DeCorso suddenly a major force on the Nationwide Tour

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Bryan DeCorso is a quick study. Or at the very least, this veteran of way too many mini-tours to mention and way too many forgettable failures in PGA TOUR qualifying tournaments has become one in the last month.

Bryan DeCorso has finished in the top five in each of his last two Nationwide starts. (Getty Images)

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DeCorso wins in Valdosta

Need proof about this startling transformation?

Suddenly this meek, mild and cut-missing Clark Kent of a professional golfer, a virtual rookie on the Nationwide Tour, has unloosed Superman, finishing a personal-best fourth in the Henrico County Open last week and then out-doing himself by rolling to a convincing victory in the South Georgia Classic on Sunday.

This would be kind of a ho-hum happening if DeCorso wasn't 36 going on 37; if he had won at least one 72-hole event in the last 11 seasons; if he wasn't playing learn-as-you-go golf over the course of the last month, and if he didn't have the good sense to take what he learned from the only time he was in serious contention in a Nationwide Tour event and apply it the following week as he bested a pair of PGA TOUR veterans, Greg Owen and Bryce Molder, in South Georgia.

Given that most unusual set of circumstances, DeCorso's rapid ascent into a player to be reckoned with deserves a WOW!

Here's a guy who quit the professional golf grind three times to do real 9-to-5 work, like contracting, event planning, caddying and commentating for The Golf Channel. Here's a guy who hardly broke an egg on the dog-eat-dog mini-tour circuit. Here's a guy who finally realized his golf game was broken four weeks ago and has completely overhauled it and resuscitated a career on life support in the speed-reading span of a month's time.

Now he's a champion on the Nationwide Tour. Now he's No. 4 among 'The 25' on the Nationwide Tour, thanks to his $112,000 winner's check, which is only $107,163 more than he won on the Tour in 10 starts in two previous seasons.

Pardon the repetition, but ... WOW!

The brand new Bryan DeCorso started hatching on the Nationwide Tour's annual off week during the Masters. DeCorso joined several other pros, including Garrett Willis, Chris DiMarco and Fulton Allem, in Florida for a little R&R and a few money games in order to maintain that competitive edge.

It just so happened that DeCorso ran into instructor Carl Rabito and one of his teaching disciples, Greg Towne, while there. DeCorso knew Towne from the beatings he took from him on the mini-tours. He decided on the spot Towne would become his new instructor.

"When can I see you?'' he inquired.

"Monday morning on the range,'' was Towne's reply.

Rabito also attended the four-hour session in which drastic changes were made. "We probably changed 17 or 18 things,'' Towne said. "Bryan is smart and willing to listen. He processed the information quickly.''

Considering a laundry list of alterations were made involving DeCorso's setup, spine tilt, hip slide, position of his right shoulder on the backswing, etc., etc., etc., that's saying more than a mouthful. But DeCorso remembers the excitement in Rabito's voice when he applied the changes and began pounding golf balls.

"He said, 'He's getting it. He's getting it,'" DeCorso said. And to think he basically was learning how to swing again.

"It was totally new to me,'' he said. "I told them to mold me like a piece of clay.''

Mold they did. In seemingly record time, too, a fact that flies in the face of conventional swing-change wisdom, where it takes lots of practice range toil, trouble and time to unearth a finished product. Or that's what DeCorso thought.

"I went into the swing change thinking long term,'' he said.

Whoops. Already DeCorso has graduated magna cum loudly. And here's the good news.

"We're not finished with this guy yet,'' Towne said, hinting at an even bigger upside for his work-in-progress pupil.

You certainly won't hear DeCorso, who was about as obscure as players come two weeks ago, complaining. He's on the joy ride of a lifetime and doesn't want it to end until he reaches his goal of competing on the PGA TOUR. His steep learning curve suggests anything is possible.

Oh by the way, consider another valuable lesson DeCorso learned from his first brush with Sunday's final pairing the week before his victory. He entered with a share of the lead, shot 74 and allowed three players -- champion Greg Chalmers, runner-up Henrik Bjornstad and Neal Lancaster -- to rush past him. He lost the lead on the 10th hole, missing a putt for par that would be a gimme in most games.

"It was a short putt where I just lost patience," DeCorso said. "My pre-shot routine was fast and my shot was fast. I didn't get down and negative, I just got fast."

DeCorso acknowledged his mistake many times in Georgia, perhaps as a reminder that he could not afford to have it happen again in the heat of battle.

"You can learn from everything,'' he said. "I was in contention last week and I got quick.''

There were times on Sunday when DeCorso caught himself starting to rush. Only this time he slowed down. The end result was he hit quality shot after quality shot coming home in a beyond-satisfying, four-stroke romp.

"At this moment in time, this is the greatest accomplishment in my golf career,'' he said.

Notice that the quick study qualified the triumph, allowing himself some wiggle room for what lurks in his suddenly bright future.

WOW!