Scooter Hobbs column: Staying focused best bet to the top

Published 11:00 am Sunday, March 27, 2022

The Lake Charles Championship at the Country Club at the Golden Nugget is the lone stop on the PGA’s Korn Ferry Tour with a handy casino hotel on property.

Normally, that would light up the eyes of most any self-respecting golfer.

But this weekend, not so much.

“We needed to be off site this week,” Brandon Matthews, who’s tied for third leading into today’s final round, said with a smile when asked if he took advantage of the special hotel rate available to the tournament field.

Did the lure of a casino figure into his choice of lodging?

“One-hundred percent,” he said.

It was a common refrain among those pros more happy to take full advantage of the amenities of the casino’s golf course.

Back in the day, a golfer on one of the mini-tours who visited Lake Charles every year famously missed his early Friday tee time. He straggled up to the course two or three hours late, chagrined but offering no apologies for his DQ.

“I was making more on the craps table than I was going to ever get out of this tournament,” he said.

On the Korn Ferry Tour level, in this day and age, it’s a little different.

Oh, a fair number are staying next door to the course.

But for the most part, for most of these guys, the convenience of a short walk to the course doesn’t offset the temptation of the even shorter walk to the poker table.

They know themselves.

A couple or three decades ago maybe it would have been different.

The afternoon pro threesome might morph into the Rat Pack at night.

Golf had not yet discovered physical fitness then, Gary Player excepted. Golfers themselves had not yet become “athletes.”

Pot bellies and spare tires were as common on tour as wrap-around sunglasses. For some the biggest fear was running out of cigarettes on No. 15.

These days they seem to spend as much time in the fitness trailer as on the practice tee.

There’s not as much mixing work with pleasure. Trips to the 19th hole seem to be rare. The six packs are in the abs, not back in the cart’s ice chests.

Some blame Tiger Woods. And some still wonder if the torque of a golf swing was meant to be executed over the long haul by body builders.

Never mind for now.

Today’s aspiring PGA Tour professionals, like those here, if they drop by the casino at all on this business trip seem more likely to visit the hotel’s weight room and fitness center than the blackjack table or roulette wheel.

And, keep in mind that the golf gene usually goes hand in hand with a penchant for friendly and not-so-friendly wagering with no known allergy to night life, nor the barley and the vino.

You can usually spot the golf-buddy trips in the Nugget and L’Auberge with no trouble.

Just look for a lot of Titleist caps and raccoon sunburns, usually atop a loose-fitting, logo-ed polo and shorts. Blood-shot eyes are not uncommon while deciding to hit on 16.

But those are the fun-loving amateurs getting away on vacation.

For the pros, it’s a little different — at least while working.

Too much money involved, even at this notch below the PGA Tour, and too much at stake in that quest to take the final step up the the pyramid.

Second-round co-leader Vince India thought the Lake Charles stop would be an excellent place for a bachelor party. He talked like he’d been to a few.

But this, being a serious week of business, he thought it best to spend his nights off the property, away from the lure.

That seemed to be the common sentiment.

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Scooter Hobbs covers LSU athletics. Email him at scooter.hobbs@americanpress.com