Overton keeps reaching for that win,
but someone keeps smacking his hand
AKRON, Ohio – Jeff Overton is a big, easy-going guy, a five-year guy on the PGA Tour with a power game that is clearly maturing, and that could break through any day now. But don’t count on it. It seems somebody up there hates him. Mike Reid, as inoffensive as oatmeal (without cinnamon), once was drawn so thin by the gods of golf that even he couldn’t hold it in any longer. It was in the 1989 PGA Championship, and Reid, a non-cursing, non-smoking, non-chewing sweetheart of a skinny guy, never much of a winner, had his first major all but in hand. And then durned if he didn’t stumble down the last few holes, and Payne Stewart rushed up and plucked it from his hands.
Reid wept bitter tears, and the world wept with him, and then he uttered the immortal words.
“I’m gonna go home,” Reid said, “and kick the dog.”
(Just kidding, PCers, just kidding. Just a figure of speech. Actually, Reid isn’t mean enough to kick the mud off his shoes.)
Anyway, on the subject of rewards denied – or rewards pilfered, snatched from the grasp, swiped and the like – we now have Jeff Overton. Who, until this year, was often confused with a prominent club pro by nearly the same last name. Unlike the wispy Reid, Overton is an imposing 6-feet-4, about 200 pounds, age 27, and winless in his five years on the PGA Tour. And though he hasn’t known quite the level of pain Reid did at the PGA, a major, he’s had his share, and if he ever decided to kick the dog, it could be a big one. Or go home and punch the wall, bust a cantaloupe, bite through a pencil, anything.
“I definitely felt that way last week,” Overton said, referring to just about winning the Greenbrier Classic, only to have Stuart Appleby drop a 59 on him to beat him by a shot. When someone’s shooting 59s at you, you have to wonder about your place in the firmament. Overton just grinned and shrugged. It was a new week Thursday, the start of his debut in the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational, and here he is, with a three-under 67, three behind the leader, Bubba Watson.
The round had ended agreeably enough, the kind of finish golfers like. He birdied the16th and 17th, and two-putted the 18th for a par, and so he did not leave the course with the golfers lament, a sour taste in his mouth. Overton, in the 300-yard class off the tee, has shown no signs of being intimidated by the 7,400-yard Firestone, and so the outlook is, at the least, promising.
But, back to the pain …
Overton finally separated himself from the club pro at the Zurich Classic late in April, when he twice overtook Jason Bohn in the final round and shot one of only two 66s, and fell short when a long eagle putt brushed by the hole. “The final four holes, I maybe got a little too quick with the putts,” he said. “Maybe because I wanted it so much.”
A month later, he tied for second in the Byron Nelson Classic, two behind upstart Jason Day, and then fans were beginning to say, hey, Overton – isn’t he the one that …?” And the very next week, he tied for third in the Crowne Plaza, after a flawless 63 in the first round. Now he was getting to be one of the boys. The first week of July, he finished third, two behind Justin Rose, the winner, in the AT&T National.
Nobody’s predicting Overton has a real chance here. There are too many things stacked against him – tough international field, tough course, nerves, etc. Still, why not?
Overton, the person and the personality, are emerging. He’s a friendly, soft-spoken guy not given to smashing china, and he has a girlfriend who sings opera.
Do you have a favorite opera?
“Not really.” (You will, bubba.)
Can you name one?
“I went to a couple, but I sorta didn’t pay attention.”
How about a favorite aria?
“Not really.” (You will, bubba.)
Back in high school, he sang in the choir for a while. He also played sax, then bagged it when he discovered sports. He played all the sports, then discovered golf. He bagged all the others.
He might have given it all back at the end of the Greenbrier Classic last week, when he was all set to nail down that first win in the final round when along came Stuart Appleby, age 39, who hadn’t won since 2006 and who had been dragging along this year, and bang! – a 59. Appleby picked that time to become only the fifth guy ever to shoot a 59. And Overton does not believe someone up there hates him.
He had done his best. He closed with a 67, his fourth round in the 60s, and lost by a shot.
How’s about a piece of history, Jeff?
“I got beat by a 59,” Overton said. “What can I say?
Overton says what gets him mad is not so much the way the gods of golf keep skewering him, but the way he hurts himself. And faithful to the sermons of the modern golf shrinks, he tries to get a positive spin out of it, stuff like that.
“It’s a learning experience,” Overton says.
Just once, though, wouldn’t you think a guy would like to – well, sorta …you know …
No, not the dog. Not even the cat.
Anybody got a T rex?
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