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After more than a dozen years on tour, Paul Goydos knows what it takes to get the job done. Paul Goydos • Born: Long Beach, 1964. • College: Long Beach State. • Turned pro: 1989. • First year on the PGA Tour: 1993. He earned a spot by finishing tied for 13th at 1992 Q-School. • Career earnings: More than $5.6 million, putting him 133rd on the PGA Tour’s career earnings list. • Greatest professional achievement: Won 1996 Bay Hill Invitational, earning $216,000. You’re more likely to see Paul Goydos caddying for his two daughters these days than playing in a PGA Tour event — and that’s perfectly fine with the Dove Canyon resident. “I was a guy who went from playing 30 events a year for 10 straight years to maybe playing 15 to 20,” Goydos said. One event he was glad to avoid was the PGA Tour Qualifying School. “Yeah, as much fun as it is, I thought I would skip it this year,” Goydos said with a mixture of sarcasm and relief. The reason Goydos didn’t have to make a trip to the desert to try to earn his tour card was the dramatic end to his 2006 season, where he finished second at the Chrysler Championship to earn exempt status and avoid the Q-School pressure cooker. Goydos — whose only victory on the PGA Tour came at the Bay Hill Invitational in 1996 — has had a few other high finishes over the years and always made enough cuts and earned enough money to play the following year. Still, the guy whose nickname among his PGA Tour colleagues is Sunshine, has always been more of a realist than a cynic. “Golf is one of the few sports where everybody roots for the favorite,” he said. “If you look at any other sport, everyone roots for the Cinderella. In golf, if it was me and Tiger, Ernie and Phil, they would be rooting for them. In golf they don’t root for the underdog as much, for whatever reason.” They were rooting for Goydos at the Chrysler Championship. It was his last tournament of the year and it was looking like he’d be returning to Q-School. He was well behind the magic number of 125 on the money list — the position needed to keep playing privileges. The problem was his putting, and Goydos was so desperate at one point that he tried a long putter, which he said “felt like a pole vault.” Then he did something even more unconventional. “I was struggling with my putting, so, of course, when you struggle with putting, you change your irons,” Goydos said, laughing. “It makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?” But something clicked during the Chrysler Championship, and his putts began to drop. By the start of the final round, he was challenging for the lead. The numbers said that Goydos needed to finish fourth or better to earn enough money to keep his PGA Tour card. “I didn’t want to get caught up on the money list,” said Goydos, whose second-place finish gives him some momentum for the upcoming season. “That’s also a great thing to have happen,” he said. “I finished on a high note and hopefully it carries over to ’07. We’ll see.” SG |
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