Perry, at 48, could quiet dad
if he can only win this Masters
AUGUSTA, Ga. – You probably are not going to find it in the directions of Dr. Spock or in the behaviorist literature, but sometimes much can be said for a man forcing his kid pay a bundle for Boardwalk or Park Place. This is the kind of thing that produced the unlikely Kenny Perry, the mild-mannered prince of groundroots Kentucky, who last year broke from the mold everyone had selected for him and fought his way onto the U.S. Ryder Cup team, fulfilling a dream that was as quixotic as it was impossible. This was the same Kenny Perry who on Friday was somehow windproof in the buffeting breezes and beat the regal Augusta National for a 5-under 67. This he did, mind you, without so much as a bogey, and it got him a share of the halfway lead of the Masters at with Chad Campbell, who shot 70.
Even if the story ends here, it’s one they’ll still chat about up in the old clubhouse, pointing out, for example, that Perry is 48, and would be the oldest ever to win the Masters, if he does in fact win it. Which would make him two years older than Jack Nicklaus was when he won in 1986. But back at Monopoly …
There was lots of love in the Perry home, back in Kentucky, and the old man showed it in a way that might strike some as odd.
CI got a will inside me,” Perry was saying, the golf visor leaving the top of his head looking like a recumbent possum. “My dad taught me. He beat on me so bad as a kid…
[Pause here for those who are wrapped too tight. The old man never laid a glove on him. See “colloquialisms.”]
“ … beat on me so bad as a kid, and at any kind of game, sport, whatever. He beat on me so bad, cried all the time because he just beat on me. And then he would laugh in my face as he was doing it.
“It was card games, board games, golf. He would just pound on me. He says, ‘I’m going to beat you till I die.’ He was relentless. He was ruthless. He was a smart man. He knew it was going to make me tough. That’s all he was trying to do, was make me tougher.”
The script calls for a one grand reversal, the point where the clouds part and the sun beams down. It was the time Kenny, at 14, aced a hole and beat his dad for the first time. So did he give it back to the old man?
“Oh, yeah,” Perry said. “I let him have it. And then it finally turned. I started beating him here and there, and finally it was regular.”
And so the 48-year-old from Franklin, Ky., who came up with no money, no position, scratching for everything he could get, is at least in position to make someth
ing more of himself. He might win his first major, still smarting from blowing the 1996 PGA in front of the homefolks at Valhalla, in Louisville. What an embarrassment that was. “The debacle,” he called it. He’d bogeyed the final hole, then went up in the TV both to chat with the world, resplendent in his headset. He should have been warming up, in case of a playoff, and that’s what materialized when Mark Brooks birdied the final hole. Then Perry took four to get to the green in the playoff hole, and that was it.
“A lot,” Perry said. That’s how much the ’96 , PGA crosses his mind. That’s what fueled his manic charge to make the Ryder Cup last year, to get back in front of the homefolks and prove he was no dolt, which he did, with a 2-1-1 performance. This time, he’s trying to prove things for himself.
“Everything is just going great,” Perry said. “Can I? I think I can. I really believe I can win this tournament. Will I? I don’t know.”
It’s not likely. The second round is the second round, and there are 36 cruel holes yet in front of him. In eight previous Masters, he gave no indication he was on any friendly terms with the elegant course. He missed the cut five times and was nowhere close the other three, and hasn’t even been here for the last three years. He’s tied with
Campbell, and Angel Cabrera, former U.S. Open champ, is just a shot behind. There’s always the presence of Tiger Woods, seven behind. And young Anthony Kim, just five behind after catching fire for 11 birdies and a 65.
But then, there’s that echo in his life. The old man – Ken’s his name – is 85 and is still beating on him.
“You need to win that green jacket,” dad told him.
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