5. 14.2012
tim rosaforte
kuchar’s competitive edge
matt kuchar loosened up
for the final two rounds of
the players championship
by hitting balls—tennis
balls. the matches pit-
ted matt and wife sybi
against their fathers, tennis
pros peter kuchar and Jim
parker. matt and sybi, who
played on the tennis team
at georgia tech, showed
no mercy. they dominated
the dads saturday and beat
them in a tight third set on
sunday, the day matt won
the biggest golf tournament
of his professional life.
this tournament famous.
he stepped on the throats
of mentally addled playing partner kevin na, along
with the foursome of rickie
fowler, martin laird, zach
Johnson and ben curtis
who tied for second.
cial,” kuchar said. “it’s quite
a feeling.”
the problem is, kuchar
hasn’t been doing it enough.
he played on two u.s. cup
teams and stockpiled 25
top-10s in the previous two
years, but in that time he
only won one tournament,
the 2010 barclays.
at sea island,” love said.
“he’s a little like phil [mick-
elson] in that he’s so com-
petitive. he’s got that, ‘i’m
going to beat you no matter
what we do attitude.’ that’s
why he’s so consistent. you
look at a leader board now,
it’s not a surprise to see
kuchar up there.”
the idea was to break a
sweat, kill the mornings
before his late-afternoon
tee times, and get into a
competitive flow before he
drove two miles to the gates
of tpc sawgrass.
“everybody talks about
matt’s smile,” said peter
kuchar. “but he wants to
step on your throat.”
“he was a top- 10 guy, but
deep down he wanted to
be more than that,” said
Johnny miller. “he has the
ability to win. he can go out
and beat everybody, which
he did this week. that’s
going to show matt kuchar
another level, that he can
do that.”
another way he’s like
mickelson is that kuchar
likes to play the wholesome
good guy. before the tennis
match, he participated in an
egg toss with sons camer-
on and carson, and pre-
sented his mother, meg, a
photo album of their family
trip last year to new zea-
land prior to the presidents
cup. the fact that this was
mother’s day, with both
meg (who he credits with
his disposition) and moth-
er-in-law priscilla there to
watch, was very pleasing.
the feeling looks as if it’s
going to last for a while. at
33, kuchar is just coming
into his prime. he moves
up to no. 5 in the world and
is looking for more. as he
said, it’s a cool time because there is the possibility of becoming no. 1, and
that’s where the smiling
assassin wants to be.
“i absolutely love competing,” kuchar said. “you
could name any sport, and
i’d want to beat everybody.”
that’s what kuchar did on
the closing holes that make
davis love iii, the u.s.
ryder cup captain, certainly
noticed. “matt has a confi-
dence when we play up here
“to do it on mother’s day,
staying at my parents’
house with my family, is re-
ally is magical, really spe-
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