Jacobsen testing new knee, new hope
EAST MEADOW, N.Y. -- Peter Jacobsen came limping into Eisenhower Park for the Champions Tour's Commerce Bank Classic, his first real golf since his right knee was replaced in March. The gait was firm, as firm as a brand new and strange knee would permit, and he spoke of pain and anxiety, but the smile - the man's constitutional smile - was untouched.“I have a new left hip, a new right knee and a repaired back,” Jacobsen was saying, sounding like a character out of the Wizard of Oz. “I'm here and ready to play.
“But I'm not ready to win.”
Even for a guy with such a sunny disposition, it was hard for Jacobsen to say that. It made him squirm. He had just accepted defeat in advance. He won seven times on the PGA Tour, and he's won twice on the Champions Tour, but as a competitor he'd be something like 200-0 if he'd had his way.
“I don't have my golf legs yet,” Jacobsen explained. It clearly irked him to be in this position, but he's grudgingly made his peace with the reality. It's going to take time. He's played five times this season, the last time in mid-March. He won the unofficial Wendy's Championship Skins with Fuzzy Zoeller, and in four official events he finished from a tie for 13th to 71st. He couldn't go on like this, and off he went for surgery, followed by lots of pain, little sleep and a grind of rehabilitation. Now, he figures, he's ready to play. He came off the Eisenhower Park Red Course, limping and looking drawn.
“Walking on the treadmill or around the neighborhood,” he said, “is a lot different from walking Eisenhower - the hills, down in all the little places.”
It's almost odd to hear golfers speak of the kind of injuries that cut down the people in team sports. There is, for example, no blunt-force trauma as in blocking, tackling, crashing the boards or hitting the floor. But there is the slow grinding wear-and-tear that the weird golf swing inflicts on muscle and bone, as Tiger Woods has recently demonstrated. Jacobsen recalled an orthopedic specialist who didn't know he was a pro golfer, warning him about doing certain things.
“How about this?” Jacobsen said, getting into a golfer's stance legs bent, torso tilted forward.
“Don't do that,” the doctor said.
“How about this,” Jacobsen said, standing upright, and twisting his torso back and forth, as in a golf swing.
“Oh, no, don't do that, either.”
“How about both together?” Jacobsen asked, doing his golf swing without a club.
“Oh, no, don't do that!” the doctor said, almost horrified.
“Bye, doc - see you,” Jacobsen said, rejecting an ipso facto death sentence to his career.
Now it's a matter of getting back his golf legs and everything else that makes him a golfer. And one thing in particular.
“I'm fearful of my left hip,” Jacobsen said, pointing to his head. “I'm fearful of my right knee,” he said, his finger still against his head. “I'm afraid, going after the ball, full-strength. I can feel it in my swing. I don't have the 'go' power.”
Translated into golf, it's this, he said. He used to hit tee shots 295 yards or so. Now he's hitting them 275 and less, he said. This means longer shots into the greens, which in turn generally means less accuracy and ultimately higher scores.
Jacobsen had something of a warm-up early this week in the better-ball CVS Caremark Charity Classic. He and Brad Faxon finished 10th and last. But he played two rounds. It was a start.
“I'm going to keep on playing as long as I can,” Jacobsen said. “And when I can't, I'll go open that lemonade stand that I had when I was 9.”
NOTES - The Commerce purse is $1.6 million, with first prize $240,000 … Lonnie Nielsen, who hadn't won in five years on the PGA Tour nor in 91 starts on the Champions Tour, broke through in the 2007 Commerce Bank … Through the first 15 tour events, 10 have been decided by either one shot or a playoff … Multiple winners to date: Scott Hoch, Bernhard Langer, Tom Watson, Jay Haas, Denis Watson … This field has four World Golf Hall of Fame members - Tom Kite, Ben Crenshaw, Nick Price and Isao Aoki … Curtis Strange was a fifth, but withdrew, as did Jerry Pate and Don Pooley.
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