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Goydos Perserverance Pays Off
by Helen Ross, PGATour.com
January 15, 2007
HONOLULU, Hawaii -- Paul Goydos' second PGA TOUR victory was an exercise
in perseverance, not unlike his entire career.
We're talking here about a journeyman pro who made three trips to qualifying
school after giving up life as a substitute teacher. He's had hip surgery.
His hand hurts. Doctors operated on his sinuses two years ago.
Paul Goydos earned more on Sunday than in any other entire year of his
career. (Marco Garcia/WireImage)
Just last fall, Goydos went into the final tournament of the PGA TOUR
season ranked 160th on the money list with his playing privileges hanging
in the balance. That runner-up finish at the Chrysler Championship, though,
gave him the status he needed for 2007.
And on Sunday at the Sony Open in Hawaii, in the first full-field event
of the season, the resilient 42-year-old shook off a pair of bogeys in
his first three holes and came from four strokes off the pace to taste
victory for the first time in 246 events and nearly 11 years.
The last time Goydos won at the 1996 Bay Hill Invitational, his dark hair
wasn't flecked with grey and neither was the goatee he was sporting at
the time. The late-blooming pro was at the peak, not the valley his career
would become.
The $936,000 Goydos earned for his one-stroke victory over Charles Howell
III on Sunday was more than he'd ever won in any of his 14 previous seasons
on the PGA TOUR. His 4,500 FedExCup points place him second to Vijay Singh
by 127.
"I set some goals and one of my goals was to win every decade, and
so far I've accomplished that," said Goydos, who can be so hard on
himself that fellow pros turn the tables and call him 'Sunshine.'
"I'm stunned. I mean, I got off to a slow start and I was just trying
to hang in there and just try to take it one shot at a time, sounds like
a cliché, but things weren't going well early. You know, I'm stunned.
I'm still stunned, and it's 20 minutes later."
Twenty minutes and 11 years, to be exact. And when Goydos was asked why
he hadn't won in the interim, he was at his self-deprecating best.
"Beyond talent?" he asked. "That's just who I am. I haven't
played well and I've got myself in a chance to play well and I haven't
finished. ... Just hasn't happened.
"Maybe I'm going to win five of my next 10 starts and all of a sudden
that evens out. Maybe that's the way it's going to work out, I don't know.
But you know, we're going to just keep grinding, keep trying to get better
and that's really your ultimate goal."
Goydos, who is a single father with custody of his two teenage daughters,
said he feels the passage of time acutely. In the same breath, though,
he'll tell you that the "past is a tool you use to get better,"
and the Long Beach State product may just be living proof.
"Someone mentioned about perseverance," said Goydos, who hasn't
played in a major championship since 2002. "This is my job. This
is what I do. We're trying to win the other 246 times. It wasn't like
I was trying to finish 33rd and miss the cut by 10.
"Our goals are to go out and do your work and play the best golf
that you can. ... But you do have to get some good things happen in order
to win and today definitely had some good things happen, obviously starting
with the chip.
"So not only did I play pretty well, but the last few holes, the
breaks went my way."
Goydos climbed back into contention with a 25-footer on the 15th hole
and a 20-footer on No. 16 that gave him the lead. He failed to get up
and down from the bunker at the 17th hole to drop back into a tie with
Howell, but the par-5 18th loomed large for both.
Goydos' second shot on the 551-yard finishing hole skipped over the hump
beside the greenside bunker and settled onto the short grass with an uphill
look at the pin. He got what he later called a lucky break when his eagle
chip hit the pin and stopped within tap-in range.
Howell's drive, meanwhile, would find the rough and his 8-iron catch the
tall grass near the same greenside bunker. He wasn't as fortunate with
his chip, though, as it skirted by the hole, leaving Howell the 15-footer
that he would two-putt.
"The chip shot misses the flagstick, it goes at least as far by as
Charles' ball did," Goydos said. "And lucky the ball hit the
hole, too, had a good chance of going in. So I feel very fortunate to
be sitting here right now."
Goydos, who will play the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic next week, said he
was able to hold his emotions in check on Sunday at Waialae. He said he
was nervous, but not particularly afraid or particularly happy, either.
He just focused on the shot at hand.
"Maybe the weeks when I struggle, maybe there's more emotion evolved,
but today was just a function of -- especially down the stretch -- I was
very good at being process oriented," he said.
Goydos enjoyed that process immensely, too. Sure, he got his ego stroked
afterward as he hoisted the trophy and accepted congratulations from friends
and fans alike. Truth be told, though, he wasn't particularly comfortable
with all the attention.
"The excitement that I get out of golf about winning in a sense ended
on the 18th green," Goydos said. "The exciting part of what
we do is doing it, not basking in the glory of what we did. That doesn't
really excite me that much.
"What excites me is testing myself, going out and playing the game,
especially I think this golf course again, (is) very challenging, you
have a lot of different things you have to do out here. That to me is
the high that you get from winning is the competition per se, not the
interviews and not the people shaking your hands.
"Those things are nice, but that's not why -- that's really not what
gets my juices flowing."
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