Golf World Monday - March 28, 2011

3.28.2011

tim;rosaforte laird’s;determination;pays;off

At their home 15 miles from St. Andrews, Charles and Anne Laird jumped off the couch Sunday night watching their Americanized son win the Arnold Palmer Invitational. More than 4,000 miles from Bay Hill in Orlando, in the Scottish town of upper Largo, they agonized and ultimately celebrated as Martin Laird took ownership of the King’s sword.

charge that harkened back to the determination of the tournament’s host. This was something he picked up as a kid in Glasgow, almost by osmosis.

around by learning to turn his low-running hook into a sky-high fade.

Drake, 2007 Masters champion Zach Johnson.

“He grew up playing with a set of cut-off Arnold Palmer irons,” explained Charles, a civil engineer who first took his son to Kirkintilloch GC when he was 2 years old. Playing 54 holes a day on the James Braid design, young Laird developed enough of a swing to earn a scholarship to Colorado State.

“He had a plan,” Bermal said.
“The reason he come to
the States was because he
wanted to play on the PGA
Tour. What stuck out in my
mind more than anything
was that he wanted to play
against the best.”
“The fist pump told it all,”
said Laird’s father. “He’s al-
ways been very determined,
very strong-willed, whether
it was rugby or golf.”
The fist pump, Palmer
would have been proud of.
The Palmeresque will to win
couldn’t have been better
exemplified than by Laird’s
comeback after he played
his first 11 holes Sunday in
five over, turning a two-
stroke lead into a three-
stroke deficit. But instead of
fading the way so many did
at sun-baked Bay Hill in the
final round, Laird made a
Jamie Bermal, the CSu
coach, saw enough talent
in Laird’s VCr tape to offer
the 17-year-old a spot on
the team. His trip to Fort
Collins, Colo., in 2000 was
also the first time Laird set
foot in America. But after
the spotty way Laird played
as a freshman, he was close
to losing his financial aid.
Clearing off patches of snow
to hit balls that winter, Laird
turned his game and life
Over the last eight months,
Laird has become one of the
best players in the world. He
came within two swings of
winning two titles last year—
the brilliant approach by
Matt Kuchar at the Barclays
and a playoff ace by Jonathan
Byrd at Las Vegas. He now
has a win, two seconds, one
third and a fifth in his last 15
tour starts.

With a putting stroke that
made six par-saves in the
five-foot range Sunday, Laird
demonstrated the type of
“bulldog mentality” shown
by another of Bermal’s play-
ers when he was coaching
This summer, Laird will mar-
ry his college sweetheart,
Meagan Franks, in Colorado.
The wedding will be Scot-
tish style, complete with
the men wearing kilts, but
they will make their home in
Scottsdale. Like Paul Casey
and Luke Donald, Laird was
schooled here, and will end
up with an American wife,
but he remains very much
European. “Martin is a well-
rounded individual,” says his
father. “He hasn’t changed at
all. His accent a wee bit may-
be, although it changes back
when he gets over here.”