After 24 Years, Pate Tests Waters Again

Jerry Pate hadn’t won in 24 years, so his natural reaction was to do what he did the last time it happened: He jumped into a lake.

Pate, 52, won the Champions Tour event Sunday in Tampa, Fla., and celebrated by diving into the water beside the 18th green. He did the same when he won the 1982 Players Championship at the TPC at Sawgrass Stadium course, famously dragging then-PGA Tour commissioner Deane Beman and course architect Pete Dye with him.

The drought was among the longest between a player’s last victory on the PGA Tour and first on the Champions Tour. The win ended a long period of struggle for the 1976 U.S. Open champion that has included four shoulder surgeries since 1985.

“I did a lot of soul searching, a lot of playing, prayed to God to give me a second chance,” Pate said. “A lot of tears, you know, especially back in the ‘80s.”

Pate won eight times between 1976 and 1982 on the PGA Tour, but his bright future took a turn when he heard a pop in his left shoulder while practicing shortly after his victory in the 1982 Players Championship.

Devastated by his inability to regain his form, he gave up golf and pursued other interests, including television commentary and course design.

“When you had such a good start at age 28 and end your career, you just give up, basically. It’s a long road,” he said.

But the competitive fire never left, and he decided to take advantage of golf’s ultimate mulligan, the Champions Tour, when he turned 50.

“I still felt like it was unfinished business, I had something to prove,” he said. “You know, that’s what keeps you coming back ... what is in your heart.”

Pate will play in the AT&T; Classic next week at Valencia Country Club and also is entered in the Toshiba Senior Classic the week after at Newport Beach Country Club. He was 24th and 34th, respectively, in those events last year, when he finished 22nd on the money list.

There is no water near the 18th green at either of the two Southern California courses, so should Pate win, he’ll have to find another way to celebrate. One thing is for certain: It won’t involve lifting any people.

He considered dragging along a couple of bystanders for his dip in the lake Sunday in Florida but thought better of it.

“I said, you know, you’re 52, you’re liable to blow a knee out or get a hemorrhoid or something.”

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Jack Nicklaus and Arnold Palmer have combined for 10 Masters championships, but neither is fond of the changes made to the course at Augusta over the last decade, according to the April issue of Golf Digest.

“I think they’ve ruined it from a tournament standpoint,” Nicklaus says in the magazine. “Augusta has meant a ton to me in my lifetime. It’s a big, big part of my life, and I love it. That’s why I hate to see them change it.”

Adds Palmer: “I love the place, just love everything that happens here. But now, I’m not so sure. It’s changed dramatically from the course I knew the last 50 years.”

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The World Golf Championships were introduced in 1999 as a way to bring together the world’s top golfers on a more regular basis, but nobody knew the party would take place most often in the United States, which already is the site of three of the four major championships.

At the Accenture Match Play Championship last week, 60% of the field was non-American, but that event has been played in the U.S. seven of the eight times it has been contested and will be moved from Carlsbad to Tucson next year.

Of the 27 World Golf Championship events played in the last seven years, 17 have been on American soil. Three of the four in 2007 are scheduled for U.S. courses.

Tim Finchem, the PGA Tour commissioner who also oversees the World Golf Championships, said he’d like to see more international events but acknowledged that television dollars sometimes dictate the course of action.

“The reality is that frankly Sergio Garcia ... is seen when he’s played in a World Golf Championship by more people than typically any other event he plays, regardless of where it is, whether in Europe or Asia or anywhere else,” Finchem said. “Ernie Els gets more global television exposure when he plays [in Carlsbad] than he does when he plays in China or Hong Kong. So it sounds good to say if you played more places you’d reach more people, but the reality is that that’s not always the case.”

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In a story and eight-page spread shot by photographer Annie Leibovitz in the spring issue of Men’s Vogue, Tiger Woods reveals his secret to winning major championships:

“I will never say that I have telekinesis,” he said. “But I do think that when I am in that moment when my concentration is the highest, when it’s at its peak, I see things more clearly, and things happen slower. And I think they happen easier. When that moment happens, it’s like it’s magic. I wish I could be down the stretch in a major championship every week, because it’s the calmest I ever feel.”

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A handful of LPGA players had raised eyebrows when the women’s world rankings debuted two weeks ago with Michelle Wie at No. 3.

At the time, Wie had yet to earn a dollar playing golf as a professional but had finished among the top 10 six times -- four times in majors -- while playing as an amateur in 2004-05.

Wie finished third at the Fields Open in Hawaii and quickly moved to No. 2, behind only Annika Sorenstam. Wie passed Paula Creamer.

“Well, it’s not like I invented the world rankings,” Wie said in response to the criticism she heard about her lofty debut in the ranking. “It’s not like I put myself in No. 3.... All I did was play golf.”