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Lake Buena Vista, FL – Former EGOLF Tarheel Tour players Tommy “Two Gloves” Gainey, who finished fourth on the tour’s money list in 2007 and second in 2006, finished runner-up at the PGA Tour’s season-ending Children’s Miracle Network Classic and resurrected a season full of more downs than ups.
Gainey entered the event well outside the top 200 on the PGA Tour money list and even further outside the top 150, where at worst conditional status would await him for 2009. An otherwise forgettable year had come down to one week and one last chance to make anything happen.
After making three of his first six cuts on the PGA Tour this year, Gainey missed 13 straight cuts during a stretch in which he only broke 70 twice. A caddie change midway through that stretch hoped to bring about some much needed improvement, but more of the same seemed to lie ahead for the Bishopville, SC native who gained plenty of fame on two editions of The Golf Channel’s “Big Break” series. The drought finally ended with a T43 finish at the Turning Stone Resort Championship and another T43 finish two weeks later at the Frys.com Open, where he found himself in the top 15 with one round to play before falling back with a final-round 71. While this showed marked improvement over the middle of his 2008 campaign, it surely did not point to any final-event heroics that would make the golf world stand up and pay attention. Little did they know.
Gainey entered the final round at Disney trailing former EGOLF Tarheel Tour player Steve Marino and Scott Verplank by three shots and in the next-to-last pairing with journeyman Scott Sterling and Robert Garrigus. Perhaps being in the invisible threesome admidst the stars of the PGA Tour paid off as Gainey finally seemed comfortable chasing his way up the leaderboard. Three birdies on the front nine of the Magnolia Course were offset by a lone bogey at the par-3 sixth as Gainey went to the closing nine more on the outside than in the mix – but all of that would quickly change.
Birdies at 10, 11, 13 and 14 skyrocketed the mini-tour legend up the leaderboard and into the fight with Davis Love III, who was in the final pairing with Marino and Verplank and seeking his first Tour win since the 2006 Wyndham Championship. With two holes left to play and standing at six-under on his round, Gainey had to make something happen.
“I just tried to hit the fairway and then tried to hit it as close to the hole as possible and then tried to make the putt. Try to make birdie birdie and then see what happens,” said Gainey in reflection.
Birdie-birdie is exactly what he did as he coaxed an 8-iron to 15 feet on the par-4 17th and a 9-iron to four feet on the par-4 18th and was able to convert both to finish the event at 24-under-par and move quickly to the driving range to prepare for a possible playoff with Love.
For Love, an errant approach at the last left the 19-time PGA Tour winner with an arduous up-and-down to avoid a playoff with a man better known by his nickname than his real name. But Gainey heard a roar that told him his fate.
“Oh, man, you could hear the crowd. I mean the crowd said it all, you know. I had, I think it was Jon Brendle over there with me on the range, the rules official, and I told him, I said, you know, when I found out that he hit it like two feet 11 inches or three feet on the number, something like that, I said, ‘he's Davis Love III, he'll make that, no problem.’ So when I found out he got over the putt, I just took my gloves off and got ready to put them back in the bag, because I knew he was going to make that.”
Love made the putt, but it can be argued that Gainey earned the fans. In the midst of the excitement and drama, Tommy Gainey moved from No. 228 to No. 148 on the PGA Tour money list, therefore giving him the conditional status for 2009 that must have seemed like a pipe dream earlier in a year chalked up to nerves and inexperience. In addition to having status, Gainey will avoid going to the second stage of the PGA Tour’s dreaded Qualifying Tournament and will move straight to the finals, where it can be argued that he will be playing on house money.
“I'm real happy to have finished second because I was looking at going to Second Stage next week, and I just found out that I don't have to worry about Second Stage. I can go to Finals. And I'm in the Sony next year. And I think I'm definitely assured of a place to play next year. So I'm definitely happy about that,” said Gainey, who later questioned whether or not he would be able to sleep for a couple of days after an unforgettable week in the Magic Kingdom.
While going toe-to-toe with Davis Love III on the PGA Tour is not exactly the same as outlasting Jonathan Fricke and Andy Bare to capture the 2007 Oldfield Open on the EGOLF Tarheel Tour, at its core it is still just a game. The golf course presents the challenge and sometimes the player is forced to overcome his own personal obstacles. In this instance, Tommy Gainey was able to do just that. |
