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Jeff Klauk, a man with family ties to TPC Sawgrass, handles Pete Dye's course as if he's been there before. And he has

Klauk doesn't know every blade of grass on the course where he played so often, but his local knowledge paid off big.

By Tim Rosaforte

Photos by Stephen Szurlej

May 18, 2009

In the locker room of the TPC Sawgrass Sunday evening, Jeff Klauk relaxed with his feet up in a leather chair, watching the finish of the Players on three big high-definition TV screens. Sitting beside him was his swing coach, Cody Barden, and they were breaking down Klauk's effort in his first tournament on a course he not only grew up on, but a course where he cut the grass, filled in the divots and dreamed of a day and an ending like this.

"You know, I did good," Klauk said. "I did really good."

Barden wondered aloud if the T-14 finish was the best debut by a Ponte Vedra Beach or Jacksonville-based native or resident, but Klauk, who got into the event as an alternate when Lee Westwood pulled out, was already looking ahead, albeit with some inspiration from the past, specifically Mark McCumber's victory in 1988, when Klauk's father, Fred, was in his second year as the golf course superintendent on the famed Stadium Course.

"I really want to win this golf tournament one day," Klauk said. "Now I know I'm good enough to win this golf tournament."

As a kid, Jeff Klauk was a standard bearer and divot filler during tournament weeks. Rocco Mediate wrote him a check to get started on tour. David Duval's father, Bob, gave him lessons. He mowed Brad Fabel's yard and hit balls on the back of the range with tour pros such as Vijay Singh and Jim Furyk. More than 200 family and friends, including his grandparents, followed Klauk around in the heat, and former tour commissioner Deane Beman, recovering from quadruple-bypass surgery last fall, came out to watch him warm up.

What did the week prove? That Jeff Klauk, Nationwide Tour grad, has the scores, statistics and confidence to build on his performance and factor not only on the PGA Tour, but in major championships.

That's saying a lot for a 31-year-old rookie, but the numbers don't lie: On a track as fast and demanding as the tour will play, Klauk led the field in driving accuracy, was 12th in greens hit and had a good weekend with the putter. The highlights and lowlights of the week all came on the same day, when he went out in 32 Friday morning but came home in 40. If not for a conservative, cash-saving closing bogey on the 72nd hole, he would have finished in the top 10—much as he did on another tough layout in March, when he finished fourth at the Honda Classic. As he told Barden afterward: "As soon as I get enough money, and secure my job, I promise I'll get that putt to the hole."

Klauk was 9 when his father took the job as caretaker of Pete Dye's design. Jeff estimates he played 1,000 rounds on the Stadium Course growing up, which longtime tour executive Duke Butler figured would cost him $50,000 in past-due greens fees. But while the golf was free, Fred made sure his children knew the value of money. He made Jeff—and his brother John—mow lawns to pay for their entry fees into junior golf tournaments. And when Jeff got a $350 speeding ticket coming home from an AJGA event on Hilton Head Island, he made his son pay it off by cutting greens at the TPC. In his news conference Wednesday morning, Klauk talked about how sore he was after a day of working the fly mower on the club's lake banks.

"We had to tie some responsibility to it," Fred Klauk said. "Believe me, they fussed just as much as all the junior players fussed, but we felt it was important to their character building."

"Looking back on it," Jeff said, "it was the best thing he could have done."