After years of struggles, Jones reaping rewards
By Art Spander, Special to PGATOUR.COM
SONOMA, Calif. -- Only a golfer would understand. The sport consumes. It doesn't matter if the long walk is spoiled, only if the long walk is taken. As it has been by Gene Jones, stubbornly, persistently.
This is a great week for Jones. He's among the best of his profession playing in the season-ending Charles Scwab Cup Championship.
Hale Irwin didn't make it to the finale. Jim Thorpe, who won the tournament three times, didn't make it to the Charles Schwab Cup Championship, either. But Gene Jones, after a lifetime in the wilderness, did make it.
Only the top 30 players qualified. One of those is dogged, determined, damn-the-torpedoes-and-bogeys Jones, who had nine top-10 finishes in his rookie year.
"I just love the game,'' Jones said.
Even after a career which offered much more frustration than success.
In Thursday's rain-spattered first-round of the $2.5 million Charles Schwab Cup Championship at Sonoma Golf Club, Jones shot a 3-under par 69, which left him three strokes back of co-leaders David Eger and Nick Price.
"Missed putts coming in,'' said Jones. "Should have been four or five-under.''
Shoulda. Coulda. The two most haunting words in sport. So much conversation about what might have been. Yet Jones was not complaining.
Not after what he's been through. Not after the years of mini-tours and maxi-heartbreak. Not after a marriage gone bad and too many rounds gone hay-wire.
At age 52, Thomas Eugene Jones, who's never been called anything but Gene, has spent half his life becoming an overnight success.
He's given lessons, even to a group of disabled. He's worked briefly driving one of those vacuum sweeper trucks in a parking lot.
"I did it at night, which meant I could golf during the day.''
He's even caddied for another Champions Tour player, Tim Conley, but that was more of a lark.
"I didn't make any money,'' said Jones, not entirely serious. "He told me it would be a good experience. It was the only way I could get inside the ropes last year.''
For the Champions Tour that is. He spent a great deal of time inside them on the Sunbelt Tour, a circuit in Florida, where Jones was leading money winner in 2005, 2006 and 2007. The man could play. And would play.
"Gene the Machine,'' someone nicknamed him because of his continued appearances. In tournaments, always on the tee. In practice, always on the range.
"I couldn't tell you how much money I've made,'' said Jones, and it's been a lot, including $770,000 in this his first year on the Champions Tour.
"That doesn't interest me. I just want to play. I've been watching for 10 years from outside, and this year I had the best seat in the house, with guys like Tom Watson and Ben Crenshaw. Playing golf with those names. What a treat.''
Jones was 17 when in the early 1970s, after spending the briefest time at the University of Florida, he turned pro and missed earning his PGA TOUR card by a single stroke.
"I just kept playing,'' said Jones. "My dad is a pro. I did what I could to play. It wasn't easy. It was hard even to get on a golf course sometimes. I practiced in my yard at home.
"But there's been one constant. I've been a hard worker. I'm a pefectionist.''
Jones was 36 when at last he made it through PGA TOUR Qualifying School at the end of 1992. Still the fates were not with him. In one of his early events, in Arizona -- "I can't tell you which one,'' said Jones -- he hit a tree root at the bottom of his swing and broke his left wrist.
His season was finished. A steel rod was inserted in the wrist during surgery. Healing took months.
"They didn't give medical exemptions in those days,'' Jones explained, "And I couldn't drive it 210 yards off the tee.''
He lost his card, went to the Nationwide Tour and painfully attempted to keep going, even winning a tournament. But not until the plate was removed did Jones feel comfortable and confident.
"If you can name a mini-tour, chances are I played on it,'' Jones said recently of his obsession.
He and former baseball player Rick Rhoden shared first place in the Champions Tour national qualifying tournament last winter. However, that only provided the chance to play his way into a tournament. Obviously, he's been able to do that.
"It's just been a matter of digging in,'' Jones said of reaching the goal he's chased for more than quarter-century. "I've had some disappointments, but I'm also proud of what I have done.''
You don't have to be a golfer to understand why.
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