Sluman hoping final major doesn't end up like others
By Lauren Deason, PGATOUR.COM Editorial Coordinator
TIMONIUM, Md. -- Kinda stinky.
Those were the exact words Jeff Sluman used to describe how he'd played in the Champions Tour majors thus far this season. It's especially true of the year's first major, the Senior PGA Championship, where Sluman had the 54-hole lead at the tournament held practically in his backyard in Rochester, N.Y., and closed with a 78 on Sunday.
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| How he's fared at the 2008 Champions Tour majors | ||||||||||||||||||
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"I had a good chance to win at the PGA in Rochester and came out with no bullets in the chamber on Sunday; I came out empty," Sluman said of the tournament in late May.
He wound up tied for ninth there. At the Senior British Open, the season's second major, he made the cut on the nose then jumped into a tie for 21st after a solid weekend run. The same thing happened at the U.S. Senior Open, where he barely made the cut then fired a 67 on Sunday to tie for 18th.
The JELD-WEN Tradition frustrated him. Sluman played well, but his scorecard didn't reflect it and he ended up tied for 31st. In 22 starts this season, Sluman has nine top-10s, but only one came in a major championship.
He's hoping this week's major, the fifth and final of the Champions Tour season, will be a little more kind. On Saturday at the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship, Sluman shot a 6-under 64, the low round of the day, and moved into a tie for third.
After such a low round, Sluman was understandably in a lively mood. He chided Dana Quigley, who was wearing a vertically striped shirt and horizontally pinstriped pants, by asking him if he "got dressed in the closet." He joked around with spectators and his fellow players. But there was one thing he wasn't joking about -- the Five Farms East Course at Baltimore Country Club.
"You have to drive the heck out of the ball and you have to shape it. It really puts a premium on your iron play," Sluman said. "A guy like Hale (Irwin), when he turned 50, if they had had the tournament here, he would have won five times. It really puts a premium on your iron play, distance control and placing it in the quadrant of the green where you might have a chance to make a putt.
"I get excited to play out here. Some guys don't particularly like the golf course, but it really is a terrific shotmakers course and you have to drive the ball well and you have to position it on your second shot," he added. "Even then, it's a lottery on some of the greens."
If the undulating and sloping greens are as unpredictable as a lottery, Sluman hit the jackpot with his putts in the third round. He had one of three bogey-free rounds on Saturday and made four birdies and an eagle after opening the tournament with back-to-back 70s.
Saturday's eagle was the highlight on his card and Sluman had to pull a few tidbits from his memory bank to make it. He remembered the par-4, 362-yard sixth hole played very short last year and noticed the same thing as he watched his two partners on Saturday hit their shots. The hole was also playing downhill and downwind, so Sluman hit his 60-degree wedge from about 69 yards and knew as soon as he hit it that it had a chance.
"Of course, you never say that's going in but I knew it would be close," he said. "It hit and looked like it one bounced, landed next to the hole and went around (in a circle) twice then popped right in."
The eagle 2 may have been the lowest score relative to par on his card, but it was his birdie on the par-5 fourth that Sluman enjoyed the most.
"It was as good a birdie as I've made in a while. I hit a poor second shot with my 3 wood to get on the green. The only place you can't hit it is in the right bunker short, about 35 to 40 yards out and thank you," Sluman said, sarcastically raising his hand as if wanting recognition for that poor shot. "That's where I was. I hit a heck of a long bunker shot to about 8 feet and made that for birdie."
He missed a few short putts -- "everyone will tell you the same thing out here," Sluman said -- but sank a 15-footer on the par-3 11th hole for birdie. On the 17th hole, Sluman drove the ball down the middle of the fairway and knocked his 5-iron pin high. He made a 12-footer there for birdie, then holed a 21-foot putt on the 18th to close his round with a birdie.
To be honest, Sluman said, he's a bit surprised to find himself near the lead. Since his win at the Walmart First Tee Open at Pebble Beach five weeks ago, Sluman's second victory of 2008, the Champions Tour has had three off weeks interspersed with two tournaments. During the downtime when he's not competing in a tournament, Sluman said he only plays about once a week.
"Candidly, I was obviously playing well at Pebble Beach, on a nice roll with a nice rhythm. Then we had a week on, a week off, a week on, a week off and I never got any real momentum going. I didn't know how I would play this week but I particularly felt like these next few weeks were relatively important if I was going to have a chance to do anything in the Charles Schwab (Cup)," said Sluman, who's currently eighth in the Charles Schwab Cup race. "I felt like I could get some rhythm and momentum in these next four weeks because we have no time off.
"It's a pleasant surprise to get it going a little earlier than, say, next week because it usually does take a week or so to get back into the flow."
Sluman isn't making any predictions for Sunday, when he'll be in the last group with Nick Price and D.A. Weibring. If he wins, it would be the second major for the six-time PGA TOUR winner who captured the 1988 PGA Championship title.
"I don't ever look ahead in golf," Sluman said.
On Sunday afternoon, however, he's hoping he can look behind him, see the rest of the field in his wake and finally shake those major monkeys off his back.
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