Frazar's q-school triumph triggered by son's advice
By Melanie Hauser, PGATOUR.COM Correspondent
His last few days had been some of the worst in a year filled with darkness.
Another missed cut. Another night alone in a hotel room with his mind churning, questioning not only what he was doing, but where he was going. Another lonely night away from his family.
But this time it was worse. Harrison Frazar hit bottom.
He was in Scottsdale for the Frys.com Open and couldn't get a flight home after missing the ninth cut of the 2008 season. He was wondering if his career on the PGA TOUR had run its course after 13 years; if it was time to make a change and end a season-long nightmare. He was a bundle of nerves. He couldn't think. He couldn't function. He couldn't swing right. He couldn't putt.
He couldn't get out of his own way.
"It was,'' he said, "a very, very dark place to live in for a week, never mind a year.''
The next day Frazar was home, sitting quietly by himself in a chair when his son Ford, then 6, walked in and asked him what was wrong.
"Oh, I'm just kinda sad,'' Frazar said.
Ford crawled up in his lap. "Let me ask you a question,'' Frazar said. "If somebody was just absolutely so unhappy and miserable in what they were doing, what would you tell them to do?''
Ford looked up at his dad and said simply, "I would tell them to do it different.''
Frazar isn't sure why he asked the question. Maybe it was out of curiosity. Maybe because he was searching. Maybe because it was the safe way to say it out loud and let himself hear the question.
"How about that?'' said the 38-year-old Texan. "What comes out of most people's mouths is do something different, not do it differently. Maybe that's what got me to get on the plane to go to the Ginn (sur Mer Classic). Maybe that's what got me to bounce.
"That one little word in there. Maybe it shocked me out of it. It came from a 6-year-old. I thought, 'Damn that's right. I've got to do this differently.'
The moment was a sliver of light; the first step of the longest, but most gratifying six weeks of Frazar's career.
He continued to struggle, but found something each step of the way. He missed the next cut, then tied for 16th at the Children's Miracle Network Classic and headed to the second round of last year's q-school. He worried as his youngest son Slayden underwent kidney surgery a few days before Thanksgiving. Then, after celebrating the holiday, he headed for the finals of q-school where he threw out a fourth-round 59 and won the six-round event by eight shots.
He also shed the doubts, the fears and the questions. He realized he could do this. Just differently.
"I'm a better person for it,'' he said. "I'm learning."
Before we delve into the details of Frazar's journey, let's flash forward to today.
Thirteen months and one birthday later for a very wise young Ford and his two brothers. A lifetime ago for Frazar and his wife Allison.
Slayden is a happy, healthy 3-year-old and his kidney is functioning at 99 percent. Ford's flag football team just won its Super Bowl, and his dad was out there running plays with the 7-year-olds. He's been taking his oldest son Harrison, who turns 10 Wednesday, and Ford to school each morning and picking them up in the afternoon.
"Just walking out and standing on the lawn at school and hearing them say, 'Hey Dad,' means a lot to me,'' Frazar said.
And dad? He's back where he wants to be -- where he should be -- taking a well-deserved break, enjoying his family and working on himself.
He finished this year 104th on the money list and second on TOUR in putting. He hadn't touched a club in three weeks when he teed it up in an outing at Colonial Country Club on Monday, but not to worry. He's working out and eating right and has already started planning his schedule for 2010. In another 10 days, he'll start putting in the hard work on his game with Randy Smith so he's ready for the Sony Open in Hawaii next month.
Yet this week he can't help but think about some close friends at q-school, veterans who are working through the same questions, the same doubts, the same fears he did a year ago. Guys looking for that one speck of light; that reason to believe in themselves once again. That way they can to do it -- not something -- different, too.
Hopefully, he said, "they're going through the same transformation.''
Just perhaps not with a 6-year-old's help.
The best way to describe that father-son moment a year ago is in the simplest terms -- pretty cool. A moment his son might not remember, but one dad won't forget.
Until then, Frazar had pretty much decided that was it. He was done. He wasn't playing again.
The former Texas Longhorn -- he roomed with Justin Leonard for a year -- had built as solid a career as he could without a TOUR win, but he was at a crossroad. And the 1997 NIKE South Carolina Classic champ didn't want to play the Nationwide Tour again. Not after a dozen years on TOUR.
Then he asked Ford the question.
"Who asks a six-year-old about career advice?'' Frazar said. "That shows you how far I was down. Maybe it was just craving getting it out there. (Saying it to) someone who wouldn't just say suck it up.''
Frazar calls it "a life-changing little tipping point." And, oh, it was.
A few weeks later, after a new putting drill led to that tie for 16th in the TOUR's season-ending event, Frazar had another a-ha moment.
He was eating breakfast before the second round of the second stage of q-school when a reporter approached. He said he was working on a story on all the players who really shouldn't be at the event.
"He asked me, 'What does it feel like for you to be here?' " Frazar said. "I told him, it's depressing and it's embarrassing. It's a constant reminder of how badly I failed this year as a professional golfer.''
The words showed his state of mind. What he didn't realize at the time was that his response was cathartic; it told him he was working out of that bad place.
Then came Slayden's surgery which was, perhaps, a blessing in disguise. Frazar was so worried about him that he didn't think about the final stage of q-school. And when he got there, he took it easy. He practiced putting, played nine holes, hit balls for 30 minutes and got away from the course.
Frazar threw out a second-round 64 despite pulling two balls into the water. Both hit rocks and bounced back on land and he made par. "I didn't see that as any kind of an omen, but maybe it was,'' he said.
Then on the morning of the fourth round, he hit the balls on the range so badly, he couldn't believe it. "Little heel, skinny, thin awful ugly 3-woods that were horrific,'' he said.
He talked to Smith, who told him to stand closer, get his head up and try to just hit the ball. Frazar hit his final three -- just three -- practice shots and headed to the tee. It was the worst he felt starting out all week, but he got out of his way and let it go.
He shot 59.
Winning q-school removed most -- but not all -- of the doubts. Frazar couldn't make his schedule like he had when he was in the top 125. He was coming from q-school and was ranked No. 471 in the world at the end of 2008. It might as well have been 1,000th.
And when things got tough early in 2009? He got upset -- really upset -- over a shot at Bay Hill.
He turned to his caddie, Mark Lebas, and said, "Mark, winning q-school might have been the worst thing that happened to me because now I have to come out and play golf.''
Hearing his own words stunned him. He expected it a year earlier. Not in March.
"(I said to myself) 'Do you have any idea how ridiculous that sounds? You stupid ass. Pull your head out and focus on what you're trying to do,' '' he said. "That might have been the last time I let that real negative cycle to start.''
Frazar didn't look back. He had a decent year -- seven top-25s, including a tie for seventh at the Turning Stone Resort Championship, and finished well inside the top 125.
Now it's time to take the next step. To take a great putting year and build on it. And, just maybe, find a way to get his first win.
"Now I can look and say want went wrong, what didn't work and start working on a plan,'' he said. ''What am I missing? What do I have to do? And if I do that, there's no reason I can't have a breakout year.''
No matter what happens, though, Frazar understands himself -- where he's been and where he's going; that all he can do is the best with what he has at that moment.
And if that's not working?
He sees the bigger picture now. He won't slide back into that dark place. He'll just work a little harder and, like Ford said, find a way do it again. Just differently.
Melanie Hauser is a freelance columnist for PGATOUR.COM. Her views do not necessarily represent the views of the PGA TOUR.
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