Over the last five days, Tucson turned into home — or Madison Southwest — for both Steve Stricker and Jerry Kelly.
The Wisconsinites who live here came out to support their boys.
“Yeah, it turned into a Madison tournament,” said Kelly, who finished tied for second with a 12-under. “There’s no question about it. It’s like the west coast of Florida, then down here in the Tucson/Phoenix area, that’s where all the Wisconsinites go, so it’s always great. They travel so well and they are so cool that it always makes you feel great every stop you go to.”
Stricker and Kelly aren’t the only ones who live in Madison. Exact Sciences, the company behind Cologuard, is based in the Wisconsin capital and brought their entire company down to the desert for the tournament. Kelly is a paid ambassador for Cologuard.
This Madison connection was the magic that helped Kelly put up the best round of the day an 8-under 65 Sunday, after battling an upper respiratory illness all week.
“You know, Kevin (Conroy, CEO of Exact Sciences) being there every day and Maneesh (Arora, COO of Exact Sciences) just picking me up by the seat of my pants and pushing me forward as much as I can; I got a lot of great energy from these guys,” said Kelly. “That’s why I’m working with them because they’re such great guys and have great energy, great passion for their cause.
“I think it’s a great match, you know, when things feel good, when they feel right, that’s when you can play well too.”
Kelly didn’t get much sleep the first few nights and after his fever broke, he had a rough day Saturday, finishing with a 72.
“Then I felt my body and it wasn’t a very good thing. I was kind of in the clouds,” said Kelly. “Today, the first three holes I was pretty dizzy, but I just tried to breathe and calm my heart rate down because my body couldn’t quite handle anything. So, you know, that’s the kind of thing that sets you up for the second half when you start playing well, when you have already kind of calmed yourself and gotten into that breathing routine and you can take that through and keep playing.”
And it worked, as he shot birdies on the fourth, fifth and eighth holes, before going on a roll on the back nine, with birdies on 12-15 and 17.
Stiff-arm on the golf course
There was an incident during the playoff between Phil Mickelson and Justin Thomas at the WGC-Mexico Championship in Mexico City Sunday.
Thomas, who went on to lose the tournament, had to stiff-arm a photographer who almost stepped on his ball. Gene Sauers, who tied for second at 12-under with Kelly and Scott Dunlap, was surprised and shared his wildest incident on the course.
“Back in 1986 when I won my first tournament, Bank of Boston, you know how the crowd just like on 18 right here had to go up behind everybody. Well, I hit my shot and the crowd just starts going. Here I am, I’m behind the crowd now, and I’m trying to fight my way through the crowd.”
Arizonan in the mix
Kirk Triplett, from Scottsdale, started and ended the day at 8-under. After he approached the ball in the fairway on No. 2, a baby could be heard crying.
Triplett’s caddy, Tommy Anderson joked, “Future golf pro. These guys used to be like that, not anymore.”
His playing partner, Mike Goodes’ bag has an American flag and the words: Folds of Honor, for the non-profit that provides scholarships of families for fallen and disabled soldiers.
“Dan Rooney started this as a one-man operation and now it’s grown to bringing in $17 million a year,” said Goodes. “It’s a wonderful organization and it’s an honor to carry a bag that looks like the flag. (Our soldiers) are overworked and underpaid and face too much danger.”
When Goodes heard that Golden State Warriors guard Steph Curry tweeted out a photo of his hotel room covered in glass Thursday after practicing his swing inside, he had a little advice, “Maybe go outside next time. He’ll figure it out. He’s a good golfer and plays better than expected for a basketball player.”
Can I get an autograph?
No one’s autograph game is better than Tucson’s Dave Lucas. He’s got 189 golfers, celebrities, and a president — all on a 1970s white windbreaker with red, light blue, and black stripes. It person, it looks like a NASCAR jacket.
His mom, Siddy (Young) van Guelpen, started it off 42 years ago and passed along the jacket to her son in 2000, 12 years before she passed away at age 90. The jacket was part of an outfit the volunteers had to buy for the golf tournaments.
The signers range from Gerald Ford, the 38th President of the United States to golfers Chi Chi Rodriguez, Arnold Palmer, and Lee Trevino to Joe Garagiola, Charley Pride and Flip Wilson.
The autographs were gained during the pro-ams and the gym at the Omni Tucson National Resort. The hardest to get was definitely Clint Eastwood.
“My mom broke her ankle and was on crutches when she asked him,” said Lucas. “He said he didn’t have time to sign it (as he walked off the green). She said ‘Make my day’ and everyone laughed, including him.”
This year’s gets were: Billy Mayfair, Olin Browne, and Mark O’Meara. A few Lucas really wants on his way to 200 are Vijay Singh, Duffy Waldrof, and Steve Pate.
Oh, and the best part is that Lucas’ wife, Patty, needlepoints over the names in various colors — pink, red, orange, aqua, maroon, yellow — so the signatures don’t fade. Although, this has reduced the worth of the jacket on the market, it still has a lot of sentimental value.
Chip shots
Kelly challenged all golfers who participated in the event this weekend to have a Cologuard test taken. All 78 of them did so.
