With new attitude, Villegas on verge of breakthrough
By Helen Ross, PGATOUR.COM Chief of Correspondents
NORTON, Mass. -- Camilo Villegas listened with great interest last week when Vijay Singh talked about how he had convinced himself he was the best putter in the world.
After all, Singh had just won The Barclays, earning his second victory in three starts. Turns out Villegas made a similar attitude adjustment earlier this year, and he'd like nothing better than for it to pay off like Singh's did with a win at the Deustche Bank Championship on Monday.
Villegas put himself in position for the first victory of his PGA TOUR career when he fired a 63 at TPC Boston to move within a stroke of the leader, Mike Weir, at 16 under. And he did it with a red-hot putter -- taking just 22, to be exact -- in the second event of the PGA TOUR Playoffs for the FedExCup.
"You get the media here that talks, oh, he's not a great putter and then somebody tells him he's not a great putter and then all of a sudden it just gets in your head," Villegas explained. "(Vijay) decided to tell himself that he's the best putter in the world, and this worked last week.
"Starting this year I decided to tell myself something similar to what Vijay told himself last week, that I'm a great putter and that I'm a lot better than people think and people write."
Villegas certainly grabbed the headlines on Sunday. His 63 matched the one Ben Crane shot earlier in the day, but it came on a course that was firming up considerably on a windy afternoon. He made birdie putts of 15, 3, 3, 20, 12, 12, 3 and 10 feet and didn't drop a shot to par.
"I thought today if you shoot 66, 65 maybe, it was a great round," Sergio Garcia said. "I didn't really see a 63 towards the afternoon. Obviously in the morning it was a little bit softer and it was a little bit easier to shoot it. He played nicely and probably made a couple of nice putts coming in."
Villegas has played nicely, as Garcia put it, when it counted, too. He missed the cut at The Barclays last week and dropped 26 spots in the FedExCup standings. Ranked 68th when he came to the TPC Boston, he was hardly a lock for next week's third Playoff event, and Villegas needed another attitude adjustment.
"With this crazy points system, anything can happen," he explained. "And last week happened to be the worst cut of the year to miss, and I missed by one. So I got penalized ... but I came out here this week with a good attitude and forgot about what happened -- forgot about those that are taking benefit of the points system, forgot about those that are being hurt by the points system and just took care of business.
"I'm in next week, and hopefully I'll have a great round tomorrow and we make it a very special week."
The abundantly- talented 26-year-old has made steady progress in three years on the PGA TOUR -- just as he did when he came to the United States as a teenager, speaking little English, to play at Florida. He went on to graduate with a degree in business and posted a GPA as impressive as his scoring average, earning both academic and athletic All-American honors.
"I could understand more than I could speak it, and it was more because of just being a little shy," Villegas said. "Then one day I said, you know what, hell with it, I'm just going to open my mouth, and whatever comes out, comes out. If somebody is going to make fun of me, and I'll say, hey, instead of laughing at me why don't you tell me the correct way of saying it?
"That's exactly what I did with my teammates, with my coaches and with everybody around, and when I turned my attitude around, they said, this guy is not messing around, we won't make fun of him, but instead we'll just teach him. And I got better."
Villegas learned to manage his time in Gainesville, just as he has come to understand that he doesn't necessarily need to pound practice balls unless he's struggling in some aspect of his game. He's toned down the workouts that produced that toned body -- a little bit, at least -- because he found he wasn't as rested as he should be when it came time to perform on the weekend.
"I've always known that I'm a good player, but I've always believed that I can improve," Villegas said. "I'm not one of those guys that make like big changes in my swing or just drastic stuff. I like to take it one step at a time. I've been getting better and better every year, and like I said, that's one of my goals. We'll keep working to continue it that way and become one of the best players in the world."
Villegas is well on his way. He's working on his sixth million already and he has 15 top-10 finishes, including four this year, two of which came at the U.S. Open and PGA Championship. But, yes, there's that gap on his resume -- and it doesn't help when he sees other young players like 23-year-old Anthony Kim or 27-year-old Andres Romero break through with theirs.
"I was very, very patient until maybe middle of this year, where I worked with somebody and I looked at him, and I said, listen, you know what, I see all these young guys winning, and it's kind of getting into me, but it's getting into me in a good way," Villegas said.
"It's time to step it up and give a little kick on my butt and join them. So I've been working on that. But again, it's a process. Some guys win right away when they get on TOUR and never win again, and some guys it takes a while and win many times after that, and hopefully I'm one of those guys."
Garcia, who trails Weir by three and Villegas by two, knows the Colombian can be a force.
"I've played plenty of practice rounds with Camilo," Garcia said. "We all know how good of a player he is. He's still a youngster, but we all feel like with the chances he's had he probably should have won once or twice by now. But, it's not easy out there. There's a lot of guys trying and it happens to all of us.
"He's going to have a chance tomorrow and we'll see what happens."
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