O’Meara Already Making His New-Year Resolution

At 43, Mark O’Meara is winding up his 20th year as a pro, which means he has been around long enough to know the score.

“I play horrible next year and I’m probably gone,” he said.

That sounds plain enough, although O’Meara points out that he doesn’t exactly plan to play horribly. In fact, he intends to do everything he can so that just the opposite occurs in 2001.

“You can say that I’m going to try to be comeback player of the year,” he said.

Come back from what? Has he been away?

“Oh, yes, I have been away,” O’Meara said.

Maybe off somewhere, looking for his golf game?

If not exactly a good year, it’s been a busy one for O’Meara. He had one top-10 finish in 19 PGA Tour events and missed seven cuts. He didn’t finish better than 21st after April. He ranked 152nd in driving distance and 193rd in greens in regulation. He won $424,309 and was 112th on the money list--two years after he was PGA Tour player of the year.

If that’s the bad news, there is some good: O’Meara says he is refocusing and is eager to play next season.

“I am fired up,” he said Friday at Sherwood Country Club, where he shot a 68 in the second round of the $3.5-million Williams World Challenge.

That was better than his opening 75, which was just ugly enough to prompt a telephone call from the tournament’s host, a Mr. Tiger Woods, who told O’Meara to hang in there.

O’Meara has served as a mentor to Woods for years, but the roles seem to be reversed these days. When O’Meara considered hanging up his sticks and climbing into the CBS-TV booth to replace Ken Venturi, Woods was on the phone in a hurry, urging O’Meara to keep on playing.

“I know what kind of talent he has,” Woods said. “I know how good he was and can be again. He’s not that far off. He’s too good to hang them up.”

By O’Meara’s estimate, he hasn’t been where he should be for the last year and a half. The problem is he didn’t feel much like playing, or practicing.

“I found myself saying, ‘You know, I really don’t want to be doing this,’ ” O’Meara said.

Every slump has a beginning and O’Meara’s began after his career year of 1998, when he won the Masters and the British Open. He made $1.78 million, his best year, and decided to cash in on his success.

He played two events on the Japan Tour and two events on the European Tour, besides his 19 PGA Tour events in 1999, when he fell to 45th on the money list, from seventh in 1998.

“People can always blame the travel, money, but I’m a professional golfer,” O’Meara said. “It is about the money.”

It wasn’t until about a month ago that O’Meara said he hit “rock bottom” in terms of figuring out what he really wanted to do. And that, says O’Meara, is dedicating himself to golf--for next year, anyway.

“People would have written me off five years ago too,” he said.

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What’s next, a 63? Sergio Garcia continued to climb down the scoring ladder Friday at Sherwood, where he followed up his opening-round 65 with a second-round 64.

Garcia’s 15-under total of 129 puts him two shots ahead of Davis Love III, who also had a 64. Woods is three shots back after his own 64 that included a double bogey at the par-five second hole, where he hit his tee shot out of bounds.