Sindelar: Trying new things on the Champions Tour

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Editor's note: Joey Sindelar is approaching the end of his rookie season the Champions Tour and is currently tied for 36th after two rounds of the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship. Sindelar also returned to his home state of New York for the Turning Stone Resort Championship on the PGA TOUR last week, where he tied for 68th. In his latest blog, Sindelar shares his thoughts on the PGA TOUR from his new perspective as a Champions Tour player. He also says he's still learning on the Champions Tour and is thinking about making some long-awaited changes.

MORE BLOGS FROM JOEY'S ROOKIE YEAR: My fond memories of Pebble Beach | Playing near home | Senior PGA Championship | Having a blast out here | My Champions Tour debut

TIMONIUM, Md. -- It was a lot of fun going back to the PGA TOUR last week. That was the first time I'd done so since I joined the Champions Tour. It's hard to explain the differences. The PGA TOUR is clearly much more ... well, I don't know the proper word exactly. Serious isn't quite it because guys out here take it seriously. But, on the PGA TOUR, when you look up and down the range, everyone seems to be working harder or more desperately, grinding on trying to be best players in the world. Also, it's that time of the year on the PGA TOUR where, with just a few events to go, the vice was tightening. You could sense that.

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Joey Sindelar is tied for 36th after two rounds of the Constellation Energy Senior Players Championship.

Another thing that struck me was that there are even more young guys out there that I don't know. I didn't think it was that bad this winter before I joined the Champions Tour in late March. Just a few months ago, there were only a few guys I didn't know. Last week I bet I didn't know half the guys out there. The real irony is that it doesn't seem that long ago they were saying that about us when we arrived. I can remember the older guys going, "I don't know anybody anymore."

Turning Stone is a beautiful place and we caught very difficult weather. It was interesting -- the course wasn't unfair by any means, but they didn't back off. It was like, this is the golf course, these are the conditions, play it. It was a big, long golf course and so many guys out there can just play great golf. I think 8 under led after the first two days in weather that was nearly impossible. That's some of the best golf I've seen this year.

It was also fun because there were just a number of guys saying welcome back and asking what it was like out on the Champions Tour. It's funny, there's a certain group of them over there that want to know what it's like here. Now that I'm back on the Champions Tour, I've been teased about being over there. Both groups seem to want to know what's going on. Tom Pernice, he's going to be out here soon, and we spent some time talking about the Champions Tour. Harrison Frazar, Tim Herron, some guys like that asked me about my time out here. I kept saying, 'Don't be in a hurry, you're only in your late 30s,' but when you do get out here, you're going to love it.

I didn't play great golf but I made the cut and I carried the banner reasonably well for the Champions Tour. Of course, Fred Funk's been doing that, Bernhard Langer's been doing that. I think the guys over there get a kick out of it. Actually, I think both sides do. That side definitely knows these guys on the Champions Tour can still play golf.

It's funny -- golf is a strange game. There certainly are things we older guys can lend advice on when we visit with some of the younger TOUR golfers but strangely, it's never advice on the golf swing. It's how you navigate through this maze. How do you deal with the ebbs and flows, the back and forth in your career? How do you take those bad times and lessen the importance of them? I've had to think this through, since our oldest boy Jamie just started playing golf in college. What I would tell him has a lot more to do with those kind of topics than actual ball-striking stuff.

These kids are awesome. They all hit it so great, they know that part. It's just the grind of being out there that's tough. Sometimes that leaderboard seems like it's not even on the same golf course. I know those feelings full well out there on the PGA TOUR. You'll be in Palm Springs and look up and think,' What do you mean they are 9 under after 15 holes?' Then you get going and think, 'How could I possibly not be on that leaderboard because everything feels good?' That's the kind of advice I have given some of the younger guys -- hang in there, play hard and, most importantly, do what you do. Don't be trying to do what everybody else does. That doesn't mean you don't pull little things from other people here and there and maybe experiment a little but always remember to be yourself.

As for my season, along the lines of what I just wrote about, I'm trying to not expect anything. One thing I've learned in my career is that, if the expectations get too far in front, we like to stub our toe. Certainly you have to have goals and I definitely want to be in the Charles Schwab Cup Championship since I hear it's a great event. It comes at the end of the year and, unlike a tournament of champions at the beginning of the year, this is more a retrospective. You can think, 'We did it, we're in the top 30.' Still, it's not a breather by any means because it's a big tournament that everybody would love to win. I'm hoping to make it, too, because it's in a very pretty place and I've never been to that part of the world.

Here's something you might not know -- one of the perks of finishing in 25th or better on the money list, which is close to where I am right now, is that you only have to play in one pro-am each week for the next year. Don't get me wrong, I love the pro-ams. I've played two in all of the available weeks this year and have learned the new courses more quickly that way. But it's unusual for me to leave home on Tuesday and not tee it up for the tournament until Friday. It gets the week out of balance a little bit. So for guys who play well enough, I think it's a nice reward to play one pro-am, just the day-before pro-am. It also means you can catch two days at home by leaving on Wednesday. For those of us who love to run home to our family or to fishing or whatever, that's a nice perk for finishing in the mid-20s on the money list. Plus, we all have contract stuff that depends on money list finishes.

I would still love to win a tournament this year, though. I'm playing really well tee to green but need to get the ball in the hole quicker. I'm working really hard on that. A win would be fun and, of course, if that happens it would change the beginning of next year. As of right now, the way the schedule falls, I wouldn't begin playing until February, which is not a problem with me because I love home so much. If I win, I think we start up in the middle of January.

Sometimes I make the mistake of forgetting that not all the guys are here on career money exemption. I'm lucky enough to be in that category and, barring injury, I'm going to be able to play for a number of years out here. That's a great feeling. On the PGA TOUR, unless you're a current winner, you can fall off the edge of the world at any point. I can remember back being in my mid 30s when your kids are young, you wonder what life is all about. You have those feelings of, what's going on? You're so far from the Champions Tour it doesn't seem realistic and you have to grind it out.

Now, at least for a bunch of us, it's very different. You still want to play your best and win tournaments but the fact of the matter is I'm not going to fall off the edge of the world. In that respect, it's been a different and experimental year. I'm very hardheaded. I've been very unwilling to experiment throughout my career. I think I might have gotten scared in the beginning watching guys who were always trying things and all of the sudden poof, they were gone. I always worried if you tried too many things you'd get off base and you might not get back to home base to do your job and be eligible. Now I can look at it differently. This year I've tried different short game things I used to be very stubborn on. I'm considering changing putting styles and I never would have before.

I'd still use a short putter, two hands on the putter. I wouldn't use a belly putter or anything like that. I've always used a very, very heavy putter and it's served me well. I was a very good short putter on the TOUR from about eight feet in for a very long time. But it becomes very apparent out here, especially where these guys are on offense that, if you don't make a lot of birdies out here, you aren't going to win tournaments. The scores are low and that means you have to make putts from 8 to 25 feet on the hot weeks and I'm not so I'm going to back to a much more conventional, much lighter, more typical weight putter with a little more loft and a more conventional style. I'll mess with it a little bit -- it's kind of the fun of where I am in my golf life that I can do that and not be scared to death.

It's just little bitty things but they are monumental to me because I've been so deep in my own tracks that I've been unwilling to move. The mentality is different out here.