Goosen hoping to add a US Senior Open

Retief Goosen won seven times on the PGA TOUR, including two U.S. Opens. He won 24 times internationally.

All 31 of those victories came between 1991 and 2009.

So while he clearly knows how to win, he hasn’t actually done it in 10 years. And like all players learn on PGA TOUR Champions, that feeling is a little different now. It wasn’t yesterday when he was hitting clutch putts, staring down the best in the game and winning majors. It’s decidedly not the cliché “just like riding a bike.” It’s like whitewater rafting in a leaky kayak with an old wooden paddle. A guy is just kind of hoping it all holds together, and chances are it won’t until it just does again.

Goosen found himself in position to win on the PGA TOUR Champions for the first time on Sunday at the American Family Insurance Championship in Madison, Wisconsin. He entered the day two strokes behind Steve Flesch. He had a putt to take the lead on the 54th hole but said he misread the 10-footer that as it turns out would have won it.

Instead, Goosen wound up in a three-way playoff with two players with homefield advantage – Jerry Kelly and tournament host Steve Stricker. Kelly prevailed on the third playoff hole, rolling in a birdie putt with Stricker bowing out with a bogey on the first playoff hole.

“I messed up really a little bit during regular play, especially on 15,” Goosen said. “It cost me. But then on the 72nd hole I hit a good putt, misread it.

Then, yeah, the playoff was exciting stuff.

“It was good to be in that sort of fight again. It's been a while since I've been in that kind of position and it's nice to finally get in that position. Now we can grow on that and I'm looking forward to the U.S. (Senior) Open.”

Right after Goosen got his first taste of being in the hunt again, he will play in his first U.S. Senior Open, at the Warren Golf Course in Notre Dame, Indiana. The U.S. Open is largely the event that defines his World Golf Hall of Fame career. He won an 18-hole playoff by two strokes over Mark Brooks at Southern Hills in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to win it in 2001, ending Tiger Woods’ run of four consecutive major wins. “The Goose” won the U.S. Open again in 2004 at Shinnecock Hills in New York, beating Phil Mickelson by two strokes.

The runner-up finish at the AmFam was Goosen’s best on PGA TOUR Champions in 10 events since turning 50 on Feb. 3. He has two other top-10 finishes and is ranked 17th in the Schwab Cup standings, and all in all he left Wisconsin for the jaunt to Indiana feeling pretty good about the state of his game.

“I started hitting the ball a lot better, and this week I changed my putter grip and I started putting nicely,” Goosen said. “I felt good over the putter all week, so that's a good thing going into this week.”

Despite the critical miss on 18 it was really his Sunday putting when he picked it up with the flat stick. He ranked 33rd for the week in putting average (1.756 putts per GIR) – only slightly better than his season average of 36th (1.791 putts per GIR) – but he was stellar during his final round 6-under 66. He took only 1.5 putts per GIR.

The 66 was Goosen’s lowest third round and lowest final round of his rookie season. Interestingly he has not fared well in the final round of the two four-round events (majors) played so far – the Regions Tradition (a 1-under 71) and the Senior PGA Championship (a 4-over 74 that dropped him from serious contention to solo fourth).

He admitted Sunday that the 54-hole format for regular PGA TOUR Champions events is an adjustment.

“Yeah, I mean, every day's a moving day out here,” Goosen said. “From round one, the first hole on, you've got to start making birdies.”

That might be a little different at the U.S. Senior Open, depending on how the USGA sets up the course at the University of Notre Dame. Three times in the past five years the winning score was no lower than 5 under. David Toms won last year with a 3-under total. Both times Goosen won the U.S. open he did so with four-round totals of 4 under.

So if birdies are at a premium it could play into the hands of the South Africa native. And wouldn’t that be a nice beginning to his PGA TOUR Champions trophy case?