By Tod Leonard
Photo: Stan Badz/PGA Tour
November 9, 2007
Jimmy Walker was like a kid in a lightning storm. All he wanted to do was hide his head under the pillow.
In a seventh-floor hotel room that overlooked Barona Creek GC in the hills of suburban San Diego, he had been surrounded by the people he would want to hold tight during a crisis. Gathered around a television tuned to the Nationwide Tour Championship, the waning moments of the season's final round being played out on the course below them, were Walker's mom and dad, his in-laws, his wife, Erin, and a friend, Andy Sanders, who had committed to be his caddie for next season.
For more than two hours they had been a collective nervous wreck, waiting to see if Walker would get back to the PGA Tour after a neck injury ruined his first go-round in 2005-06. On this Sunday he had shot a so-so one-under 70 on a pristine course that had given up record numbers all week, and his overall standing was precarious, to say the least. He was on the bubble. Then out. Then in. Then out again. At one point, he was projected to earn the 25th and last automatic tour card by $47.
Worst of all: The golfer with the best chance to keep him from his dream was a good pal, B.J. Staten, who also happens to be his new caddie's roommate.
It all became too much for Walker, too excruciating. "Terrifying" is how he later would describe it.
So he bolted for the elevator, for his own room a couple floors below. Alone, he all but turned out the light and hid under the covers. Walker swears he didn't watch TV.
Not until the storm was over, when Walker returned to the room of his loved ones and their tearful, joyous hugs. Staten watched in disbelief as birdie putts of 15 feet on the 17th and 18th holes slid a few blades to the side of the cup, and the misses allowed Walker to secure the last available card over Skip Kendall by the margin of $1,094 on earnings of $196,896. Staten ended 28th in money.
"You don't want to root against your buddies," Erin Walker said, torn emotions twisting the features on her face. "But at the same time, we were hoping B.J. would just par in. You hate to say that, but we've been through a lot these past couple of years. If anybody deserves it, Jimmy does."
Like the PGA Tour's Qualifying School, there were more subplots in this thing than an English stage farce, and the enormous double achievement of Welshman Richard Johnson was just one of the sideshows.
Johnson, who had made a big move in the money standings with his first Nationwide victory in seven years at the Mark Christopher Classic early last month, overcame a quadruple bogey on the 11th hole during the middle of the third round and, after seeing a five-shot lead whittled to one late Sunday, he managed to win by one shot over University of New Mexico-product Michael Letzig.
Johnson's scores of 66-64-67-67 on the par-71 layout gave him a tournament-record total of 20-under 264. By cashing the tour's record check, $139,500, he vaulted from sixth in the money standings to No. 1 with $445,421, unseating Roland Thatcher, who held the top spot for 12 consecutive weeks after winning the Cox Classic in late-July.
"I had my card secured, so I've been freewheeling it for a couple of months," Johnson said. "This is the icing on the cake. It's cool."
Thatcher, showing the strain of defending his position for so long, managed only a tie for 29th in the tournament, despite posting a 64 in the second round.
"I had the lead for four months. Richard had it one night," said a disappointed Thatcher. "Give Richard credit. He played great down the stretch and earned every bit of it."
Johnson, 35, graduated from Augusta State in 1995 and was still in Augusta managing a Waffle House on Washington Road the week of Tiger Woods' watershed Masters victory in 1997. Johnson's biggest thrill that week: "Seeing David Duval eat at my restaurant."
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