Champions Tour Insider: Sindelar's close calls

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Joey Sindelar hasn't captured a title on the Champions Tour since turning 50 over a year ago, but he's come close.

Joey Sindelar isn't quite sure whether 4 is his lucky number -- or his unlucky number.

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Sindelar has finished T4 and fourth alone in the last two Champions Tour events. As a rookie last year, he had three more fourth-place finishes among his six top-10s.

Sindelar was unaware of the numeric quirk until somebody pointed it out to him after the most recent fourth-place finish last Sunday at Cap Cana in the Dominican Republic.

"No, I didn't realize it but I'm glad to hear that," Sindelar said. "Our traditional luckier number is 13 but in this circumstance I'd much rather be four than 13."

Pretty hard to argue with that kind of logic. All those fourth-place finishes represent very fine golf over a 12-month period for Sindelar.

In his last four starts this season on the Champions Tour, when all is said and done, Sindelar hasn't been far off the lead. He tied for seventh at the ACE Group Classic, tied for second at the Toshiba Classic and tied for fourth at the AT&T Champions Classic before Cap Cana. His rookie season was similarly solid with 16 top 25s in 19 starts. The best finish was a T3 at the Senior PGA Championship.

This year's Cap Cana marked Sindelar's first anniversary on the Champions Tour and he acknowledged the recent sequence of big finishes has been "such a blur" in a good way.

What has made it so much fun, Sindelar said, is the rediscovery of an age-old truism about the game of golf.

"I don't know why it took me 25 years to understand the value of putting better," Sindelar said after returning home to New York from the Dominican Republic.

"Last year, tee-to-green, I really played well. It was never perfect, of course, because golf never is perfect. But I was completely satisfied."

But something was missing despite his good golf: A victory. And something else was happening with regularity: "I was getting thumped," Sindelar said.

It got him thinking and putting pieces together.

"I watched guys play," he said. "It became very apparent. If you're not making some putts, throwing in some good putting rounds, you're not going to win. I've always been very capable on short putts, eight feet and in. At that whole 8-to-25 feet thing I have always been substandard, less than I needed to be to win."

In his last few years on the PGA TOUR, Sindelar generalized it as shortcomings in his short game. Last year, on the Champions Tour, the image became much clearer.

"It really glared at me, the light came on," he said. "I just have to make some putts once in a while. I realized when I was practicing my putting it was the short stuff, which I was already good it."

So Sindelar redirected his efforts and vowed to spend much more time working on a greater variety of putts -- "the kind you get on a golf course," he said -- and he dedicated himself to reacquainting himself with his putter.

That meant a two-pronged approach. He tweaked technique just a bit by moving the ball back in his stance about two inches and returned to an old, trusted putter, trading in one Scotty Cameron model for another by the legendary putter maker.

"The time spent and that little bit of difference (in technique) has made a difference," Sindelar said. "The ball had been getting a little bit forward (in the stance). On longer putts that doesn't serve you well because you tend to come up-and-out of the putts so fast. With the other putter, I couldn't put it back in the stance.

"I honestly can say -- and I don't mean it that I didn't have my 'A' game kind of way -- I haven't been quite as sharp tee-to-green this year but I have putted a lot better, substantially better, and it shows in the scores. It's only a shot a round, two or three a week. We're not talking like (making) five more putts round. Just the occasional putt."

That elusive first victory can't be far off. Sindelar's game is sound and he's comfortable with it. He doesn't expect anything quite so dramatic as a thunderstrike for it to happen.

"I thought about that flying home (from Cap Cana)," he said. "It's not a fancy answer. It has to do more with doing what you're doing, understanding it and getting more chances."

There is another element that makes Sindelar's early-season play so impressive. He lives in New York, not in the Sun Belt, and that means showing up at winter events with more questions about his game than answers.

"It's fun to have this kind of success in February and March," he said. "I'm still at the point where I'm coming home between tournaments. I'm rusty every time I go back. It's a big thrill to have this kind of success so early."

Champions Tour Insider Notes:

• Gary Player will tee it up in the Masters at Augusta National Golf Club next week for the 52nd time. He's a three-time winner in 1961, 1974 and 1978. In addition to the victories, Player has 15 top-10 finishes and a record 23 consecutive cuts. He is one of seven South Africans in the field at Augusta National, including defending champion Trevor Immelman, the only other South African to win the Masters. In 1961, Player became the first foreign champion at Augusta National.

• It's a good omen for Keith Fergus when Mark O'Meara finishes second. Fergus and O'Meara finished 1-2 last week at Cap Cana. It was the second victory on the Champions Tour for Fergus. When he won for the first time in 2007 at the Ginn Championship at Hammock Beach, O'Meara tied for second.

• The Champions Tour is on a two-week break. It will return April 13-19 in Tampa for the Outback Steakhouse Pro-Am. Tom Watson is the two-time defending champion.