Lehman on top and plenty motivated to stay there

text size

Ehrmann/Getty Images

Tom Lehman has not played Shoal Creek professionally, but it still a favorite to win the Regions Tradition.

Motivation comes in different forms and from different places. For Tom Lehman, it's just as likely to come from failure as it is from success.

REGIONS TRADITION

Tee times
Power Rankings
Video: Memorable moments
Lowery's Birmingham
The course

On the Champions Tour, it's been difficult to find too many instances where Lehman, a major champion and former U.S. Ryder Cup captain, can validate his view on winning and losing. By any standard, the disappointments have been few and far between for him.

"I think more than anything, being a little frustrated with the results is what's always motivated me," Lehman said Tuesday during a break from his preparations for this week's Regions Tradition, the first major of the Champions Tour season.

"I feel like I played well last year. I think I played 15 or 16 events only, had a good season, but frustrated with the fact that I didn't finish better in some of the tournaments, didn't win more. I felt like I was very capable of doing that, so the frustration has always been the driving force behind how hard I work and how well I do."

Lehman has two victories in six starts on the Champions Tour this year, plus a second and a third. He has soared to the top of both the Charles Schwab Cup points list and the Money List. But that hardly means he will be any less motivated when he tees it up Thursday at Shoal Creek Golf Club in Birmingham, Ala.

Lehman will find plenty of incentive, and it will come from many places.

"I think being it is the first major, that's a big deal, a huge deal," Lehman said. "I think being here after all these tornadoes have gone through, it's a big deal. Life obviously goes on and you need to kind of keep doing what you're doing, but it's also an opportunity to plug in for a week here and maybe do something that makes a difference in some small way, so I'm happy to be here for that reason, too."

The Regions Tradition will be Lehman's first experience with Shoal Creek, which was the venue of the PGA Championship in 1984 and 1990.

"The guys who've played it before like it," said Lehman, 52, who already has a Champions Tour major victory at the 2010 Senior PGA Championship on his resume. "They seem to feel like it's a real shotmaker's golf course. Always in good condition. Everybody that I've asked about it, they say the same thing, 'I think you're going to like it.' So I'm sure I will."

Lehman's success in his first two years on the Champions Tour should come as no surprise to anyone. First, because he's always been such a fine player. He was particularly outstanding during a stretch in the mid-to-late 1990s. In 1996 he won the British Open at Royal Lytham and St. Annes.

Next, because he prepared diligently for this chapter of his professional career.

Lehman's victories this year came at the Allianz Championship in February and the Mississippi Gulf Resort Classic in April.

In 15 rounds, he has failed to shoot in the 60s only twice and is a cumulative 59-under par.

Lehman didn't need the prospect of the Champions Tour to re-energize himself or his game. He knew that day would come and he knew he'd be ready for it.

"When I was 49, I was really kind of like, 'OK, I'm going to get after it,'" he said.

"I've really been very committed to my game over the last four or five years. Seemed like there was a bit of a lull after the Ryder Cup (2006) when I was the captain for a couple years. I still played, still worked hard, but I kind of renewed interest as I neared 50 and I've been working very consistently on my game. Every day I'm home, I'm out practicing.

"I really have not done anything different than I've been doing. I've had a couple good years leading up to this year. So I look at last year and feel really good about the way I played. I had a lot of good tournaments. I played very well nearly every time I teed it up."

That doesn't always translate into victories - it never does in golf. That's the nature of the game. Somebody else plays better, a putt is missed here, an iron shot bounces the wrong way, a drive trickles into the rough instead of sitting pretty in the fairway. It happens to everyone who plays the game. Lehman is no different but he is more pragmatic. He knows the game and, more important, he knows his game. He likes what he's done and what he continues to do.

"So I think this year, maybe hitting the ball just a little bit better and maybe making a couple more putts but doing the same thing," Lehman said. "It's really a very simple approach to golf."