Bulletin E-Edition:
more photosAfter missing the tournament in 2008, Peter Jacobsen, 55, looks to return from many injuries over the past couple of years and make a run at the title of The Tradition next week in Sunriver.
David Zalubowski / AP file
Trying to get back on track
Injuries have kept Peter Jacobsen from making a recent run at The Tradition
By Zack Hall / The Bulletin
Published: August 12. 2009 4:00AM PSTPeter Jacobsen would like nothing more than to spend the final round of the 2009 Jeld-Wen Tradition in the same way he has spent hundreds of golf tournaments in his career — as a player.
But the native Oregonian has yet to finish a Tradition since the Champions Tour major championship moved from the Portland area to Sunriver Resort’s Crosswater Club in 2007.
The oft-injured Jacobsen pulled out of the competition two holes into the final round in 2007. And last year, the former University of Oregon golfer withdrew before the first round.
“Based on the last two years, just finishing the tournament would be really great (this year),” says Jacobsen, 55. “There have been four or five tournaments that I have had to pull out of the last two or three years completely where I never even got to town. It’s been very frustrating the last two or three years to have gone through what I have gone through.”
He has played in just four Champions Tour tournaments so far in 2009 after undergoing shoulder surgery earlier in the year. In recent years Jacobsen has undergone hip and knee replacement surgeries, and microsurgery on his back.
And his recovery has been slow. In June, he played in the Triton Financial Classic, his first tournament this year, and finished in a tie for 65th place. So far this year he has yet to finish better than a tie for 56th place.
Two weeks ago at the U.S. Senior Open, Jacobsen shot a pair of 76s and missed the 36-hole cut.
His struggles, he says, have been a product of long periods of inactivity.
“I’m feeling really good,” Jacobsen says. “It’s been a lot slower rehab and recovery than I would have liked. But it’s just hard with a new knee and new hip and back surgery, and most recently my shoulder. It’s been very difficult just for me to find the feel of my swing.
“I’m rusty. I’ll play six or seven good holes and I’ll have a couple of bad holes. But I love the game and I am being really patient and positive, and I am going to continue on and fight through these things.”
Jacobsen has more on his plate than most of the golfers in the field at this year’s Tradition, which will be played Aug. 20-23. His company, Portland-based Peter Jacobsen Sports, manages the tournament. And as a player, he is just now working his way back from the onslaught of injuries that has limited him to 11 tournaments in two years.
Jacobsen, though, is as outgoing and friendly as he was while he was building a reputation for being one of golf’s most charismatic players during a PGA Tour career that began in 1977.
And he still has the sense of humor for which he has long been known.
When asked about playing in front of larger galleries in his home state, Jacobsen jokes that the fans “are probably orderlies, and nurses, and doctors with scalpels and masks and stuff. They would be more in my gallery than anybody else’s. Recovery-room doctors and anesthesiologists. I expect to see a lot of those folks out there.”
Jacobsen has won seven times in his PGA Tour career, but he never won a major championship. But on the Champions Tour, he was successful early.
He won on the U.S. Senior Open as a rookie on the 50-and-over circuit in 2004. And he won another major, the Ford Senior Players Championship, the next year.
And that has made his injury troubles all the more disappointing.
“Especially getting off to such a good start when I turned 50,” says Jacobsen.
But Jacobsen’s enthusiasm has yet to be dampened.
“I was really excited about the Champions Tour,” he says. “And I still am very much excited about the Champions Tour, what we are doing as a group of over-50-year-old golfers.”
For the first time since Jacobsen learned the game growing up in Portland, he feels uncomfortable on a golf course.
It just takes time to get the feel back, he says.
And because of that, he is setting more manageable goals for the 2009 Tradition next week at Crosswater.
Sure, he would love nothing more than to win a tournament on his home soil. But more importantly, “I want to finish,” Jacobsen says.
“At this point, what I need are reps,” he adds. “What I need are rounds under my belt. I just need to get out and I need to play 18 holes. Believe it or not, when I first came back out playing, after having the hip and the knee and being away from the game, it is a concern just walking 18 holes.
“So my goal next week is to be able to get a good pro-am round on Tuesday, and then Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, to get four good, solid rounds, walk all 18 holes and be able to play some consistent golf,” he says. “Stay away from the bad numbers and get my stamina and my strength back. That is what I am looking for.”
Zack Hall can be reached at 541-617-7868 or at zhall@bendbulletin.com.
ARTICLE ACCESS: This article is among those available to all readers. Many more articles are available only to E-Edition members. Sign up today!
blog comments powered by Disqus
