Calcavecchia entertains thought of third Honda Classic win
By Lauren Deason, PGATOUR.com Editorial Coordinator
PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. -- As far as bogeys go, Mark Calcavecchia's on the second hole was pretty entertaining. Even he could laugh about it after the fact.
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"I made a hell of a bogey on No. 2. I had a whiff and a chip-out and still made a bogey."
A whiff? Care to elaborate, Calc? This sounds like a good story.
"Yeah, I pulled my drive in the left rough. And there's a few palm trees over there and I was left stymied outside the back of one of them," he explained. "I could not hit it right-handed, and my only two options were left-handed and turning around and whacking it back this way."
Taking the ambidextrous route, huh? How did that work out?
"I'm pretty good at chipping it left-handed so I just took a few practice strokes. I only had to hit it [five yards] and stone-whiffed it right on the inside of it. I didn't chunk it or go over the top of it. I just missed it inside the ball and it just shocked the hell out of me."
At that second, Calcavecchia didn't spend any time thinking about his next move. He panicked and hit a second shot. This time the club connected with the ball and carried it into the fairway. Calcavecchia immediately turned to the walking scorer and called the penalty on himself.
He then used an 8-iron to land the fourth shot on the green and sank a 10-footer for bogey. For the 47-year-old, 13-time PGA TOUR winner, that's not the first time he's done something goofy out on the course.
"I've probably whiffed at least five times in my career, including some chips where you go for the super-flopper in the muff, pheww, slide right under it and you're sitting in your divot," he admitted. "I've done that a couple of times, too. You'll see that every now and then.
"And I've hit myself. I've pretty much done everything imaginable in my career. But you know, whiffs are not good."
Since the whiff and subsequent bogey were sandwiched between a birdie on No. 1 and birdies on Nos. 3 and 4, this one turned out OK. Calcavecchia credits improved putting this week with keeping him at the top of the leaderboard.
"It's all about putting, obviously. I played right behind Luke Donald for three days and I've seen him bending over plenty, believe me. He's made a lot of putts," he said. "And I have too, that's why we are in the position we are in. Nobody ever won a tournament out here without making a boatload of putts, I'll tell you that."
Calcavecchia is using the same putter he's used all year, a Craz-E H model from Ping. He's made four cuts and top-20ed twice this season but is surprised to be doing so well this week since he was lacking confidence in his putting after Hawaii and the West Coast Swing. He knew it was only a matter of time before the putts started falling, so he stayed true to the Craz-E H.
The model is the same one he used at the end of 2007, when he finished tied for second at THE TOUR Championship and jumped to eighth place in the final FedExCup standings. However, that particular putter from the last few months of the year met an untimely demise.
"It's just exactly like the one I used the last three months of last year that unfortunately ran into a parking garage wall in San Diego; and now it's holding up some flowers somewhere in a mud puddle behind this condo," Calcavecchia joked.
The colorful 26-year TOUR veteran's career has spanned nearly three decades and he's won The Honda Classic in two of them. If he hangs on to the lead -- he's tied for first with Luke Donald and Matt Jones heading into Sunday -- then it would be the second tournament that Calcavecchia has won in the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s (the other is the FBR Open).
Maybe it's a coincidence, maybe it's not, but both of those tournaments happen to be near places where he owns a home.
"I usually play pretty good when I sleep in my own bed, whether it be here or in Phoenix," Calcavecchia said. "...It would be pretty cool to win a TOUR event three miles from your driveway."
His record in Florida is nothing short of stellar. He's a University of Florida Gator and a long-time resident of the Sunshine State whose last TOUR win came at the 2007 PODS Championship in, you guessed it, Florida.
As for his Honda Classic record, the tournament has moved around often since he first joined the TOUR in 1981. This is only the second year that it has been held at PGA National, so he's never won here. But he does have two wins in the event, with the first coming in 1987 at TPC Eagle Trace and his second occurring in 1998 at TPC Heron Bay, both venues in the Miaim-Fort Lauderdale area.
With this week's tournament so close to home, the Calcavecchias hosted a party on Monday night for about 30 friends.
"We had a bowl of 75 tickets [to the tournament] and, when I woke up on Tuesday morning, there were three left. I don't know who decided to leave three," Calcavecchia said.
"That's kind of our ticket giveaway and we actually had to get some more and have seen almost everybody that was over at the house one day here or there. From what I understand, I think almost everybody I know is coming out tomorrow so that will be cool."
His family and friends will get to watch him take on a challenging venue on Sunday, when the wind is expected to kick up.
Calcavecchia is sitting at 6-under-par 204 after rounds of 70, 67 and 67 on the first three days. That's good enough to get him in the final group, though he's not expecting a win to come easily.
"I did see some of the [Sunday] pins and some of them are pretty creepy. Namely 11 and 17, and I'm just guesstimating 15 is back right or back center, anyway," Calcavecchia said.
"...You just can't hit it in the water. You just can't afford to make a double bogey and shoot the whole thing right out the window by doing that."
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