Better Tales Push Tiger Into Background

AUGUSTA, Ga. -- The winds tend to howl and hurl dust across the prairies of West Texas, where not every golfer is a washed-up pro trying to impress Rene Russo at a driving range. Chad Campbell grew up playing in tricky gusts much like those at Augusta National, in a second round worthy of wind turbines on every hole and intense prayer at Amen Corner. As Tiger Woods predicted, the conditions did change, from laughably accommodating to punitive.

If only Woods was as good a golfer Friday as he was a meteorologist.

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I'm not quite giving up on Tiger's post-rehab green jacket fitting Sunday at Butler Cabin, but I'm starting to weigh two other invitations far more seriously. One would be the long-awaited coronation of Campbell as champion of a golfing major, a legitimate pursuit after his second straight impressive day at the Masters. He followed his historic first-round start, when he birdied the first five holes en route to a 65, with a carefully crafted 70, leaving him seven strokes ahead of a scuffling, demoralized Woods. Campbell enters the weekend sharing the lead with another compelling story, that of Kenny Perry, who is 48 and, thus, trying to one-up Jack Nicklaus as the oldest Masters champion.

This after blowing off the four majors last year so he could focus on smaller tournaments and more easily accrue Ryder Cup points, a decision that some of us originally thought was, well, hokey. Perry did it so he could qualify for the U.S. team at Valhalla, in his native Kentucky, where he wanted to rescript his career after a painful collapse on the same course at the 1996 PGA Championship. When the Americans beat Europe amid a raucous home-state celebration, the criticism stopped. "It was the pinnacle of my career, the ultimate," Perry said. "I felt like Tiger for a week. I felt like a rock star."

Now, he's trying to write more history as Woods, who finished with a bogey for the second straight day, fades away in his first major since the reconstructive knee surgery that interrupted his career.

Is erasing seven strokes do-able?

"Yeah," said Woods, answering questions tersely after shooting 72.

Was the wind difficult?

"Yeah, you might say that."

Funny, but others seemed to handle the conditions better, including 2007 U.S. Open champion Angel Cabrera, who is in the hunt with 2004 British Open champ Todd Hamilton, Tim Clark, hard-charging Anthony Kim and Tiger-irritator Rory Sabbatini, among others. For now, Perry and Campbell have the spotlight. In nine starts at Augusta, Perry never had appeared in the interview room before his second-round 67. No one ever wanted to talk to him except, maybe, his hometown newspaper. And he knew exactly what was coming Friday -- first question, bomb drive down the middle of the fairway, even before he could take his first sip from a water bottle with an Augusta Nationalized logo.

"Kenny," said an interrogator, his sarcasm knife sharpened, "I guess we can assume now that you are focusing on the majors and not the Presidents Cup."

"Good question," said Perry, chuckling. "Definitely, yeah. I told y'all earlier this year that I was going to play all four majors this year. The Presidents Cup is not in Kentucky. We are after the majors this year."



So the big story, apparently, will be his duel with Campbell, the hanging Chad in this drama. He was the player named by his peers, in a Sports Illustrated poll, as the most likely "Next Big Thing." Problem was, the survey was taken in 2003. He has won four times since and played on three U.S. Ryder Cup teams, but to be a Next Big Thing, you must win a major. He has teased us twice -- in 2006, he led the Masters after two rounds before stumbling, tying for third and watching Mickelson win; in 2003, he battled Shaun Micheel down the stretch of the PGA Championship and lost by two strokes. Otherwise, he hasn't been the Next Big Thing as much as the Next Hal Sutton, another highly celebrated player who never reached his potential. In his golfing midlife, Campbell may never have a better chance to win a major again.

"I don't pay that much attention to it," he said of unfulfilled expectations. "I obviously have not done as much as I would like to since I've been on tour, but I'm only 34. I have a little ways to go, so hopefully I can win a few more times before I'm done."

Could it be Campbell, a low-key sort with a moon face who looks like a big teddy bear, lacks the ego to be a star? He's a family man who loves the Dallas Cowboys and helped pay his way through UNLV by working in a Vegas coffee shop. His hometown of Andrews is in the middle of oil country, somewhere between Lubbock and Midland, not far from the New Mexico border. Roy (Tin Cup) McAvoy and a lot of armadillos live nearby. "I've never been, like, big and high-profile or supposed to win the majors or anything," he said. "I never saw myself in that aspect, or having to come to the media room before tournaments or anything. I never really saw myself like that. It's all been the same the whole time in my career."

