Rough start for Masters champion
By Melanie Hauser, PGATOUR.COM Correspondent
IRVING Texas -- How do you go from Masters champion to an opening 78 the next time you tee it up in competition?
It's pretty simple, really.
Trevor Immelman finally ran out of gas.
After all the interviews, the jet-setting, the well-wishers, the offers, the please-play-our-tournaments, the no-down-time, Immelman hit the wall in Thursday's opening round of the EDS Byron Nelson Championship.
One minute he was teeing off on the 10th hole, the next, his game was gone with the blustery winds.
"You know, you've got to play real well to shoot a good score out here today, and I didn't have any of that going,'' Immelman said. "I hit a few three putts and I hit some bad shots, hit a ball out of bounds. I had nothing going for me. So all in all, it was a pretty bad day out there today.''
Especially at the 15th -- his sixth hole -- where the wind was whipping off the left and he tried to hit a draw and hold it in the fairway. He wound up with a triple bogey.
"I just snap hooked it, caught the trees, went out of bounds,'' he said. "And then I hit a pretty good next one, but I ended up making a 7 there, which really set me back. "
Immelman turned in 41, then bogeyed three of the first five holes on the front and was 9 over after 14 holes. Birdies at the sixth and seventh helped, but he bogeyed the ninth to finish at 8 over.
"I just feel like I've just run out of gas,'' he said. "As hard as I was trying to knuckle down, I just couldn't quite get it together.''
As Immelman was signing his scorecard that life-altering Sunday night at Augusta National, his wife Carminita told a Masters official she was sending son Jacob back to the house because they'd be pretty busy for the next few hours.
The Augusta National member smiled. "You're going to be busy for the next couple of years," he said.
The 10 days have been whirlwind; two days in New York, followed by more requests. Not to mention, he said, a need to sit down and look at his schedule and get a bit of advice from some other major champions.
"I'm obviously real tired,'' he said. "I've been trying to get as much sleep as I can, as well as obviously running around and doing things like this. You know, I think what I've got to do is figure out a way to balance it all so that I can feel like I get to tournaments feeling fresh and ready to go.''
Every first-time major winner goes through the crush and all of them have to find a way to re-balance their lives. And, of course, not fall victim to what the older players know as the Bill Rogers syndrome. Rogers ran himself ragged after winning the 1981 British Open and was never really the same player.
Immelman, who didn't consider backing out of his commitment to the EDS Byron Nelson Championship, will also play the Wachovia Championship and THE PLAYERS Championship, giving him three straight events filled with media requests. And then, he hopes, a little rest.
"I'm going to find out from some guys how they went about it,'' Immelman said. "But yeah, we've got a lot of things coming in right now, and obviously I'm really appreciative and thankful for that. It's flattering for people to want me to come to their events. But I've got to sit down and figure out what's going to work best for me.''
And Thursday's round? Most everyone was affected, not only by the winds, but also by the layout renovated by D.A. Weibring over the last 12 months. No one knows the course, not even the 20-year veterans.
"The course is playing real tough today, it's playing long, windy and it's really tricky out there,'' Immelman said. "The greens, the way they're designed, you have to hit the ball to certain areas, otherwise you're going to be putting over big slopes. Especially with as wet as it was today, it was playing pretty long. So I think even without the wind, the course would be challenging."
He paused and finally allowed himself a tired smile.
"But let's be honest, when does the wind not blow in Texas?"
With that, he headed off, presumably for a little rest.
"You know, just unfortunately I didn't have it with me today,'' he said.
"Hopefully I can go out there and shoot a good round tomorrow."
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