The most significant golf event of 1997 was Tiger Woods’ demolition of the field at the Masters en route to his first major championship. With fist-pumping intensity, Woods burst into the sport with a fury.
Later that year, another prodigy with a completely different personality emerged. When Matt Kuchar won the 1997 U.S. Amateur, fans were drawn to the slow-walking, slow-talking, quick-smiling Georgia Tech sophomore.
When Kuchar tees off in the BMW Championship at Cog Hill in Lemont, Ill., on Thursday morning, it will be at the same course where he won 13 years ago and established his easy-going persona.
“It’s great. The people inside the locker room still remember me, still get big smiles on their face,” Kuchar told reporters. “It’s kind of a fun homecoming for me to see those old faces.”
It’s interesting Kuchar would speak of the smiles of others. When he emerged as the low amateur at both the 1998 Masters and U.S. Open, it was his own Howdy Doody grin that was his trademark.
More than a decade later and after several seasons of struggles, including a one-year stay on the Nationwide Tour (2006) and seven straight missed cuts on the PGA Tour (2008), Kuchar has every reason to smile.
Two weeks ago, he won the Barclays, the opening tournament of the FedEx Cup playoffs. This year he ranks No. 1 in scoring (69.6), earnings ($4.4 million), top-10 finishes (10), scrambling and all-around, a measure that combines eight performance categories.
“I just feel like I’ve made a steady improvement, and it’s amazing how a little bit goes a long way out here,” Kuchar said. “The margins of who makes it big, who makes it, who just misses it, those are small margins. So it’s not a huge jump, but I’ve made small jumps the last four years.”
Kuchar’s improvement was sparked four years ago by a switch to a flatter swing plane. Last year at the Turning Stone, he notched his first victory in seven years. This year has been transcendent for Kuchar, who is first in FedEx Cup points. The playoff winner will take home $10 million.
A week after the final FedEx Cup event, Kuchar will play in his first Ryder Cup.
“Very excited. Ryder Cup, gosh, really was something that I thought was outside of my realm for a couple years,” Kuchar said. “I didn’t even see the Ryder Cup as being a reasonable goal for me. I was a guy that only a year or two ago was trying to make sure I kept my [PGA Tour] card.”
