With White’s help, Chris Stroud turns his season around

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Bob West column for Wednesday, October 10

The Port Arthur News

Golf has become fun again for Chris Stroud, a fact you could see in his body language, his smile and, most of all, in his performance during the Valero Texas Open in San Antonio.

Back-to-back career best scores of 65 and 64, four rounds in the 60s, a tie for 6th and a check for $140,850, may well have turned around a difficult rookie season for the former Lamar University ace. With four events left on the PGA Tour’s Fall Series, a year that was spinning out of control suddenly is full of hope.

Stroud has climbed to No. 146 on the money list with $440,620 in official earnings. He has a realistic chance of getting to No. 125 and retaining his playing card. At the very least, he’s in good shape to finish in the top 150, which provides conditional status for 2008 and a spot in the finals at Q school.

Thank you, Brian White, for your intervention.

Whitey, as everybody refers to the Lamar University golf coach, had been stewing over Stroud’s play since watching him at the Shell Houston Open in late April. The player he watched there wasn’t the same Chris Stroud who won over a dozen college tournaments at Lamar.

White didn’t say anything at the time, hoping things would work themselves out for his former All-America. But, when Stroud missed 9 of 11 cuts, Whitey phoned Arkansas golf coach Brad McMakin, the man who recruited the one time Port Neches-Groves standout for Lamar.

After visiting with McMakin, he called Stroud in Sea Island, Ga., for what he termed a “big brother conversation.â€

Basically, White told Chris he was concerned with changes he’d made to his swing. He told him he got to the PGA Tour with certain skill levels and it didn’t make sense to go out and change what got him there. He added that Stroud, as a senior at Lamar, could probably have won two or three times on the PGA Tour with the swing he was using then.

The LU coach also suggested that Chris needed to be back in the Southeast Texas environment where he’d have a strong support group, could work with White to build his swing back to where it was when he was winning and could have some strong competition when he wasn’t out on tour.

Stroud, who for the first time in his life was not having fun playing golf, realized the advice and suggestions were pretty much on target. Within days, he was back in Texas. Less than two weeks later, he and wife Tiffany had purchased a home near Redstone Golf Club in Houston.

Over the next month, as White’s swing-doctor efforts began to kick in, Stroud’s confidence started going up and his scores started coming down. He won $30,225, with a tie for 30th at the Turning Stone Classic in New York, missed the cut the following week in Mississippi, then put it all together with four strong rounds in San Antonio.

White was not surprised.

“Chris Stroud has all the makings of a great player,†said the LU coach. “Think about how many tournaments he’s won at every level. I told him during our conversation that if you can’t make it on the PGA Tour, I don’t know who can. If Chris isn’t good enough at his best, then I just don’t know anything at all about golf.

“But he has to be at his best.

“Chris is a winner and he knows how to win. If you notice, when he makes cuts he tends to finish high. Look at it and you’ll see he’s made more money in making five cuts than a lot of guys who have made more cuts. That says a lot.â€

Stroud’s play at La Cantera was both a tribute to White’s hands-on efforts, his talent level and the mental toughness that was his calling card as a junior player and collegian. After an opening 69, he was nothing short of spectacular in putting scores of 65 and 64 back-to-back.

Although he would get within three shots of then co-leaders Justin Leonard and Jesper Parnevik during Sunday’s final round, breaking through for that first win wasn’t in the cards. But how he finished the tournament underscored the grinder mentality which has always served him well.

Coming to the 17th hole, a 185-yard par three, Stroud had slipped into a tie for 10th. It looked like he was going to tumble down a few more notches, after going long left with his tee ball, then leaving his chip 15-feet short. Dropping a shot would cost him several thousand dollars.

It didn’t happen. He rolled in the 15 footer, crushed a drive on 18, stuffed a 9-iron second to 6 feet and closed with a birdie. Instead of falling out of the top 10, he was tied for 6th.

“I’m really happy,†Stroud said, after he signed his scorecard. “Those last two putts probably made me an extra $80,000. I really feel I’m on the right track. Moving back home and getting with Whitey has made so much difference.

“I’m getting away from all the other stuff I’ve worked on. It didn’t work. This stuff is working. It gives me a lot of confidence knowing I’m going the right direction with my golf swing. Everything fell into place this week. I just need to keep it going.â€

Stroud admitted that during the string of missed cuts he’d gotten pretty low. He said he’d begun second guess himself and sort of fell into a rookie trap.

“I started questioning myself,†he said. “I was wondering, ‘am I good enough?’ I wasn’t having any fun. It felt like a job. I don’t think that’s too unusual for guys when their rookie year doesn’t go well. If you are not making cuts like you thought you would, and not easily retaining your card like you thought you would, the doubts start popping up.

“That’s why you need a strong support team around you. What Whitey said made a lot of sense. Your support group can build you back up when you are down. That’s what has happened.â€

Nothing, of course, builds a competitor up like playing well and having success. The good vibes starting coming back for Stroud three weeks ago in New York. It would, however, take many more hours with White before everything clicked. It happened Tuesday on the practice range at La Cantera.

“There’s a certain feel I have when I make contact and my body comes through the same way,†he explained. “I’ve had it a few times this year but not often. I had a really long session with Whitey on Tuesday and started to feel it. I knew good things were about to happen.â€

So now it’s on to Las Vegas and Stroud, like so many others, dreams of hitting a jackpot. Don’t bet against him.

http://www.panews.com/sportsbobwest/local_story_282204823.html?start:int=0

[KFDM COOP]

Good article!