Second Time Around

McLachlin (left) had his sights set on his first victory, while runner-up Perry had visions of Ryder Cup points.

While tournament sources hinted at possible sponsor prospects in Atlanta, the no-longer AT&T Classic remains one of the two spring events without a deep-pockets backer next year. If this was the last "Atlanta Classic" in its many incarnations spanning 40 years, at least they were giving out a generous cash prize and a Masters invitation for Imada as lovely parting gifts.

Laid out through grand canyons of jumbo mortgages, the roiling fairways of Sugarloaf are, to say the least, a logistically difficult host site. That does not mean great associations do not make allowances to stage championships at difficult venues, but the TPC Pimp My Villa is no Merion. If Atlanta falls again and Sugarloaf should go the way of Tara in the process, Johnson, who has won there twice, Stewart Cink, who lives there, and now Imada, who found redemption there, will probably be among the few who will miss the place very much.

One group that surely won't regret a change of venue is the caddies who have never fully embraced the mountain stages of the Tour de Sugarloaf. In a Wednesday interview Greg Norman, the architect of the course who was playing as a tune-up for the Senior PGA Championship at Oak Hill CC, said, "The terrain really dictates a lot of it and the land plan, the housing and the road system, the infrastructure that needs to go in, dictates a lot. We were given corridors to work with here. We weren't involved in the land plan originally." Just a wild guess, but we would bet Norman would never agree to a similar arrangement now.

While this publication remains committed to ferreting out all worthwhile ferretable facts, when courageous workmen began drilling holes in the plywood floor beneath the media tent to allow the standing water to drain Thursday afternoon, this reporter decided it was time to unplug our laptop, Old Sparky, and retire to the cozy warmth of L'Hotel Maison Chien to watch Perry deliver what was easily the best round of the day on the telly. Perry dragged his old bones through 18 holes of varying degrees of deluge to tie Jonathan Kaye, Ryan Palmer, Jonathan Byrd and Parker McLachlin, all morning players, at six-under 66. As proof that the afternoon half of the draw got by far the worst of the weather, 21 players shot in the 60s in the morning. Just six were able to break 70 in the afternoon.

"I was hitting knuckleballs off the driver," Perry said. "I never seen balls do that." Imada had quite the adventure himself. In the same half of the draw as Perry, Imada played without the size small rainsuit he accidentally left in the bag room at TPC Sawgrass. "I didn't think it was going to get that bad," he said of his decision not to replace it Wednesday. "I mean, if it did get really bad, I thought they were going to stop play anyway." Oops. "I had a really good day up until my last four holes. Things started to get really bad. I hit a shot on six, my third shot, my right hand came off the club. I almost shanked it, made bogey. Number seven, tried to hit a tee shot and my right hand slipped off the club and that went about 90 yards off line into somebody's living room. It was just a crazy few holes."

After adding a second round of 69, Perry was three shots behind Byrd, who posted dueling 66s to take the halfway lead at 132 and would end the week solo fourth with a lengthy eagle putt on the 72nd hole, making him five under on the hole for the week. The 36-hole lead should have been at least one better, too. On the par-5 sixth hole, his 15th, Byrd missed a six-footer for birdie, then absent-mindedly lipped out the 14-inch tap-in. It knocked him back sufficiently that, while he had good opportunities on the closing three holes, he never seemed truly comfortable on the greens again.