Craig Perks Final approach?
With his game and confidence in need of major overhauls, Craig Perks contemplates ending his bittersweet career
Craig Perks returns to the scene of his greatest golfing accomplishment this week with his game in shambles and his career at a crossroads.
The numbers don't lie.
Since winning The Players Championship in March 2002 at TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., Perks has fallen on rock-hard times. In 127 subsequent events, he has missed 85 cuts, withdrawn twice and pocketed $11,880 since August 2005. He has no earnings this year and tumbled out of the top 1,000 in the world rankings.
His latest missed cut came Friday when he exited the Wachovia Championship after rounds of 80-76 (12-over-par 156) at Quail Hollow Golf Club in Charlotte, N.C., in the presence of playing partner Tiger Woods, the world's No. 1-ranked player.
For a card-carrying member of the PGA Tour, having the weekend off on a regular basis is not a good thing. But unless the 40-year-old New Zealander can reverse the trend soon, he is ready to put bag and clubs in a closet at his home in Lafayette and slam the door on a bittersweet career.
"This is kind of it for me," Perks said several days after missing the cut at the EDS Byron Nelson Championship in Irving, Texas. "If it doesn't work out over these next six to eight weeks . . . there won't be any announcement. I just won't play anymore. I don't need any big farewell. I've given it everything I've got. I'm proud of what I did accomplish.
"If it doesn't turn out the way I want it to, I'll walk away with my head held high knowing I did everything I could to be the best that I could be."
The irony of being paired with Woods on Thursday and Friday was not lost on Perks' wife and occasional caddie, Maureen.
"To be paired with Tiger can be very intimidating," she said Wednesday after the Wachovia Championship pairings were announced. "I'm excited for him and yet worried for him because I know that he wishes he had his better game with him."
Two weeks before winning The Players Championship in '02, Perks played with Woods on championship Sunday at the Genuity Championship at Doral (now known as the Ford Championship). Woods shot a final-round 66 and finished second behind Ernie Els. Perks posted a 71 and finished tied for fifth, good enough to collect $159,330.
The rest of the story
Brian Allee-Walsh
ballee-walsh@timespicayune.com
(504) 826-3805.
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