Dolch: Hart for Comeback Player of the Year
By Craig Dolch, PGATOUR.COM Contributor
As Dudley Hart lined up a 40-foot birdie putt Sunday on the 18th hole at the BMW Championship, he had a quiet talk with himself. Call it a Hart-to-Hart.
Hart noticed a leaderboard nearby that showed he was tied for third place. He figured he needed no worse than solo third to move into the top 30 in the standings for the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup, so it was no time to play safe.
"I told my caddie, 'If one person passes us, I'm out,'" he said. "'Let's try to give this thing a run, and if it goes by, then I miss, whatever.'"
So, of course, Hart's bomb found the cup as he birdied the last two holes for a back-door, second-place finish, two shots behind Camilo Villegas, that earned him a career-best $756,000 pay day as well as four lovely perks. By moving inside the top 30 (from 67th to 14th), he earned spots in the THE TOUR Championship presented by Coca-Cola, the Masters, the U.S. Open and the World Golf Championships-CA Championship.
These trips aren't taken lightly. The 40-year-old Hart hasn't played in a TOUR Championship since, well, never. He hasn't teed it up at Augusta National since 2001, the U.S. Open since 2004 and the CA Championship since 2000.
This is why Hart is my pick for Comeback Player of the Year. Sure, he hasn't won this year while a more obvious choice -- Kenny Perry -- has three victories.
Hart won't be playing in next week's Ryder Cup like Perry and the other top American stars, either. And you probably won't see much of him the rest of the season.
That only makes the story better, though. Dudley Hart, you see, has his hands full these days. Some days, they're full of cash -- this is the first time in 17 seasons he has cracked the $2 million mark in earnings -- which is quite a good comeback, especially considering where Hart was a year ago this time.
He was busy tending to 6-year-old triplets Ryan, Rachel and Abigail while his wife Suzanne was recovering from a cancer scare when two-thirds of her right lung was removed after a large tumor was found there.
Hart was at THE PLAYERS Championship last year when Suzanne got sick at their Buffalo home, was taken to a hospital by a friend and got the dreaded news. Suddenly, golf meant nothing to him.
"It was a scary time," Hart said. "The tumor had what the doctor said were cancer cells on it but wasn't cancer. Basically, we got very lucky. It was going in a bad direction, but luckily she got sick enough that her cold was a little worse than normal."
So he spent the summer playing Mr. Mom while Suzanne went through her surgery and recovery. Hart might have thought his life-changing moment came when the stork brought him and Suzanne a sleeve of newborns in 2001. But nothing quite prepared him for being a stay-at-home dad.
"It definitely opened my eyes up to what my wife does on a day-to-day basis," Hart says, smiling.
He played just 12 tournaments in 2007, none after May, earning a respectable $299,249. Because that wasn't close to being in the top 125 on the money list to exempt him for the 2008 season, Hart had no idea how much he'd get to play this year, nor was he very worried about it at the time.
With David Duval also missing an extended period because his wife had become bed-ridden during a difficult pregnancy, though, the PGA TOUR decided to add a "family crisis" element to players being granted a Major Medical Extension. While that bought Hart some time, he still had to perform -- he had to earn $485,931 in 15 events this year (to make what the No. 125 finisher earned last year).
Hart wasn't exactly coming back with his "A game," either, considering he:
1) hadn't played in a tournament in eight months
2) Spent the winter working on his indoor putting in Buffalo
3) Was a little too busy with his children to worry about his short game
He always seemed confident he would earn enough money, though. "If I play like I know I can play, I may not play well every week, but I'll have enough decent weeks where that shouldn't be a problem," Hart said in the spring. "I'm hoping that that number is going to be irrelevant, because I'm hoping to have a good year, not just trying to make that next $150,000 or whatever.
That confidence served him well, because it took him only six weeks to keep his card, thanks to a tie for third at the AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am and top-15 finishes at The Honda Classic and the Zurich Classic of New Orleans.
Despite playing in just 20 events this year, Hart has five top-10s -- second-most in his career -- and eight finishes in the top 25. Yes, that's quite a comeback.
More importantly, Suzanne is healthy, and Hart can go back to concentrating on playing golf. But things can never be the same, not when you go through that kind of family crisis.
Hart had a reputation for having a short temper on the course when he was younger. The events of the last 16 months have helped mellow him -- to an extent.
"I don't think what happened last year to my wife really changes how you compete very much," he said. "Once you get inside the ropes, what I've been doing my whole life kind of takes over, that competitive stuff."
In other words, hitting the wrong club or a three-putt still bothers him. But not for as long as they once did.
"I think off the golf course is where that has affected me more," he said. "I don't really carry bad rounds with me as long as I used to. You realize that a lot worse things can happen to you than playing a bad round of golf."
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