Rookie Cook is both pleased, disappointed with Year One
By Lauren Deason, PGATOUR.COM Editorial Coordinator
BALTIMORE, Md. -- There are nine players on the Champions Tour who've won multiple times this season. John Cook isn't one of them.
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In fact, he sticks out like a sore thumb near the top of the Charles Schwab Cup points list because he doesn't have any notches in the "Wins" column. Despite being winless in 2008, though, the rookie Cook outranks five players who've won two times and seven players who've won once.
How did he manage to do that? In the race that awards players points only if they finish inside the top 10, Cook needed 13 top-10s -- and a little bit of bad luck -- to earn a fifth place spot in the Charles Schwab Cup standings with zero victories.
But Cook says it's still been a successful rookie season -- and there's plenty of time (four events, to be exact) to earn a victory.
"The year's not over yet. We have a real good stretch going forward with really good weeks," Cook said. "We have a real good golf course here (at Baltimore Country Club) and then courses I'm familiar with. I feel like I've gotten to learn golf courses and gotten back into being competitive most every week, when I hadn't been that way for quite a long time.
"I'd say it's been a successful year but I don't think that I've played great. I've played nice. I could have finished off better but that's all part of learning too. I feel like this year's been a nice start."
Cook was among the leaders on Sunday at the Allianz Championship earlier this year but could only muster a tie for sixth when he went even par through the final10 holes. Later in the season, he was in contention at the U.S. Senior Open Championship but lost any chance with a final-round 77.
His most excruciating, heart-breaking loss came at the Senior British Open, when he made double bogey on the 11th hole, a bogey on the 12th hole and a bogey on the 18th hole to lose the lead he'd held all day. Cook eventually fell on the first playoff hole to Bruce Vaughan.
"I'm used to finishing out events," Cook, an 11-time PGA TOUR winner, admitted. "I've won enough to know what to do down the stretch but these guys are very good and you can't make mistakes on Sunday and expect to win. I've made some mental errors and a couple of bad swings here and there that prevented me from winning. That's part of the (Champions Tour) inexperience."
Cook got his first taste of this week's venue, the Five Farms (East) course at Baltimore Country Club, on Tuesday. The host of the season's fifth and final Champions Tour major, the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship, Baltimore Country Club is a course that excites Cook.
"It has great character. I love it. The type of golf courses I grew up on in Southern California look very similar to this," Cook said. "The greens are tricky and you have to put the ball in the right spots. It makes for a great championship."
Cook turned 50 in early October 2007 and won just 19 days later at the AT&T Championship, his second event on the Champions Tour. Since 2008 is his first full season -- players are required to make six or more starts to be considered a rookie -- he's still in the running for Rookie of the Year honors as well as the Charles Schwab Cup title.
Right now, Bernhard Langer and Jay Haas hold the top spots, respectively, in those races, but Cook has a chance if he wins this week.
"Certainly two of my goals at the start of the season were to win those races. I probably need to win two of the last four tournaments to have a chance at either one. If I win the right (events), then I have a real good chance to win," Cook said. "That's something I didn't capture on the (PGA) TOUR. I was second in the Rookie of the Year one year and didn't win the money list one year but was second or third so those are definitely some opportunities to take advantage of."
For Cook, being a 51-year-old rookie has had both ups and downs. Plagued by a sore neck at the Wal-Mart First Tee Open at Pebble Beach just two tournaments ago, Cook was forced to withdraw. It took several weeks of stretching to work out those sore muscles, which all tightened up to create a "perfect storm" that week.
"A lot of things all got there at the same time and it just kind of went out. I didn't want to jeopardize the rest of the year to try to finish better than 48th. It was hurt pretty good...it's just a weak area, always has been a weak area and, when it gets fatigued, it shuts down," Cook said.
Though he looks younger than most of the Champions Tour and, at 51, has had relative youth to his advantage this season, he also had to learn a whole new set of courses this season. Still, Cook wouldn't trade this new tour for the old one.
"All my friends are out here. A couple of friends I have on the PGA TOUR will be out here very soon anyway. The competition is great (on the PGA TOUR) but it's great out here too and that's what it's all about," Cook said. "We've all been competitive all of our lives and I just didn't feel like I was going to be that competitive for that much longer or at least not every single week like I used to be (out there) but I feel that way out here."
He began the year with several goals and is still striving to accomplish two of the three. Cook had hoped to finish in the top 5 on the money list -- right now he's eighth -- and win at least one event. But the third goal is something he's definitely checked off the list.
"I wanted to be competitive. If you are competitive, you have a chance to do all that but I just feel like I haven't finished it out. It's disappointing, yes, that I have not finished it out but I'm happy I've been competitive."
Given that he's finished inside the top-10 59 percent of the time in 2008, there's no arguing his competitiveness.
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