Worth the wait: Paul Goydos recalls second career PGA TOUR win at Sony Open in Hawaii

Editor’s note: Paul Goydos will tell people that the two most important tournaments he won came on the PGA TOUR, the 1996 Bay Hill Invitational and the 2007 Sony Open in Hawaii. He’s also quick to point out, however, that he won a mini-tour event in Long Beach, California, when “I was completely broke, and my wife was eight months pregnant. That was a pretty big one, too.” Goydos, ever the pragmatist, readily admits not all wins are created equal. Since turning 50, Goydos has also won five times on PGA TOUR Champions (and he has a Korn Ferry Tour title to his credit, as well). There was a time when Goydos wondered if a second PGA TOUR win would ever come, and he thinks back to early in his career when he won in his 105th career start – then waited almost 11 years for win No. 2. It’s something the 59-year-old Goydos remembers fondly as a memorable week in Honolulu.

When I arrived at Bay Hill Club and Lodge in 1996, I had never won a PGA TOUR tournament. A week later I left Orlando a PGA TOUR winner. It wasn’t that I thought the floodgates would open after I won my first title, but I didn’t expect to have to wait almost 11 years for my next win (3,995 days to be exact, but who’s counting?).

It is a select group of people who’ve won on the PGA TOUR, and that group gets a lot smaller when you’re talking about two wins. It gets smaller for those with three wins and so on. In my career, I won twice, and while I didn’t necessarily look at my second win – at the 2007 Sony Open in Hawaii – as a validation of my win at Arnold Palmer’s course in Orlando, it sure felt good.

Before I get into my win at Waialae Country Club, I have to go back to the end of the 2006 season, which is a key part of the story. That was the season before the FedExCup began, so the TOUR still used the money list to determine exempt status for the following season. As I entered the Chrysler Championship – the final tournament of the year – in late October, I was 160th in earnings. That week, I knew I needed to finish solo fourth (or better) to get inside the top 125 and keep my card. Otherwise, it was back to Q-School.

In the Tampa suburb of Palm Harbor, Florida, at Innisbrook Golf Resort’s Copperhead Course, I opened the tournament with a pair of 68s, kept it going, and went on to tie for second with Brett Wetterich, four shots behind winner K.J. Choi. I earned $466,400 and moved up 63 money-list spots, to 97th. I kept my card, but I couldn’t sustain the momentum the following week because the season was over.

Seventy-four days after finishing my year in Florida, I began that first FedExCup season at Waialae Country Club, a course I feel is similar to Innisbrook. They both have Bermudagrass, the weather is warm and they’re both manage-your-ball courses, not beat-the-tar-out-of-it golf courses. That was good for me.

I opened the Sony Open in Hawaii with a 4-under 66 and followed with a 63 in the second round, tying with Luke Donald for the 36-hole lead. Whatever I had done at Innisbrook the previous October showed up again in early January.

For a player like me to win, I’ve always felt my game has to be good, but it has to be good on the right course. Waialae Country Club was the right course for me, and although I shot an even-par 70 on Day 3 to fall into third place, I was only two strokes behind Charles Howell III, the 54-hole leader, with Luke a stroke ahead of me. I would play the final round in the second-to-last pairing, with Ted Purdy as my partner. Charles and Luke played together behind us.

When I won at Bay Hill, I was also tied for third after three rounds, two shots back, and I played the final round in the second-to-last group. I shot 67 at Bay Hill on the final day. I needed something similar to that at Sony if I was going to get win No. 2.

My start on Sunday was not ideal. I made two bogeys in my first three holes and was 2-over through six. But birdies at Nos. 7 and 9 allowed me to make the turn at even, where I stayed through 11 holes.

I birdied the 12th, and I remember seeing a scoreboard, noticing I was still in third place, four back. When I play, I like to look at the leaderboards. I think that’s part of the fun. I want to know where I stand. I want to know how to react. I don’t want to be the guy who just tries to hit the best shot and then hope for the best at the end.

No. 13 at Waialae is a hard hole, and I made par there and another par on 14. Then on 15, I made a 20-footer for birdie. I hit two good shots on the par-4 16th, a similar-length putt to what I had on 15, and by now it’s really windy, which I liked. I made birdie there, so I center-cup these two 20-footers and then glanced at the leaderboard on the 16th green. The problem was, there was a tree in front of the board, and where I was standing, I couldn’t really see my name or anybody else’s. Ted still had to putt, so I quietly walked to the left side of the 16th green for a better view, wondering who was leading.

Well, I was.

Of course, I immediately hit my tee shot in the bunker on the par-3 17th. From there, I couldn’t get up and down and made bogey. With a hole to play, I assumed I was tied for the lead, but I wasn’t sure.

It seems everybody on the par-5 finishing hole at Waialae hits high hooks with the driver over the corner of the palm tree, and I never understood why. My play is always to hit a 3-wood to the corner (of the dogleg) and then a 3-wood second shot up to the green. I like to hit the wide part of the fairway, where I can still reach in two. That was always my strategy; there was no need to change with the tournament on the line.

After a good drive, I knocked my 3-wood second just short of the green, with the Sunday pin located front left. If I’m playing golf with my buddies back home, I would say I should get a shot like that up and down for birdie 80 percent of the time. In this situation, with the tournament on the line, OK, it’s not 80 percent, but it was doable. With about 4 yards of fairway and 16 to 18 feet of green to work with for my third shot, I hit my chip just a little thin, the ball landing on the green and going pretty fast. It could have gone cruising by. Instead, the ball banged against the pin and stopped inches from the hole.

I tapped in to finish 14-under, shooting a 67. I was feeling pretty good.

After signing my scorecard, and trust me, I took a little more time on the scorecard than I normally would, I watched Luke and Charles on the TV monitor play 18. I found out Luke needed to chip in for eagle to tie me, and Charles needed to make his birdie putt to force a playoff. Luke’s chip missed, but it came really close, and Charles missed his putt after going eagle-birdie-birdie on 18 the first three days. Win No. 2 was mine.

The week before Innisbrook, I was the 295th-ranked player in the world. After my win at Sony, I was 39th. I guess you could say I had this good two-tournament run that had a 10-week break in between.

Tiger Woods has often talked about winning with his A game or his B game or his C game. Now if Tiger has his best game, he wins, right? It’s probably true for a decent number of players. For me to win, though, I needed to have my A game and good stuff needed to happen. That week at the Sony Open, I played well, and there was a lot of good stuff.

I’ve always said the excitement of winning is the doing it, not the accolades that come afterward. The best part of what we do – at least for me – is the playing, not the enjoying. Maybe that’s a bad thing. But I’ve never won a tournament and then broken open a bottle of champagne. I suppose part of that comes from my mom, who taught me not to rest on my laurels, something I believe in.

But what my mom always said does make me ask: Do kids today know what a laurel is?