Long Beach State University Athletics
So Close to a Great Tale for Goydos
5/16/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
May 16, 2008
The first time I met Paul Goydos was in 1993 at the Buick Open. I was working on my first golf book and was killing time in the late afternoon before going to meet a player for dinner. Goydos had shot the only low round of the afternoon and the PGA Tour media officials working the tournament decided to bring him into the interview room because they thought it would be good experience for a rookie.
Goydos ambled in, took the microphone and, in his opening comments said: "I'm guessing most of you have never heard of me. There's a reason for that: I've never done anything."
My ears perked up. I detected a sense of humor. Later, talking about his 66, he said, "I always play better when I get my slice going. I know on tour we're supposed to call it a fade, but if you hit a 7-iron and it goes 20 yards to the right I call that a slice."
This was clearly someone I had to meet.
While I was researching, "A Good Walk Spoiled," we struck up a friendship. Paul's was not your typical PGA Tour story. He was the son of a Navy veteran and had gone to Long Beach State. He was, essentially, self-taught, had never had a coach or psychologist or as they now call it on tour, "a team," working with him. He had figured any notion of a pro career was over when an arthritic-type condition in his hands, that plagued him right after college, made it almost impossible for him to grip a club.
So, he became a junior high school teacher, in the inner city in Long Beach. He has memories of diving to the blacktop, face down on a couple of occasions when gun shots were heard in the school yard. He also became close to a number of his students and, even after his golf career had landed him on the PGA Tour making good money, he didn't forget those experiences.
One night in 1994, Goydos found himself at dinner with, among others, Tom Watson. Just being in the same room with Watson awed Goydos. As the evening wore on, the subject turned to politics and Watson began talking about welfare mothers and his belief that the government should stop supporting people who had no interest in trying to support themselves.
When Watson paused for a moment, Goydos cleared his throat and said quietly, "You know Tom, I had the chance to know some of the people you're talking about. I'm sure what you're saying is true of some of them, but not the ones I dealt with. They wanted to work, they wanted to change their circumstances. Most of them hated the idea that they had to accept welfare checks. I honestly don't think it works the way you think it does."
Watson happens to be both smart and inquisitive. Rather than shout Goydos down, he asked him questions about his teaching experiences and the people he was talking about. Two years later, Goydos won his first tournament, at Bay Hill. That night I happened to run into Watson.
"I watched your boy down the stretch today," he said (everyone on tour calls Goydos my boy). "I was really glad he won. We need more people like him on this tour."
This from someone whose politics could not be more different than those of my boy.
That's why it was so tough watching Goydos come down the stretch at The Players Championship on Sunday. Reporters are supposed to be objective but we're not. When you get to know people the way we do there are going to be some you like more than others and some you root for and some you root against. There's no one in sports I root harder for than Goydos.
t isn't just his often fall-down-funny, self-deprecating sense of humor or the fact that our political views are similar. His struggle to stay afloat on tour go well beyond trying to figure out how to par the 18th hole at Sawgrass on Sunday. He went through a divorce several years ago that had the kind of heartbreaking twists and turns that would make a soap opera scriptwriter blush. He's had custody of his teenage daughters since then and took a year off the tour because he felt he had to be there with them every day, not every other week. He's had hip surgery and has played all this year with plantar fasciitis in his foot and, through it all, has never lost that off-the-wall sense of humor.
He has always referred to himself as, "the worst player in the history of The PGA Tour," which clearly is the farthest thing from the truth. Several years ago, Paul and his daughters walked into a restaurant in Seattle for dinner during the PGA Championship. I was sitting at a table with Steve Stricker in a corner of the room where he couldn't see us. I asked our waitress if she wouldn't mind asking him for an autograph by saying, "I hear you are the worst player in the history of the PGA Tour, would you sign this?"
The waitress did what I asked and Paul never flinched. He grabbed the piece of paper and said, "Yup, that's me. Make sure John gives you a good tip."
A few years ago in another restaurant in another city an attractive young woman who worked for one of the tournament sponsors sat down at our table. After a few minutes she looked at Paul, single by then, and said, "has anyone ever told you that you have beautiful eyes?
I was stunned. I didn't know what color Paul's eyes were because he always squints. She was serious. "She'd also been drinking," Paul likes to point out.
Needless to say I repeated the story a few (hundred) times, earning Paul another nickname: "Angel Eyes." (For years he's been called 'Sunshine,' because of his ability to find a dark cloud in every silver lining). Several weeks later, Paul called me and said, "Would you mind calling my mom and telling her the story about the woman who thought I had beautiful eyes?"
Sure, I said, but how come?
"Because she's the only person I know you haven't told the story to so far!"
He had a point.
Everyone on tour has a Goydos story or a Goydos one-liner they like to repeat. When those who cover the tour regularly need a funny line or a smart comment on an issue, they find Goydos. It is no knock on Sergio Garcia to say a Goydos victory at The Players would have been extraordinarily popular inside both the locker room and the media room.
One last story on my boy. Four years ago, Watson and I started a charity golf tournament named for Bruce Edwards, Tom's longtime caddy, who died of ALS in 2004. We scheduled the first one in September of 2005 in Baltimore, knowing the Champions Tour was there that week and the PGA Tour was close by in central Pennsylvania. Goydos was one of the first golfers to commit to play.
A few days before the event, Paul called me to say he had changed his plane reservations and, because he was arriving at 5:30 a.m., was going to take a cab to the golf club instead of having one of our volunteers pick him up.
"Why did you change your flight?" I asked.
"I'm not playing in Pennsylvania," he said. "Something's going on with one of the girls and I need to get right back home."
What he was saying was that, instead of flying east from his home in California and then playing in Pennsylvania that week, he was going to fly a red-eye in on Sunday night, play in 'The Bruce,' and then fly back-at his own expense.
"Paul, if you've got something going on at home," I said, "just stay home."
"No," he answered. "I've got Monday covered. I'm not backing out on you and Tom. Let's not discuss it any further."
We didn't. He played. His team won that day and the four guys he played with have been Goydos fans (not because of his golf, because he kept them laughing for five hours) since that day.
The only thing that bothered me Sunday -- other than Paul's failure to get up-and-down on 18 and win the tournament -- was the fact that NBC's announcers kept saying that Paul had won "only," two tournaments on tour. Do people not understand how hard it is to get on tour much less win on tour, much less stay out there for 16 years when you are the worst player in history?
Golf fans everywhere are celebrating Sergio Garcia's biggest win today. (Sorry commissioner, it's still not a major; I might have re-considered if Goydos had won). Everyone is eagerly awaiting -- as they should -- Tiger Woods's return from his knee surgery.
But I'm here to tell you there would have been no better story than Goydos winning on Sunday. As it is, he wrote a remarkable tale this past weekend and, in fact, throughout his career and his life. Not too many ex-inner city school teachers come within a couple inches of winning The Players Championship.
He didn't win. But you can bet I'm proud to say he's still my boy.
