Friday, August 31, 2001
Golf rabbit's tale: Have van, will travel
MASON — After tooling around looking for a cheaper room, Doug Johnson pulled the Chevy conversion van up to a local motel where, hopefully, the bed in his room had a firm mattress.
The van sagged from its 200,000 miles and the weight of Johnson's three sets of irons, 20 putters, 20 woods and half a dozen wedges. When you drive from qualifying tournament to qualifying tournament and you haven't been home since February, you pack your life and hope it fits behind the front seat.
Soon, Johnson would drive over to The Golf Center at Kings Island, to pick up the courtesy Cadillac he'd be using the rest of the week. All the players get them. Just for playing here. It is a great
country.
For the record, Doug Johnson is a nut.
“I'd never tell anybody to do what I do,” he says. “I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy.”
Also for the record, he loves it: “If they told me to quit, I couldn't.”
He is what the regular Tour used to call a rabbit. Before the young guys got soft and went to the all-exempt Tour, 100 or so players would arrive every Monday at the tournament site, to play 18 qualifying holes. The four best got spots in the main event.
The Senior Tour still does this. And 100 guys, give or take, are still there, every Monday, teeing it up with the minuscule hope this is the week. Please, Lord, let this be the week.
Johnson is a Monday regular. Heck, he's the Monday regular. Since he turned pro in 1976, Johnson has played in more Monday qualifiers than Titleist. The man went to PGA Tour qualifying school 19 times. Last fall, at age 50, he went to Senior Q-school.
To be exempt from qualifying as a Senior, you have to win. Johnson hasn't. The best he has done in his rookie Senior season is 14th twice. So every Monday, he's on some course, trying to qualify. It's all he knows.
He drives, generally. One of Johnson's goals this year is to make enough money to buy a new van. Another is “not to run all over town to save $7 on a room.”
He made the Kroger Senior Classic field by shooting a 69 Monday at Beckett Ridge, then winning a one-hole playoff. Ninety-nine players competed. The Kroger will be Johnson's seventh tournament this year.
It's funny. You watch these Seniors, these older, often heavier versions of yourself, half of them with names you've never heard of, and you think:
I could do that.
You say: “I am 40 years old. I am a three-handicapper now. Give me 10 years of practice, I will win $1 million by the time I'm 51. I, too, can be John Bland.”
It's not like that. “I've been a journeyman for 25 years,” Johnson says. He played in 81 regular Tour events; the best he finished was seventh, 21 years ago.
“I've probably stuck around more than any human being out here. Nobody has had (my) lack of success and kept his nose to it,” says Johnson.
This week, Mason. Next week, Des Moines.
“Somebody said to me, Guts is not standing over a 3-footer,” Johnson says. “It's being out here 25 years and packing the van again.” He's driving a Caddy this week. A sweet ride. But temporary.
E-mail: pdaugherty@enquirer.com. Past columns at Enquirer.com/columns/daugherty.
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Golf rabbit's tale: Have van, will travel
