By Mike Blum
On the PGA Tour, an entire season of unproductive play can be erased by one good week.
Or in the case of Troy Matteson, by three exceptional days.
Matteson, a former Georgia Tech star who has settled in the Atlanta area, was outside the top 125 on the money list with just three tournaments to play, and needed a strong finish in at least one of them to retain his exempt status for next year.
After a nondescript opening round of 2-over 72 in the Frys.com Open in Scottsdale, Ariz., Matteson was looking at his 12th missed cut of the 2009 season and a loss of several more spots on the money list.
But Matteson rebounded the next day with a career best 61, and followed that up with another 61 to take the lead going to the final round. A pair of late bogeys sent Matteson into a playoff, his first in six years as a tour player. But with one more superlative shot, he emerged with a victory and a happy end to a season that had not produced many smiles for the 30-year-old ex-Yellow Jacket.
“It’s just been unbelievable,” Matteson said after his victory. “On Thursday, if you told me that I could get into a playoff to try to win this tournament, I would have said you’re absolutely out of your mind.
“I know I stumbled going down the stretch there, but I’m still beside myself. I can’t believe I’m sitting here and the golf tournament is over.”
A late season surge is nothing new to Matteson, who has made a habit of it during his four years on the PGA Tour. But unlike his previous fast finishes, this one came totally out of the blue.
As a rookie in 2006, Matteson closed out his season with five consecutive top 10 finishes, including a win in Las Vegas to vault from 172nd on the money list to 36th. (That tournament was also known as the Frys.com Open, with the company shifting its sponsorship to the Scottsdale event in 2008.) Last year, Matteson closed with back-to-back finishes of 7th and 6th in his final two starts of the year, but those were the last two times he had ended a week in the top 10.
Coming into the Scottsdale tournament, Matteson had not placed higher than 14th in a tournament in 2009, and had managed just two finishes in the top 20. He began the week 132 on the money list and things were not looking up after his opening 72, which included just one birdie on a course where scores in the 60s were rampant.
“I just didn’t hit anything really close,” Matteson said of his first round. “Just didn’t have good looks at it. Nothing would go in.
“All of a sudden, I come out here the next day and it’s like, ‘Voila, there it is’. You start hitting it close and you start making putts.”
After an eagle on the drivable, par-4 15th, Matteson was 6-under after six holes in his second round, and wound up with a 7-under 28 for the nine. Two more birdies on his final nine resulted in a 61, but he was still four shots off the lead after 36 holes.
Ten birdies and a lone bogey produced another 61, with Matteson requiring only 58 strokes on the back nine at Grayhawk GC on consecutive days.
“I’ve not even shot a 61 prior to this week,” Matteson said. “To shoot two of them, I don’t even know what to say. A lot close opportunities, and that’s really the key out here. We had a lot of good looks at it over the last two days. If you get easy putts and you’re stroking it well, you’re gonna make a lot of putts.”
Putting had not been Matteson’s strong suit for most of the 2009 season. Even after his 21-birdie, 2-eagle showing in Scottsdale, he ranked 131, 134 and 136 in the three main putting categories.
Matteson is also ranked in the bottom half of the scrambling stats, and that caught up with him on the final two holes of regulation. He came up short with his second shot on the par-4 17th and was unable to get up and for par.
Still leading by one going to the final hole, Matteson put his tee shot in the fairway but found a greenside bunker with his short iron approach. Matteson, who is ranked in the bottom 10 percent on tour in sand saves, made another bogey, sending him into a three-way playoff with youngsters Rickie Fowler and Jamie Lovemark, both of whom only recently turned pro and are not yet PGA Tour members.
Fowler had briefly wrested the lead from Matteson when he aced the par-3 fifth hole, getting him to 5-under par on his round at that point. But Matteson quickly regained the lead when he knocked it on the par-5 fourth in two and holed the putt for eagle.
Consecutive birdies at holes 10, 11 and 12 enabled Fowler to again take the lead, but Matteson answered with birdies at 11 and 12. When Fowler bogeyed the 18th, the lead went back to two shots. But Matteson’s bogey-bogey finish left him with a 68 on the day and an 18-under 262 total, matching that of Fowler and Lovemark, who earned his spot in the playoff with a birdie at 18.
All three players parred the 18th, the first playoff hole, with Lovemark getting up and down after his approach shot splashed out of the water and onto the bank just below the green. The playoff continued on the 17th, and this time Matteson did not leave his second shot short.
From 197 yards, Matteson rifled what he described as “a bullet low 6iron that never left the flag. I thought, ‘Gosh, that’s a really good shot. I’m going to put some pressure on those guys’.”
Matteson did not realize how close he was. His ball came to rest less than two feet from the cup. Fowler and Lovemark both had to work hard to make par on the hole, leaving Matteson to hole his short putt for the victory.
“It’s pretty sweet when you have to hit the shot and you’re able to get it done,” Matteson said. “It’s pretty special for me.”
That wasn’t the only special feeling that week for Matteson.
“The two 61s are probably something that I’ll never do again. That’s as good as I can play. I don’t have to worry about playing better than that, because that’s it.”
Since his win in Las Vegas as a rookie, Matteson has struggled at times when in or near the lead in the final round. But that was not the case in Scottsdale, at least not until the 17th and 18th holes.
“To come in today and shoot under par meant a lot. When you have the lead, it’s difficult to play. It’s very, very difficult to push that out of your mind and just concentrate on hitting shot after shot, and just not putting a lot of emphasis on any one shot.
“That’s why it’s easier to win if you’re second or third going into the last round than it is if you’re first.”
Matteson’s victory was worth $900,000 and moved him from 132 on the money list to 55 with earnings of $1.466 million on the season. After placing 36th on the money list as a rookie, Matteson dipped to 73rd and 89th the last two seasons, but his win in Scottsdale reversed his downward slide.
Like former teammate Matt Kuchar, who also scored a Fall Series victory, Matteson enjoyed a stellar career at Georgia Tech. He won six times as a collegian, including the 2002 NCAA Championship and the ’03 East Regional.
Matteson qualified for the Nationwide Tour in his first attempt, and after a respectable rookie season as a pro, led the Nationwide Tour in earnings in 2005, recording 12 top-10 finishes including two wins and three runner-up showings.
After graduating from Tech in 2003 with a degree in Civil Engineering, Matteson settled in the Atlanta area and has played out of the Golf Club of Georgia. Matteson is a native Floridian and attended high school in Austin, Tex., where he twice led his team to state titles, earning medalist honors both times.
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