Stricker joins the Hope fun with a 61

The star has bolted forward out here, and that’s not a reference to pro-am players Alice Cooper, Kurt Russell or even Dan Quayle.

Elbowing through the three-day landslide of birdies with a third-round 61 Friday at the Palmer Course has come Steve Stricker, 41, the highest-ranked player in the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic at No. 16 and a shy, Wisconsinite sort of reluctant star, a role he wouldn’t have to play were he not so good at golf and had he not authored one of the all-time stirring career comebacks.

Tiger Woods once called him “one of the all-time nicest guys you’ll ever meet.” Vijay Singh praised him as “very calm.” Illinois golf Coach Mike Small reckoned Stricker “doesn’t have any enemies in the world.”

At the Bob Hope, they might dub him the Godzilla in the field, crazy as it would sound given his introversion, and they might await a fine little race through the weekend: Leader Pat Perez, sitting 25 under par after three rounds, seeks his elusive first PGA Tour victory trying to hold off Stricker, who lurks two shots behind.

Sure, the birdie symphony continued in the third round even if nobody reached 30-under (yet). Two guys shot 61s (Stricker, Charlie Wi) and two guys shot 62s (Matthew Goggin, Bill Lunde), giving the tournament three 61s, five 62s and 17 63s through three days.

Stricker called the greens “probably the slowest they have ever, you know, played a tournament in.” Vaughn Taylor crept into third, three shots behind Perez, and said, “Sometimes we play such difficult courses and difficult conditions and it’s good to have a change of pace” where one can “aim at the flags and make birdies and just have fun.” Perez mentioned not making any putts and facing “a lot of blind shots” and enduring a tepid stretch after opening 61-63.

He shot a dreadful, unthinkable, unconscionable 67.

But then, he did take his turn on SilverRock, that monstrous brute in the four-course bunch that has punished players into shooting a cruel, overbearing average of, well, 69.2.

At least to recover from his five-under indignity, he gets to play the final two rounds on Bermuda Dunes and the Palmer Course, two tracks on which he has shot 61 in this lifetime, the latter coming just Wednesday.

With four guys including David Berganio Jr., bunched in fourth place at 21 under, and with five including Rich Beem at 20 under, it’s a classic Hope cavalry charge in air that just won’t budge. It’s just notable that it includes Stricker, even if he does count as honcho here.

For three rut years between 2003 and 2005 when he lost his zest for the game and lost his tour card and couldn’t regain it at Tour Qualifying School, he certainly never guessed he’d be walking around shooting any 61 in 2009. It marked the lowest round of a career so long he actually came barging with promise from Illinois in 1990. It marked also another day of valuing the moment as he has since he resurfaced in 2006 and 2007, the year he quietly finished No. 5 in the world.

“I’ve never been an alcoholic or anything like that, but I kind of keep thinking to myself as it relates to maybe a guy who takes it day by day,” Stricker said. “And that’s kind of the way I feel about my game. I take nothing for granted anymore. It’s just, I don’t know, a weird thing.”

So he has savored shooting 64 at Carnoustie in the 2007 British Open, winning once in 2007 after an 11-year victory dearth on U.S. soil, playing the 2008 Ryder Cup, winning comeback player of the year twice and viewing everything with eyes wiser for having occupied the money-list depths.

He probably even savors Arnold Palmer saying he “clearly has some real potential” at 41.

“This is what we do for a living,” Stricker said. “When I wasn’t doing well, if I was doing any other job like that I would have been fired. But fortunately, I’m my own boss, I was able to do something about it, and I just put in more time and dug a little deeper and got a better attitude. And I just have seen both ends and I know what it takes to be on one end and at the other end. And I know where I don’t want to be.”

And he didn’t even mean SilverRock.

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chuck.culpepper@yahoo.com