News
Has it really been 10 years since Kuchar's Masters coming-out party?
May 15, 2008
By Jason Sobel, ESPN.com
If it doesn't seem like a full decade since fresh-faced Matt Kuchar was paired with defending champion Tiger Woods in the opening round of the 1998 Masters, well, don't worry. He feels the exact same way.
"The time has just flown by," Kuchar said. "It doesn't feel like 10 years. To me, it feels like three or four years."
"It seems like it was last year, it really does," said Peter Kuchar, who caddied for his son in the tournament. "I still get people saying, 'I remember you and Matt at the Masters.' It's hard to imagine it's been 10 years since that happened."
As the reigning U.S. Amateur champion, Kuchar received an invitation into the year's first major, making the most of it by finishing in a share of 21st place -- the highest result by a nonprofessional at Augusta National since 1978. Ten years later, he has yet to replicate the fan frenzy of that appearance -- he still calls that Masters "my most memorable moment" --but Kuchar is firmly ensconced as part of the PGA Tour's other half.
While Woods & Co. fly the world in private jets and seemingly have oversized paychecks stacked up in the back of their courtesy cars like Happy Gilmore, there's an entire subset of players who might not have entirely recognizable faces, but still earn a pretty penny playing professional golf on the world's most competitive tour. And so, while Kuchar might not still be kickin' it in majors with Tiger, he's making a name for himself all over again.
Of course, it wasn't always like this. Kuchar was on the fast track to superstardom, recruited by more than 200 colleges before deciding on Georgia Tech over Duke and Florida. While a sophomore at the Atlanta-based institution, he not only starred in the 1998 Masters, but finished T-14 in the subsequent U.S. Open as well.
From there, the offers started rolling in … and with them, more pressure to turn professional.
"I was kind of acting as his surrogate agent at the time," Peter Kuchar said. "We had $1 million deals on the table that we were ready to pull the trigger on."
Instead, Matt returned to their Lake Mary, Fla., home for Thanksgiving break and decided that the possibility of winning an NCAA championship while receiving a quality education superseded any reasons to become a pro right away. Remaining an amateur, much in the same way that fellow Georgia Tech collegian Bobby Jones did many, many years earlier, Kuchar earned All-ACC honors in four consecutive years, joining David Duval as the only players from the university to reach that distinction.
When Kuchar did go pay-for-play, he did so with a flourish. Playing on sponsors' exemptions in 2001, he earned $572,669 in 11 starts as a nonmember, which would have placed him 91st on the money list. As a full-fledged PGA Tour member in 2002, he continued his run of success, culminating in his first career victory at the Honda Classic, where he closed with a pair of 66s to win by two strokes.
"The win in 2002 kind of solidified my decision to stay in school," Kuchar said. "Everything was basically going as planned."
Six years later, the victory odometer is still stuck on "1." Kuchar finished 182nd on the money list in 2003, 139th in '04 and 159th in '05, losing his full-time status. He competed on the Nationwide Tour in 2006, placing high enough to regain his PGA Tour privileges, and kept his card last season, finishing 115th on the money list.
Through it all, Kuchar, who will turn 30 next month, has remained focused on becoming the star talent that he was predicted to be so long ago.
"I've talked to a lot of other PGA Tour veterans and it seems like there's almost a 10-year learning curve of just getting really comfortable with everything from travel to figuring out where to stay, the equipment, the courses you like, being comfortable seeing your name on leaderboards, being comfortable hitting balls next to Ernie Els and Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson and just not being intimidated," Kuchar said. "I've put in that learning curve and now I feel like I'm much more comfortable on the PGA Tour.
"I don't know if you ever know when the wins are going to come. Just because you've won once out here doesn't mean you're going to win again, and just because you've never won doesn't mean you're never going to win. It definitely helps confidence and helps to know you can win. … But the bottom line is just playing good golf. If you play good golf, you're going to get opportunities, and if you get opportunities, you're going to get into the winner's circle."
So far this year, Kuchar owns four top-25s in 13 starts, including a season-best T-3 at the Mayakoba Golf Classic. It's enough to place him 75th on the money list, but not enough to keep him satisfied. At last week's Players Championship, Kuchar was so dismayed by scores of 78-75, leaving him well below the weekend cut line, that he retreated to Dallas for three days of fine-tuning his swing with instructor Chris O'Connell.
Such a maneuver wouldn't ordinarily raise eyebrows, except for the fact that Kuchar is playing a home game this week with the PGA Tour in his adopted hometown of Atlanta for the AT&T Classic, where he finished T-3 a year ago. The extra effort seemed to pay off in Thursday's opening round, as he posted a low-maintenance 1-under 71 that included two birdies and one bogey against 15 pars.
He might not be the world beater that some had predicted a decade ago, but Kuchar is confident with his position right now, and believes his hard work and dedication to the game will equate to bigger and better rewards down the road.
"It was always exciting, but I think you may have some of those exciting jitters early," Kuchar said. "Now, it's just part of the routine. I feel like I've got a home out there on the PGA Tour."
