Perez’s Day an Unqualified Success

It’s a long way from the Buy.com Tour to the grueling qualifying school to the big leagues on the PGA Tour, but Pat Perez hasn’t exactly taken any short cut.

Perez has earned everything he has the hard way and now he can make it all pay off in a very big way. Perez, 25, playing in his fourth PGA Tour event in his rookie year, has a chance to win the AT&T; Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.

After he got through Spyglass Hill with a two-under 70 Saturday, Perez will begin the last round today with a four-shot lead over Matt Gogel. Perez is at 15-under 201 through 54 holes.

Gogel, who had a 67 at Spyglass, is closest to him; Andrew Magee and Lee Janzen are five shots behind. Magee three-putted his closing hole at Poppy Hills to finish with a 67 and Janzen managed a one-under 71 at Poppy Hills to stay within sight of Perez, who also led by four shots after the second round, with Janzen in second.

If that sounds like a lot, Pebble Beach has some recent history to suggest it’s far from over. Davis Love III was seven shots back of co-leaders Phil Mickelson and Olin Browne last year, but shot a 63 and won. And Tiger Woods was seven shots behind Gogel with seven holes to go in 2000 and won by two shots.

By the way, Mickelson shot a 79 Saturday, finished at 13-over 229 and missed the cut.

Perez has no idea how he’s going to handle playing with the lead on a Sunday, but he does know what he expects to happen. “I expect to win,” he said. “Four-shot lead, yeah, I expect to win. I’m not thinking anything otherwise.”

A greater distance from Perez is Woods, who could get no more than a 71 out of Pebble Beach and is 13 strokes off the pace. Woods was floating near the cut line until he birdied the 16th hole to take himself out of danger.

It would have been a monumental missed cut. Woods now has made 80 consecutive cuts, dating to the 1998 AT&T;, when his missed cut was something of a technicality. That was the year the fourth round was delayed six months, from February until August, because of rain. Woods, who was not in contention, chose not to come back in August, but the official PGA Tour statistics ruled it a missed cut.

Perez hopes he can duplicate the 30 he had Friday on the front side of Pebble. And as good as he feels to have a lead, he is aware of what’s happened. “Four shots is nothing, you’ve seen it in the past,” he said. “I’m going to go after all the pins and make all the birdies I can.”

Jerry Smith is seven shots behind Perez after his 72 at Spyglass. Everyone else is even farther back. Fred Couples birdied two of the first five holes at Pebble Beach to close to within three shots of Perez, but didn’t make another birdie after the fifth. His 72 left him at seven-under 209, eight shots behind Perez and tied with six others, including Jesper Parnevik. Charles Howell had a 68, but he’s probably too far back at six-under 210.

Couples, playing his fourth event in a row, says he isn’t giving up just yet, despite three-putting for a bogey at the 18th. “If I have a hot round, I have a shot at winning, I guess,” he said. “But it’s going to take a very hot round.”

The weather cooperated on a bright and sunny Saturday at Pebble Beach, where the celebrity field was playing. As usual, you got plenty of air time if you were a CBS star, but anyone unfamiliar with Ray Romano or Kevin James might have felt a little left out.

Then there is Perez, who missed the cut in his previous two tournaments but says he feels less left out every time he shows up to play.

“Every day I learn something new, talking to somebody that’s been out here,” he said. “I’ve been hanging out with Tommy Armour III a little bit. He has been helping me out with anything from dinner reservations to ... the courses, any kind of help he can. And Frank Lickliter is my big brother, he has been helping me out, too.

“You learn things, you know. I don’t know if I’m a late bloomer, but I’m just trying to get better every day.”

Perez had never seen the back nine at Spyglass, but he got some help from a phone conversation with Jason Gore on Friday night. Gore shared his knowledge of the yardage and had kept a copy of the pin placements, so he was able to shed some light on that subject.

Maybe it will help, maybe it won’t, but Perez doesn’t seem too concerned with how he will hold up coming down the stretch at Pebble Beach. Before the season, he set a goal of making $1 million as a rookie, but as for winning a tournament, that was almost too much to ask. He’ll find out today whether he’s ahead of his schedule.

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