he credited the book “Hogan” for giving him the resolve to plunge ahead.

He promptly received a reported $200,000 offer from the publishers to endorse the book. But Jones, who is deeply religious, declined because there were profanities in the biography.

Jones made a handshake deal to endorse Field and Stream watches the Friday of the U.S. Open, and when he won two days later, Rolex offered him a more lucrative deal. Jones turned that one down too.

Offers to play one-day events for as much as $40,000 started piling up on the desk of his agent, but Jones already had given Burl Outlaw of International Sports Management a list of how many times he would be available the rest of the year. There were six dates on Jones’ list.

“We intend to do things a little bit differently,” Outlaw said.

It’s the Jones way. He sure got a little wacky right after he won at Oakland Hills in June, all right.

“Well, I bought some T-shirts and got some hats and posters,” he said.

Don’t think Jones is anti-money, though. He signed with Cobra Golf three weeks after the U.S. Open, but Outlaw had begun the talks long before Oakland Hills. A month before the Open, Jones ended a 14-year association with Titleist and began using Cobra irons. He also has a shoe deal, a sunglasses deal and a golf ball deal, but that’s it in the endorsement game.

Jones wants you to know that the world of Steve Jones, professional golfer, isn’t going to change all that much just because he happened to win the U.S. Open. Maybe it’s not so difficult to understand, given what Jones has been through. He has learned to appreciate what he has.

By now, it’s a familiar story. Born in Artesia, N.M., Jones was a second team All-American golfer at Colorado, but that didn’t exactly guarantee him success. He had to go to qualifying school three times before he stuck in the big time in 1986.

Jones won his first tournament in 1988 at Pebble Beach and won three more times in 1989. Then, in the fall of 1991, he was injured in a dirt bike accident. Not only did he tear up his shoulder, but he suffered serious ligament and joint damage to his left ring finger. He couldn’t hold a club properly. He worried he wouldn’t be able to play. For nearly three years, he didn’t.

Then Jones began using a reverse overlap grip to protect his injured finger and in 1995 he made 16 cuts in 24 events, banking $234,749. Even so, no one really knew what to expect from Jones with his odd grip and uncertain prospects because of his injured finger.

“I do not think it will ever be 100% again,” Jones said. “The last two years, it has been fine, but you never know how long it will last. You never know when your last swing is going to be.”

At Oakland Hills, nobody saw Jones coming. He had two top-10 finishes in 14 events before the U.S. Open, but he had missed the cut in four of his previous six tournaments. He had to qualify to play the Open and barely made the field, saving par on the last hole of qualifying to get in.

Then at Oakland Hills, Jones produced rounds of 74-66-69-69 for a one-shot victory over Tom Lehman and Davis Love III, thanks to a par on the last hole. Afterward, Jones thanked God. Golf World reported his victory in its U.S. Open edition under the headline “Soul Survivor.”

This is definitely one tough survivor they will be looking at this week at Valhalla Golf Club, where the 78th PGA Championship will be staged. Jones doesn’t know if his swing will hold up or whether his game will remain intact, but he’s pretty sure the guy holding that club isn’t going to change one bit.

“I cannot predict on how I will play,” he said. “I may be good or I may be terrible, but winning a major has helped my confidence.”

And as for the big endorsement rush, Jones said he is comfortable doing it his way.

“I am a professional golfer,” he said. “I want to play golf. All these business opportunities, they’re nice, but I’m not going to change because I won the U.S. Open.”

Outlaw said Jones believes he can make enough money playing golf to offset whatever endorsement income he may choose to overlook.

“He’s just very honest and very understanding about what he needs to do as far as golf,” Outlaw said. “He’s down to earth. So many times you see someone win a major championship and the endorsements flood them, and they lose sight of what they’re out there to do, which is to win golf tournaments. Money lures them away.

“What Steve does, he takes care of first his family time and then his golf time.”

Now who’s going to argue with that? Maybe the best way to get ahead in golf these days is to keep up with Jones. Anyone want to go fishing?

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Steve Jones At a Glance

* Birthplace: Artesia, N.M.

* Residence: Phoenix.

* Competitive history: Reigning U.S. Open champion. Winner of four PGA Tour tournaments: 1988 AT&T; Pebble Beach National Pro-Am; 1989 Tournament of Champions, Bob Hope Chrysler Classic, Canadian Open.

* Personal: Came back to the tour last year after three years off to rehabilitate injuries suffered in a dirt bike accident. Uses a reverse-overlap grip to compensate for one of those injuries.

PGA CHAMPIONSHIP

WHAT: The 78th PGA Championship.

WHEN: Thursday-Sunday.

WHERE: Valhalla Golf Club, a 7,144-yard, par-72 layout near Louisville, Ky.

PRIZE MONEY: To be announced. At least equal to last year’s purse of $2 million of which $360,000 went to the winner.

DEFENDING CHAMPION: Steve Elkington, who won in a playoff with Colin Montgomerie at Riviera Country Club.

TELEVISION: Thursday and Friday, TBS, 9 a.m.-3 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, TBS, 8 a.m. to 10 a.m.; CBS, 10:30 a.m.-3 p.m.