THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 7, 1996 TAG: 9607070283
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JIM DUCIBELLA, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 89 lines
There were people who said we would never know how much winning United States Open championships in 1988 and '89 took out of Curtis Strange.
They were wrong. We know.
There were people who said marriage, fatherhood, home and hearth would never get in the way of Strange's career aspirations.
They were wrong, too. They do.
There were people who swore that Strange's focus on golf would never cloud over, that self-doubt would never replace self-confidence.
Evidently, they didn't really know the Norfolk native and Kingsmill touring pro. It has.
This is no longer just a slump that Strange endures, a temporary lapse that soon will drift away. It's been seven years since his last victory - and it goes much deeper than work ethic. Strange practices as hard and as often as ever. He says he still loves standing on the range hitting every club in his bag.
He believes there will be a breakthrough someday. But until it happens, not winning, not even contending, is a way of life for the player who willed himself to the top at The Country Club in 1988 and Oak Hill a year later.
``Let's face it, I couldn't keep the drive I had forever,'' Strange said recently. ``You burn out. Your priorities change. I still love the game, I still want to play, but it's not life or death like it once was.''
Frankly, from a real-life vantage point, none of this is bad. No matter what happens, Strange has left his mark on the game, one of a handful of players to win consecutive Opens, not to mention his 15 other victories.
Nothing's suffered at home. He's a loving husband, devoted father, a guy more than willing to man his shift of the neighborhood carpool. It's a high-wire act that Strange seems able, and delighted, to do on one foot.
He remains one of the PGA Tour's most sought-after interviews because he offers honest answers and opinions and that's refreshing in this dull-and-duller time of first-time winners and sponsor sermons. That got the ear of ABC, which already made him one offer several years ago. It wouldn't take a lot of arm-twisting for any of the networks to put another proposal on the table.
So this isn't a let's-feel-sorry-for-Curtis column. On a scale of 1 to 10, Strange's life is a 12 and rising.
But another Kingsmill week starts Monday, and that means the annual week of Questions for Curtis. At seven years and counting, almost none of the queries will deal with how peachy-keen his game is. Quite the contrary.
There's only one place to go with Strange these days - The Wall.
``There's a point in every round where you have to be tough enough to work through it, a point in every tournament where there's a wall you have to climb,'' Strange said. ``If you do, you'll be successful that week. If you don't, you fall out.
``When I don't get through, I'm ashamed of myself. And that's the one part of my play I'm really not happy with.''
You ask for an example. He points to Saturday at this year's Memorial Tournament. Strange fashions an eagle on the 11th hole to pull within three strokes of the lead. He's feeling good, playing better, then - BAM!
``I hit a couple of semi-shots, got upset and went south,'' he says. ``I tried to kill a drive on one hole and made triple-bogey. Mentally, I'm in and out. I'm finding out exactly how important the mental side is.''
The Wall comes up week after week after week on the PGA Tour. At one stretch earlier this season, Strange hit it 10 times and missed the cut on seven of them, including five in a row.
``Part of my problem is I don't have any specific goals,'' he said. ``I never put them on paper, but I always knew what they were - finish high on the money list, contend in tournaments, be a factor on the Tour.''
But now, he says: ``I'm non-existent out here as a contender or a competitor. My heart never beats faster, my blood never flows harder. And that's the fun of it. It's not just being out here, but being out here and competing.''
Yet ask Curtis Strange what part of it he would trade - the U.S. Opens, his marriage, their children. Then you might want to duck, because all of those pieces of his good life are priceless compared to future goals and want-to.
At the Open last month, Sarah Strange was watching amateur Randy Leen, her husband's playing partner and owner of a remarkably peppy walking stride that seemed to get him to his shots almost before they landed.
``That's the way we used to be, I guess way back when,'' she told a companion.
She didn't say it wistfully, as though she had a burning need to turn back the clock. She wasn't angry. She said it the way some people accept gray hair as a symbol of wisdom and experience and, for cryin' out loud, just the way that life goes.
Why long for the past when the present is better that you ever could have imagined? ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Working hard at the game, hungry to compete, Curtis Strange can't
pretend he is the force he once was: ``You burn out. Your priorities
change . . . It's not life or death like it once was.'' by CNB