THE OPEN: Chalmers hopes for “sliding door” moment

BY BRENDAN JAMES at ROYAL TROON

FOUR days is a long time in professional golf. Four good rounds and your life can be changed forever. Greg Chalmers likes to call it his “sliding door” moment.

His moment came in the Barracuda Championship two weeks ago when, after 386 starts dating back to 1998, the likeable 42-year-old father-of-two finally broke through for his first win on the PGA Tour. Today, he is one of three last start winners who will tee off in 145^th Open Championship at Royal Troon.

Greg Chalmers poses with the trophy after winning the Barracuda Championship on July 3. PHOTO: Todd Warshaw/Getty Images.

“I didn’t think I was far away,” said Chalmers of his six-point win in the modified stableford event. “The signs were there, even having missed three or four cuts in a row before the Barracuda event. It wasn’t like I was shooting 78 or 75 and missing, I was under but didn’t make any putts … those kind of things.

“So you can take a little bit of confidence out of it and say to yourself “we’re not far away here”. You can go back and study a round and see where it went south and see one shot that didn’t work out or one yardage where you picked the wrong club.

“That’s when every round becomes a sliding door round where you can go through one door and get an alternate result, which is what happened in Nevada.

“I kept telling myself that something good is going to happen around the corner, and whether that corner was a week away or six months away, I felt my game was on a good track.”

The left-hander was able to get a start on the PGA Tour’s Barracuda Championship with most of the higher ranked players teeing it up the same week at the World Golf Championships Bridgestone Invitational.

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It was Chalmers’ last throw of the dice on the PGA Tour for season 2016.

On paper, his prospects of a high finish were grim. Limited to just four PGA Tour starts since February, he had missed the cut in all of them. On the secondary Tour the stats were slightly better with two top-10s scattered among a host of missed cuts.

But the sliding doors aligned for Chalmers in Reno and in the space of four days he had made the transition from journeyman pro to Tour winner, gaining him starts in this week’s Open, the US PGA in a fortnight and next year’s Masters. He also has a job for two years.

“It has been great,” Chalmers smiled. “I’ve never had an exemption on the PGA Tour, or that kind of thing on any Tour, for 21 years as a pro so that’s really exciting.

“I already knew how lucky I was to be on the PGA Tour, I kind of had that perspective anyway but it is reinforced once again when you off it. I knew I really wanted to get back out there but it wasn’t going that way this year up until the Barracuda.

“But I always sort of wondered about these guys that just seem to pop up and have a great week … I could be one of those guys.

“That (Barracuda) was going to be my last PGA Tour event this year and it turns out it was the one I needed.”

Chalmers was the top player to qualify out of winning the Barracuda Championship.
PHOTO: Todd Warshaw/Getty Images.

Chalmers is one of the nicest guys on the Tour so its not surprising that there have been plenty of slaps on the back and congratulatory hands to shake during his first few days of preparation here at Royal Troon.

“What has been great is the amount of people and the players, my peers, who have come up and have genuinely been happy for me,” he said. “They guys out here know how difficult it is to win but when they know you’ve gone 386 times and haven’t won they know you wanted that goal and you wanted it badly and you got it done.

“Whether that win translates into great golf this week, I don’t know. My game is in great shape and has been, I feel, for a while. You need bounces this week, you need luck and as much as skill. It’s going to be interesting.”

Chalmers braved the chilly Scottish winds yesterday to play a practice round with American Todd Hamilton, who won the last Open at Royal Troon in 2004, and is a member of the same golf club in Dallas, Texas.

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“I’ve talked to Todd a lot and he helped me with advice on some of the playing lines off a few of the tees,” said Chalmers, who is only going to play two practice rounds of the Troon layout because “I’m never going to know everything about this golf course in a few days.”

What he has seen of the course he likes. Renowned more for his short game than his length from the tee, Chalmers says there are plenty of options, particularly around the greens, which will become important as the championship edges toward Sunday.

“You can run it, you can chip it, you can up, you can go down… probably going to go down more often than not. I’ve been practicing 3-wood run shots, I like that,” said Chalmers, who was just two shots off the lead heading into the final round of last year’s Open before fading to a tie for 58th.

The left hander says his game is in good shape heading into The Open.
PHOTO: Todd Warshaw/Getty Images.

“Troon’s got everything for long hitters and medium hitters like me. The challenge is that back nine. If we get the wind going strong from the north, north west, that’s going to be interesting and that’s where the short game will really come into it. Some of those greens on the back nine, they are like upside down bowls … like 10, 11 and 13 are really tough to hit from long range, because the ball just moves to the edges. I told my caddie I’d be happy to be just three or four yards short of about three greens on the holes into the wind.”

While he’s buoyant about his chances this week, he can’t even imagine what it would be like to pick up his second win in as many weeks, and for it to be a major.

“It would just be crazy… it would be nuts,” he laughed.

“That would be the greatest achievement, not just for my career but for other people’s careers, those who I work with, it would be off the charts.”

And, to that end, the game plan is as simple as it gets.

“Out here, it can go upside down real quick,” says Chalmers pointing towards Troon’s 1^st fairway. “The bunkers out here are scary, some I am amazed you can get down in them. They’re not called coffin bunkers for nothing.

“So simple plan … lets get that first tee shot in the fairway, don’t worry about anything else … hit the next one where you want to hit it and keep going.”

Chalmers’ Open campaign starts at 8.36pm (AEST Thursday) alongside Sweden’s Kristofer Broberg and Frenchman Clement Sordet.