Perry at Memorial, hunting for his game
DUBLIN, Ohio – Anybody find a golf swing? You’d know this one anywhere. It’s faithful as an old hound. Produces long, faithful tee shots hole after hole, always on call.
Well, it belongs to Kenny Perry, who might be sitting in a rocking chair on the porch back home in Kentucky if it wasn’t that he could play golf like a down-home country-boy demon. Except that he’s lost that golf swing again. Daggone thing just runs away, sometimes.
Perry revealed this Tuesday at Muirfield Village Golf Club, Jack Nicklaus’ own playground, where he will again play in the Memorial Tournament this week, of which he has won three, the third being that of last year. That puts him on the spot, as defending champion.
The question came up whether he’d yet gotten over his anguish at the Masters, in which he folded down the last few holes and let one of golf’s great golden fleeces slip through his fingers. Was his game back?
“No,” Perry said amiably. He’s always amiable, rocking-chair amiable, not to return to that image. “I’m actually playing very poorly right now. I don’t know quite what it is.”
It’s golf, is what it is. Like dandelion fluff flitting in the breezes.
“I’m a feel player,” Perry s
aid. “I’m a very streaky player. It seems like when I get hot, I get hot, and I can kind of hang onto to, and then it goes away.”
It remains to be seen, probably, whether he was just knocked off his tracks at the Masters, or totally crushed. He was about to become the oldest ever to win the Masters, at age 48, then stumbled to bogeys on the last two holes, slipped into a tie with Chad Campbell and Argentina’s Angel Cabrera, and it was Cabrera who walked away with the green jacket. Does it still hurt? Well, Perry has played three times since the Masters, and a tie for 22nd has been his best outing. This after a victory and three other top-10 finishes in nine events. Clearly, something has been amiss.
“I really didn’t have a hangover from the Masters,” Perry said. “I really didn’t. I played OK at the TPC [Players Championship]. I didn’t play well at Colonial [a tie for 34th last week], one of the spots I usually play well.”
Perry’s like a NASCAR guy who can’t quite get the right zip out of the car.
“I’ve gotten a little glitch in my swing,” he said. “I can’t quite determine what it is right now. I’m hitting a lot of pulls. They’re starting left of the flag, and then they’re hooking. My normal shot starts out right and comes to the flag. I donE2t know if it’s a timing issue or a ball position, alignment. I’m not quite sure where I am right now.”
Nothing like a little practice to clear that up, right?
“I spent five hours on the range yesterday,” Perry said. “I hit 16 buckets of balls.”
The touch, the feel, the magic – whatever it was kept its own counsel through that grind. He was hunting for an answer. Some will say he was practicing an error, maybe getting it deeper into his mine. Maybe. For sure, though, those little glitches don’t just go away by themselves. They take some persuading.
“It will come back to me,” Perry said. “It always has.”
As if Perry didn’t have troubles enough, there’s now that brouhaha over his playoff win in the FBR in February. He was in the rough. He put his wedge behind the ball, then stepped back, then returned. Then came the outcry, mostly in Europe, that he had cheated by pressing down the grass to improve his lie. That being a violation of the rules. So the video tape was studied by everyone except the CIA. Perry was absolved by the PGA Tour, by a European Tour rules official and by Charlie Hoffman, the guy Perry beat in the playoff. It turns out that the outcries came mostly from the British tabloids. That explained everything.
Perry didn’t even hear about this until Sunday of the Players Championship earlier this month, just 14 tournaments after the FBR.
Think about Opie on the old Andy of Mayberry TV show, and you have Kenny Perry, only grown up. Now think of Opie cheating at anything. It’s enough to make a guy pack it in, and go back home to Kentucky. Perry wasn’t talking about the incident. He was talking about the crazieness of the game, about a golf swing that flits away and stays out of reach, like a firefly you’re trying to catch.
“Yeah, there’s times I thought about quitting, walking away from the game,” Perry said. “I’ve seriously thought about sitting on the rocking chair. I’ve got rocking chairs out on the porch at my golf course. It’s beautiful. We’ve got deer, turkey, squirrels. It’s very peaceful. Very serene place.
“But I think I’d get fat. So I wouldn’t want to do that.”
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