The 'real deal' meets the real world  PGATOUR.com Correspondent ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- Matt Thurmond, his coach at the University of Washington, once had this to say about Brock MacKenzie. "Brock will be a very, very good professional player, and you will see him on the PGA TOUR winning tournaments. He's a guy who is as close to a sure thing as you can get.''  Amateur golfer Paige Mackenzie and her brother/caddy Brock during 2005 U.S. Women's Open Championship. (Getty Images)
Former Nationwide Tour player Scott Williams, who is now a club professional in Bellevue, Wash., concurred after watching Mackenzie work his way around a golf course. "He's the real deal.'' So there was the "real deal" a few weeks back, 11 tournaments into his rookie season on the Nationwide Tour and in a confounding place where Thurmond and Williams might not have recognized him. Mackenzie was dazed and confused. He was so low on confidence, he honestly did not know which way was up and had searched high and low for his once promising golf game, reaching a point where he wondered whether he was having an out-of-body experience in every event he entered. "I was extremely frustrated,'' Mackenzie said Thursday, following an opening round 4-under-par 66 in the Xerox Classic that had him within sniffing distance of leaders Hunter Haas and James Driscoll, who matched 64s in perfect scoring conditions on an Irondequoit Country Club course that played firm and fast. "I honestly didn't know if I could beat it. I didn't know if I could keep playing.'' If truth is told, the real deal was having trouble dealing with two little words: missed cut. This is what happens when success has stuck to you like summer humidity in the Deep South, when you've won on the junior, collegiate and national amateur levels, when you didn't need your 'A' game to finish top 10 on the Spanos and Canadian Tours. Mackenzie, 26, simply assumed he'd have a cup of coffee on the Nationwide Tour in 2007 before moving on to bigger purses and better perks on the PGA TOUR in 2008. It was not a safe assumption. "I figured I'd make 90 percent of the cuts, and if I played well, I'd be in contention,'' he said. But at least Mackenzie is learning, albeit the hard way. "I haven't lived up to my expectations,'' he said. One of the beauties of a professional golf season is it is a marathon rather than a sprint. What doesn't work in March might improve in May. And Mackenzie is making strides in mid-August that were unthinkable in mid-April. His bogey-free 66 underlines the fact. Mackenzie's troubles came from an unexpected place -- his short game, chipping in particular. It may sound harsh to say he had the yips whenever he missed a green, but that's the truth, and it hurt at the time. "It was mostly mental,'' he said. "I was standing over my chip shots with negative thoughts in my head, not thinking about where to hit the shot or how hard.'' And it was driving him batty. Drastic times called for drastic measures. Mackenzie and Joe Thiel, his swing instructor, made an appointment with Oklahoma City-based sports psychologist Bill Moore. They met in late May as Mackenzie prepared for the LaSalle Bank Open in suburban Chicago. Moore suggested Mackenzie not worry so much about the result as the process.  Brock Mackenzie was on the 2003 USA Walker Cup team (back row, 3rd from left) at Ganton Golf Club, Ganton in England. (Getty Images) Mackenzie bought in, and, although he didn't make the cut at LaSalle, he left with a glimmer of hope. Three weeks later, the glimmer turned into a warm ray of sunshine when Mackenzie closed with a 65 that was 10 strokes better than the field's average in the final round of the Peek'n Peak Classic. It led to his best finish (solo third) and his biggest paycheck ($40,800) of the season. Consequently, his confidence returned. A tie for ninth and a tie for 20th quickly followed. Now he finds himself in 54th position on the Nationwide Tour money list week, an acceptable slot for the time being but not where Mackenzie, who will take off next week, wants to finish. "Having a good stretch of tournaments definitely has taken the pressure off,'' he said. "It's nice to see some of the hard work pay off. "Golf is fun right now.'' The possibility that there could be more fun over the next three days and even more when the Nationwide Tour swings out west after Mackenzie's break has him stoked for the stretch run. Mackenzie will be in more familiar golf cours surrounding that are similar to the tracks he grew up playing on in and around Yakima, Wash. And he's happy he doesn't have to answer questions from his close friends who would see his scores earlier this season and shiver. "There's such a small difference between having a great tournament and a bad tournament out here,'' he said. "People just don't understand that. There were times this year when I felt like I played well, shot four-under and missed a cut. I was like, 'Holy smokes!' "But I've learned you can't take those missed cuts to heart. You just have to move on.'' All indications suggest the "real deal" has. |
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