Running with Hal Higdon

Click here to get Hal's InterActive Training programs

Following Fred Funk
Could You Sink A $1.44 Million Putt?

by Hal Higdon

Consider the achievement of golfer Fred Funk, age 48. By sinking a five-foot putt on the final hole of the Tournament Players Championships in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida at the end of March, Funk earned a victory worth $1.44 million.

Funk winters in Ponte Vedra Beach, as do I. We each live only a few miles from the TPC course. He plays the course; I appear once a year to watch golfers like Funk, Vijay Singh and Tiger Woods play.

Truth be known, I led a misspent youth. I worked night shifts in college, thus had time during daylight hours to play golf. One day on a flat and fast course, improving every lie, giving myself every putt, I shot an 89. Calculating the time it might take to improve my game to the next level, 79, I decided it was time to quit while ahead. Running offered a more likely road to fame, if not fortune.

On the final day of the TPC, My wife Rose and I decided to walk the course backwards, hoping to spot Tiger or Vijay. Instead, at the 13th hole, we encountered Fred Funk trailed by a hundred or so fans, most of them probably neighbors, like us. But on a gusty day when power hitters saw their balls flying anywhere and everywhere, Funk kept hitting the middle of the fairway. We watched him tap in a gimmee putt that moved him two strokes into the lead. "Let's follow him in," I told Rose. And so we became Fred Funk fans.

Missing Gimmee Putts

But on the next two holes, Funk missed embarrassingly short putts, ones--excuse my arrogance--I might have made. Funk retained his lead only because his rivals still were being blown away in the wind. Tiger Woods would finish tied for 59th, his worst finish since 1999. Bob Tway plopped four balls into the water surrounding the 17th hole's infamous island green, setting a record low of 12 for that hole in tournament play. Six-hour marathoners could identify with Tway.

One appeal of golf is that duffers sometimes hit better shots than Tiger and Vijay. Despite high handicaps, they might hit a single, great shot that makes their day. But they couldn't string together 279 shots over 72 holes, as did Funk, earning in a single weekend more than even the best runners earn in a career. Funk himself has played that well on only a few occasions, his best previous victory in a 1992 PGA tournament in Houston.

One of my better races came at the same age as Funk: 48. I ran 2:30:26 at the 1978 New York City Marathon, good for 78th place and a single-age American record at the time, but nearly 20 minutes behind winner Bill Rodgers. One appeal of running is that we stand on the same starting line as the elites, but few of us could match stride with them for even a fraction of a mile, much less 26. Gimmee putts don't exist in marathons.

In the closing minutes of the TPC, with four other players only one stroke behind and with the grandstands surrounding the 18th hole crammed with fans, not all of them Fred Funk's neighbors, he addressed a five-foot putt that if he missed might force him into a playoff the next day. He sank that putt and slammed his cap down onto the green in celebration. Yeah, I could have sunk that putt too--but not for $1.44 million.

Click Here To Order Masters Running