Azinger's Round Is Healthy

By MIKE DOWNEY

April 11, 1997 12 AM PT

AUGUSTA, Ga. —

Living proof that Brett Butler of the Dodgers is not the only cancer outpatient among top athletes to survive and thrive, Paul Azinger emerged from a little green tent behind Augusta National’s 18th green Thursday with a palm pressed against his palpitating heart and a satisfying 69 on his scorecard.

“Now, you’ve got it going, Paul!” exclaimed a face in the crowd.

“No, now, you’ve got to factor in nerves!” Azinger zinged back.

Interrupted in his prime by life-threatening lymphoma, Azinger, 37, looks again like the golfer who won three tournaments in 1993, including a major (the PGA). His hair--a casualty of chemotherapy--has grown back. His swing seems effortless, the way it used to be. The guy they call “Zinger” has regained his game face, his game and his zest for life.

As for his frame of mind, could this be the same Paul Azinger who snapped a driver in half at the 1995 U.S. Open, the one who angrily busted a putter over his knee at the British Open a year later? The player who ignored his coach? The husband who was scolded by his wife to stop feeling sorry for himself and get off his lazy butt?

No, this was a different Azinger at the first tee, at 11:47 a.m., at his 10th Masters tournament.

Tom Kite observed him keenly, through those thick lenses of his. He could tell how nervous his playing partner felt, before Azinger ripped a drive down the left edge of the fairway. Leaving the tee, Kite sidled up to Azinger and said, “You know, Zinger, there aren’t many first shots in golf that will do that to you, that’ll get your blood pumping. That’s what Augusta does.”

“I wasn’t one bit nervous on that tee last time, Tom,” Azinger responded. “But I was a little jumpy today, yeah.”

How he missed feeling jumpy.

Golf was no fun without butterflies. It had no meaning. It had become merely a game, with none of the passion Zinger had developed from the age of 5 in Holyoke, Mass., none of the skill he had perfected in college at Florida State, or as a whiz kid who won 13 professional tournaments. The cancer in his shoulder had eaten away at his spirit. His life healed, but his livelihood suffered.

Throughout this week, Azinger could feel a surge of energy. He commented before a practice round that when a guy is playing well, he looks effortless, adding, “This holds true for anything you do, whether it’s shooting a pool cue, or throwing a fly rod or swinging a baseball bat.”

He had it, lost it, found it.

Azinger could feel it on hole No. 3, when he hit a pitching wedge two feet from the cup. He did the same thing with an eight-iron onto the seventh green, and then really revved up at the next hole, a 535-yard par five, where Azinger’s third shot was a sand wedge from 92 yards that he knocked six feet short of the hole. The birdie putt broke big, but into the cup.

He was rolling. On a day when many masters of the Masters agonized over quick, hard greens, Azinger’s aim was true. His only glitch came on No. 12, the course’s shortest hole, which he overshot with a nine-iron. A four-foot par putt lipped out.

By the 16th, he knew it was his day.

Lying two on a par three, Azinger looked at a wiggler. In distance, the putt was only a couple of feet. But he had to tap it as gently as a jeweler cutting a diamond. “You could read the label on the ball, the whole way down,” said Azinger, who celebrated by spreading his arms and imitating a hang glider, flying about the green.

A 12-foot birdie putt at the 17th kept Azinger the leader in the clubhouse, at least until Paul Stankowski checked in with a 68 and John Huston eagled the last hole for a 67.

“Golf wasn’t prioritized to me,” Azinger said of his cancer recovery. “Even though I wanted the result, I didn’t put forth the effort. Situations didn’t make me nervous. First tee didn’t do anything for me. My direction wasn’t where it needed to be, in order to play decent golf.

“And I was whining and complaining a little to my wife [Toni], and she said, ‘Don’t complain to me, because you don’t practice like you used to. Until you do, I don’t want to hear it.’

“She was right.”

His coach urged him to work out, to strengthen his upper body. Azinger refused. Then his agent asked if Azinger intended to play the senior tour. It was many years off, but Azinger’s depression had become so acute that he considered quitting in favor of a TV booth.

In recalling this Thursday, Azinger added, “That’s an easy job. It’s like being a writer.”

Another day, another zinger.

He eventually reassured his wife, coach, agent and himself that he was in this--life, as well as golf--for the long haul.

“I just wanted to live life a little bit, I guess. I still do.”

This is not a bad place to start.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

LEADERS

John Huston 36-31--67

Paul Stankowski 35-33--68

Paul Azinger 33-36--69

Tiger Woods 40-30--70

J. Maria Olazabal 35-36--71