Nerves, too, have been an issue. How much of the weekend challenge will be managing his mental condition? "I think a lot of it," he said. "You've definitely got to be very patient and stay positive. I mean, I'm going to have some bad holes. I'm probably going to make some bogeys -- hopefully not -- but you can't get too down when you do.

"You always get a little nervous when you're leading any tournament -- or I do, anyway. But I take nerves as being a good thing. I'm going to be nervous tomorrow. That's just the way it is. I mean, I was nervous yesterday. First hole, I was nervous today. I actually like being nervous. It means that you are intense and you care with what happens. Sometimes you get out there and you're teeing off and you're not nervous, you sometimes get a little lazy and lackadaisical and just kind of go through the motions."

He'll face a steely competitor in Perry, who has won 10 times in his 40s but still hasn't snagged a major. His best Masters performance was a 12th-place finish in 1995; this is only the fourth time he has made the cut. His peers always have raved about his driving ability, but now, he has located his putting stroke and has won four times the past two seasons. Specifically, the secret is a new putter. Two years ago, Perry was practicing at his club in Vero Beach, Fla., when a fellow member, Paul Hargarten, gave him Ping Craz-e putter. Perry has used it ever since, even with Hargarten's name still on the shaft. "The face is real dead. At my age, I have a little firing mechanism that wants to shoot the ball a little bit. Well, the face is so dead on this putter, the ball won't take off very fast when you hit it. Ever since he gave me that putter, I have putted beautifully. If I do ever get excited or something, I don't really knock it way by the hole like I used to. It's just given me a lot of confidence."

The pressure on Perry to win the Ryder Cup -- or, at least, perform well -- was immense. He knows what was being written and said about him. But dealing with that pressure, and beating it, could serve him well this weekend. "It ought to be very similar. I laid all my cards on the line that week," he said. "I put it all out on the line, being in front of my home -- I mean, I could have been a dog that week and went 0-and-5 or 0-and-4 or whatever and not won a point. I put all of the pressure I could put on myself.

"It was basically a mulligan. People remember my debacle at the PGA, how I screwed that up and all of Kentucky remembered me for that. I was throwing it out there and I was going for broke. I was either going to hit a home run or I was going to get thrown out. And it went my way. Things went my way. I played great. It was probably one of the greatest three days of my life ball-striking-wise. Very similar to the way I'm hitting right here."

Hmmm. Imagine a Ryder Cup, My-Country-'Tis-of-Thee moment last autumn, followed by a green jacket as his first major title?

"You know what? Everything is a bonus now, it really is," Perry said. "I'm just going through each and every day enjoying life a little bit. I think I can win. You know I'm not going out there very casually. I'm still burning inside, wanting to kick everybody's butt. I've got a will inside of me that my dad taught me. He beat on me so bad as a kid and any kind of game -- sport, whatever -- he beat me so bad, I cried all the time because he just beat on me. And then he would laugh in my face as he was doing it.

"He was a smart man. He taught me a lot. At the Ryder Cup, when he came up and gave me that hug, I told him that was the greatest gift I could ever have given him. That was pretty special for us as a father and son. Everything is just going great. I understand what I'm trying to do, what I'm trying accomplish. Can I? I think I can. I really believe I can win this tournament. Will I? I don't know."

Along the way, Perry's father always has told him, "You need to win that green jacket." Kenny never bought into it completely. "Not really. I think the public looks at you and says you need to win a major, but for me, to where I came from, the roots I had and my upbringing, to come from a nine-hole golf course in the middle of nowhere?" he said. "I didn't have swing coaches. I didn't have this entourage. I didn't have the money. I didn't have anything. I was borrowing money, begging, doing whatever I could, scratching and clawing to get out here. It means a lot more to me, I think, because of where I've come from and where I've been able to go and how much success I've been able to have. To me, that's very satisfying and very gratifying.

"Now, everybody looks at winning majors as very important, and I would agree. You know, people look at your stats. They are going to say, you need to win majors if you are going to be the upper echelon of the PGA Tour players out there, of the winners. But I've had a great career. And I'd be very satisfied if it ended today, where I'm at in my life, in my career. The Ryder Cup, I can't express to y'all how much that meant to me. To me, that was the ultimate of anything I have ever been a part of or accomplished, be it any of my 13 wins. None of those meant anything compared to what I experienced that week with my family, my dad.

"But Dad has always said, 'You need to win that green jacket.' He always calls me and tells me."

Um, Tiger who?