After 'awful' year, Gore content with shot at card
By Bob Gillespie, Special to PGATOUR.COM
CHARLESTON, S.C. -- Jason Gore strolled up the final fairway Thursday at Daniel Island's Ralston Creek course, site of this weekend's Nationwide Tour Championship, with a huge smile creasing his face. No surprise, after a 3-under-par 69 left him three strokes off the first-round lead -- but that wasn't the reason, he said.
"You can't win (the tournament) the first round but you certainly can lose it," he said. "You just have to be patient. I started out today missing a 2-footer for par, my only bogey.
"It's a marathon, not a sprint. I'm just going to keep going forward and see how many birdies I can make."
It seems as if Gore has always had that attitude, as much as his XL physique and matching smile. At 36, in his 13th year as a professional, a balanced outlook has become his trademark through good times and bad -- especially the bad.
Has it only been five years? In 2005, the journeyman player found himself at Pinehurst No. 2 on U.S. Open Sunday in the final group with two-time major champion Retief Goosen. Both men imploded, shooting in the 80s -- not so unexpected for Gore, given his limited exposure to the big time. Yet afterward, he still wore that wide grin.
"I had everyone fooled," he said Thursday, laughing at the memory. "I knew going into that day, and especially leaving, that was the worst it would ever be: the biggest, most pressure-filled situation I would ever be in no matter what happens anywhere in golf.
"I mean, I was in the final group of the U.S. Open -- on Sunday. Being in the final group of a PGA TOUR event wouldn't seem that bad after that."
From the mountaintop to the valley and back again: That could be the title of Gore's autobiography. Three weeks ago, he was slogging his way through his eighth full year on the Nationwide Tour, going nowhere fast.
"I've just had an awful year," he said. "I kept shooting 1- or 2-under, and that doesn't cut it out here. Not awful, but not getting it done."
Then at the Chattanooga Classic, a final-round 66 propelled him to a tie for 16th, his best finish of 2010. "I finally said, 'Go out, see how many birdies I can make,' and it seemed to work." A week later, he won the Miccosukee Classic with rounds of 65-67-65-71 and began planning his trip to the Nationwide Tour Championship.
He arrived here No. 41 on the money list, and again, his plan is simple. No grand strategy about making the top 25, or finishing well enough to earn a spot in the final stage of q-school.
"I'm just going to go play," Gore said. "Sure, this is a big tournament, but if you let it get to you, it'll get to you.
"Two weeks ago, I'd have sold my left arm to be here. Now I'm here, and I feel like I'm on my second life. I really have nothing to lose."
Gore's whole career is proof of that. For six years (1998-2004), he bounced around the Nationwide Tour, once living out of his car, twice earning promotion to the PGA TOUR but failing to keep his card each time. Then in 2005, he rode that Open momentum to three Nationwide Tour wins to earn promotion to the PGA TOUR, and capped off the year with a win at the 85 Lumber Classic.
The joyride lasted two years, during which he earned $1.8 million on the PGA TOUR. But in 2008, he slipped outside the top 125, and fell to No. 155 in 2009. Once again, he was at the bottom, looking up.
No problem. He knows his way back.
"I've been everywhere -- twice," he said. "I've been fortunate enough to win at every level. I know it's in there somewhere; I've just got to get out of own way.
"It's hard work to grind like that. To sit there and beat your head against the wall, to think, 'I really have to make this shot,' when really, who cares? There are a billion people in China who don't give a rat's butt about what's going on at Daniel Island.
"Just go play golf; it's a hard enough game."
Of course, if Sunday arrives and he's near the lead ... as he said, "I've been in the lead going to the last round five times, and I've won five times. You just go play and add it up at the end."
It took all those years, marriage and a family to learn that, Gore said. He laughed about playing with 20-somethings who "think it's life and death; I want 'em to think that.
"It's really not. I've been fortunate in this game to do OK. If something doesn't happen here, I still have (q-school) second stage and the finals. I'm feeling good enough about where I'm at now to not really sweat what's going on."
He laughed. "If I do what I know how to do," he said, "I'll be fine."
Either way, Gore likely will be smiling at the end.
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