No requirement to witness “The Shot in Dark.” Last-minute tickets to a Pearl Jam show at Blossom Music . Ambushing Phil Mickelson with a cheering area as he tossed batting practice priorto a now-Akron RubberDucks videogame at Canal Park.
Justin Leonard hasn’t played at Firestone Country Club because2010 But memories of Akron came flooding back as he returned for his PGA Tour Champions launching in the Bridgestone Senior Players Championship.
Leonard turned 50 on June 15, however stated he’d been preparing for his shift to the senior trip for the last year and a half. Coupled with his schedule as a golf expert for NBC Sports and justrecently moving his household from Aspen, Colorado, to Jupiter, Florida, he had plenty to keep him hectic, particularly a three-day drive with his 15-year-old child and their 4 petdogs to their brand-new house.
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Winning the Claret Jug in 1997, Leonard will head to St. Andrews next week to broadcast the 150th Open Championship. But that won’t modification his focus in the $3 million Bridgestone occasion, the 4th of 5 senior majors that opened Thursday on the famous South Course.
“I’m curious to see where my videogame is,” Leonard stated. “There’s a huge distinction inbetween playing with pals or playing with my kids and put a scorecard in the pocket and attempting to beat some of these men. So I’ll state I’m handling my expectations. I anticipate to findout a lot from this week.
“But as far as results and those things, not truly believing about those things. I’m simply attempting to ease my method back into competitive golf. I’ll play 4 or 5 occasions inbetween now and the end of the season and get a sense of where these things are.”
The enjoyable times Leonard had in Akron stay fresh, although possibly not his tie for 2nd behind Tiger Woods in the World Golf Championships-NEC Invitational in 2000, when ultimate eight-time Firestone winner Woods beat Leonard and Philip Price by 11 shots.
Asked where he was for one of Woods’ most famous surfaces, Leonard stated, “I think that was one of those years where he was going to win by 12 or something like that, so it’s not like I was on the variety getting prepared for a playoff.”
Reminded of Woods’ success margin, Leonard included, “Yeah, so I won the B flight, which is good. No prize for that.”
Most of Leonard’s preferred stories come from off the course.
One year, in the days priorto he was immersed in satellite radio, he was driving to the course and heard an upcoming Pearl Jam program pointedout. He discovered Phil Mickelson’s longtime caddie, Jim “Bones’ Mackay, a excellent goodfriend who is into the music scene.
“I informed him, ‘I think Pearl Jam is playing someplace here closeby,’’’ Leonard stated of Mackay. “He stated, ‘I’m on it.’ An hour lateron, we had tickets. And that night Davis Love and Bones and I drove 45 minutes to a fantastic outside location and saw Pearl Jam.”
Another night to keepinmind came in 2003, when Mickelson tossed batting practice to the then-Double-A Akron Aeros, supposedly offering 3 $100 costs to any gamer who might hit a house run off him. None did.
“I may have