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Bob Estes off to strong start

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Bob Estes off to strong start


    Written by Bob McClellan @ChampionsTour

    Bob Estes is in his third season on PGA TOUR Champions, but in some ways this is his rookie year.

    For the first time since turning 50, the Texas native, who turned 53 on Feb. 2, plans to play a full schedule on PGA TOUR Champions. He didn’t play at all when he was 50, opting for the PGA TOUR. He played in only nine events in 2017, and he upped that to 15 last year.

    He’s off to an auspicious start this year. In fact, Estes’ solo third at last weekend’s Oasis Championship was his best finish in 25 career PGA TOUR Champions events. He fired rounds of 67-68-68 to finish at 13 under, six shots behind winner Bernhard Langer and one back of runner-up Marco Dawson.

    “I’m typically not the fastest of starters at the beginning of the year,” Estes said on Tuesday. “But I’m off to a pretty good start this season, obviously.

    “I didn’t feel like I did anything particularly great, but everything was pretty good.”

    Everything was, indeed, solid. Estes ranked 11th in the field in driving distance at the Oasis, and he was eighth in putting average. He didn’t hit a ton of greens in regulation (72.2 percent to rank T26) but was second in scrambling, which he took note of.

    “When you miss greens you have to be able to find a way to keep rounds going,” Estes said.

    Consequently, Estes played his 54 holes with only two bogeys. That also ranked second in the field.

    Estes credited a January golf vacation in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, for helping his game get to a place where he could break from the gates quickly. He said he played a lot of rounds with friends and really was feeling pretty good about his game. He flew home to Texas for a couple of days before heading back to Florida for the Oasis event, and he played in both pro-am rounds so he got a good feel for The Old Course at Broken Sound in Boca Raton. It was his first time seeing the course.

    Estes has played very well in his PGA TOUR Champions appearances. He has finished outside the top 35 only three times while posting nine top 10s.

    But Estes, a four-time winner on the PGA TOUR with the last at the 2002 Kemper Insurance Open, knows the object of the game is to win. He also knows that it isn’t going to come easy.

    “It’s obviously pretty deep out here. There are plenty of guys every week who when they get it going can win,” Estes said. “It’s harder to win out here than it used to be. You’ve got Bernhard Langer and Steve Stricker playing so well, and those are just two examples. There are plenty of other really good players out here -- Scott McCarron, Vijay Singh, Joe Durant.

    “I’m not … my game is good, but it just has to get a little bit better. You can always make a few more putts, and you need to to win.”

    Estes will be a player to watch as he chases his breakthrough victory. Obviously, playing in 20-plus events for the first time will give him more chances to be in the hunt.

    He said he’s looking forward to playing more and going through the process of honing his game as the season wears on.

    “It’s early in the year, and for me it doesn’t matter how well you play in the first tournament or two,” Estes said. “It’s more about the progress that you make during the first few weeks or months to set you up for the rest of the season. I’ll keep playing and practicing and working on all phases and hope I can get better at all of it.”

    Estes narrowly missed making the field for the season-ending Charles Schwab Cup Championship last year. He figures that should be an attainable goal.

    “The Schwab Cup Championship is definitely something I can achieve with practice and playing this season from start to finish,” Estes said. “Everything is setting up so that this could be a really good year for me.”

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