Golf: Perks steps back to save career

Craig Perks knew stunning success with The Players Championship. But now his game has deserted him. He can no longer visualise how he wants to play a shot, let alone execute it.

Craig Perks' pride, in himself and his game, has been seriously dented but he has never been one to back away from a fight.

Those pugnacious qualities will be called on as he strives to save a career in freefall, barely four years after he beat the world's elite to win The Players Championship, widely considered the unofficial fifth major, on the PGA Tour in the United States.

The man certainly understands the true meaning of hanging tough after making seven visits to qualifying school before graduating to the tour in 2000. Having said that, his dark mood is entirely understandable. His game has deserted him. He can no longer visualise how he wants to play a shot, let alone execute it.

"You can't fake it in this game. I'm playing like a 15 handicapper," Perks said this week when announcing he was to take an eight-week break from the tour to clear his head.

"At the moment I'm standing over shots with no idea of what to do and how to do it. Obviously, that's a recipe for disaster.

"For the last 18 months I've gone out there expecting to miss cuts, which I do, I do it very well.

"I've played for 11 of the past 12 weeks and perhaps that's part of my misery. This will be the first real break I've had for four-five years."

His stunning success in The Players Championship hinted strongly at fun times ahead for the New Zealander. Sadly, Perks has found nothing to laugh about on or around the golf course since then.

The situation has now reached crisis point, with Perks confronting the sort of career meltdown that in the modern era has afflicted Australian Ian Baker-Finch and American David Duval, both major winners.

Baker-Finch attempted a comeback but had a tough time breaking 90 and has instead made a living in the broadcasting booth. Duval is at least competitive again on tour, making five cuts in 11 appearances this season after recording just eight from 49 in the preceding three years.

The numbers say everything about Perks' plight.

He has made just one cut in 14 events this year - meaning he had missed a weekend pay cheque in 22 of his last 23 tour appointments dating all the way back to July last year.

His scoring average this season is an off-colour 74.6 per round and his last top-10 result was a distant two years ago this month when an opening round of 63 set him on the way to a fourth placing in the Bank of America Colonial.

Perks has bettered par only twice in 30 attempts this season and his 2006 tournament income stands at US$11,880, ($19,345) which is considerably less than the father-of-two's outgoings. He has been tempted on a number of occasions to save himself the grief, ditch the clubs and seek a less stressful life with his wife Maureen and two children in Lafayette, Louisiana.

But his victory in The Players Championship earned him a five-year exemption on the tour and, to Perks, walking away now would be a cop out.

Instead, he is to cool off for two months, step away from the tour trail and spend time holidaying with his family in New Zealand.

"It's been an emotional rollercoaster but I watch these other guys competing and having fun and I've lost that. It's still in me though, I love to compete and I'm motivated to play like I know I can. I have to find my way back to that point."

He will arrive on these shores unexpectedly buoyant following a tip from Ange Pampling, wife of Australian touring pro Rod Pampling.

Ange Pampling was alerted by her husband to Perks' dilemma because of her background as a clinical psychologist.

"She has come up with a psychological performance inventory which basically goes into detail about things like self-confidence, my attention on the golf course, my ability to turn negative energy into positive energy, visualisation and imagery, my attitude ... We're only getting into this but she's given me strategies to help me overcome these deficiencies."

The onset of his problems emerged within months of his career highlight, in Florida in March of 2002.

He never truly allowed himself to enjoy that unexpected triumph against a world-class field, which propelled him to 34th on the moneylist with income of US$1,632,042 ($2,657,616) by year's end, and later saw him named the 2002 New Zealand Sportsman of the Year.

The only statistic important to Perks at the time was his placing at the end of that season at 191st in ball-striking - a measurement to signify a player's length and accuracy off the tee and the number of greens reached in regulation.

He convinced himself that he needed to compete consistently, to do that he had to get better and to accomplish that he needed to rebuild his swing. He did not merely tinker with it, he dismantled it and rebuilt it from his shoe spikes up.

It's not unlike a serious motor vehicle accident victim relearning to walk again; teaching the body to respond to the urgings of the brain.

Of course, in Perks' case, it was all self inflicted.

"Instead of looking what I had accomplished - coming from New Zealand, playing collegiate golf, finally getting on tour, then winning a tournament as big as that - I didn't give myself any credit," Perks said.

"I had a great year, had a win and accomplished some long-term career goals but I decided to change how I swung the golf club.

"Instead of improving my mental game and making small changes to improve the inadequacies of my golf swing, I radically changed my swing. What I've struggled with most is that I had confidence issues in my game."

It all snowballed out of control as he sought advice from a series of coaches in the hope of finding a remedy.

He began working again in January with George Kelnhopher, his Atlanta-based instructor from 1993 to 2000.

"I liked a lot of what he had to say. He has a very simple method and I understand what he is teaching," Perks said. "I've wandered in the abyss for a number of years and I've had some fundamental problems but this time I'm not going to do anything drastic.

"I rock-bottomed out last week [after missing the second-round cut at the Colonial]. I had absolutely no confidence in anything I was doing, my mental game, my physical game ... in myself as a person."

Hence the family holiday.

CRAIG PERKS

Age: 39.
Turned pro: 1993.
Joined US PGA Tour: 2000.
Tour titles: 2002 Players Championship.
Best secondary Nationwide Tour finishes: 2nd 1999 Carolina Classic, 2nd 1999 Oregon Classic.
2006 PGA Tour season: 14 events, one cut, earnings $19,345.
PGA Tour career earnings: $5,475,087.
World ranking: 601.
Career-best ranking: 64 in 2002.

- NZPA