Tewell Hitting His Stride

Doug Tewell got a cake for his 46th birthday.

The icing didn’t read “Happy Birthday.” The icing said “Four years and counting.” Tewell’s wife, Pam, isn’t into gentle hints. Tewell was four years from gaining eligibility into the Senior PGA Tour.

“Yeah, you could say the senior tour was a goal of mine,” Tewell says. “I spent some serious time getting ready.”

Tewell comes to the Toshiba Senior Classic at Newport Beach Country Club off his 2000 senior tour rookie of the year season. Tewell was head of the rookie class that included Tom Watson, Tom Kite and Lanny Wadkins. Tewell was not supposed to be the best of the rookie breed.

But that’s the thing about the seniors. It is a second beginning for some golfers. It is a farewell fun tour for others.

“I had a fire in my eyes,” Tewell says. “I would say that, for example, a Tom Watson, he might not have the same incentive.

“We all had the same goals when we came out on the [PGA] tour. You want to win majors, win tournaments. But we don’t all accomplish them. I won four tournaments as a PGA pro and that isn’t a bad achievement.

“But it doesn’t compare to what a Tom Watson did. I’ve had a feeling that I underachieved, that I should have won more and it just didn’t happen. So I’ve got a second chance to do it right.”

As the 2000 season wound down, it was clear the rookie honor would be a battle between Tewell and Kite. Tewell finished eighth on the senior money list and Kite 11th. But Kite played seven fewer tournaments than Tewell.

He would not, Kite said last fall, make a big push to play a bunch of tournaments, to beat Tewell to the award. Kite preferred to spend time with his teenage sons and daughter. Different priorities. Kite won 19 times on the PGA Tour. Kite won a U.S. Open title, played on seven Ryder Cup teams, captained one. Being senior tour rookie of the year wasn’t such a big deal.

Watson won 34 times on the PGA Tour, won the Masters, the British Open. Wadkins had 21 PGA wins including a PGA Championship. Tewell counts his 1986 Los Angeles Open victory as his career highlight.

Some highlight. When Tewell was trying to get a sponsor’s exemption into the 2000 Toshiba Classic, Tewell mentioned to the important people that he did have a Southern California connection. That victory at Riviera Country Club earned Tewell a hearty pat on the back and a weekend of hanging around the house of friends at Big Canyon hoping that one of his senior compatriots stubbed a toe, sprained an ankle, got the flu, pulled out.

“Some clout, huh?” Tewell says. “I had a nice weekend of visiting my friends. Never made it into the field.”

Tewell played five senior events in 1999. He had a sciatica problem with his back, didn’t play well and, as he says, “I came out of that year two players above the floor.”

“The floor,” is No. 72 on the money list, the bottom of exempt players. “I won $19,800 in the first tourney last year,” Tewell says, “and that jumped me to 68 on the list, four above the floor. I still couldn’t get into the next tournament, Naples. Sponsors gave me a spot in Tampa and I did awful. Next week in Sarasota, finished fourth and jumped up to 65th on the list. I had a little more breathing room.

“So I come out to Newport Beach, ask for a spot and they gave it to Butch Baird instead. So I played Big Canyon every day, then flew down to Mexico which was the next stop. I finished second, took a week off, won the Senior PGA and basically have kept it up.”

This is the sweetness of the senior tour. You can come watch your old heroes--Watson, Kite, Jack Nicklaus, Lee Trevino, Chi Chi Rodriguez--or you can watch serious competition.

After his disappointing five-tournament taste of senior play in 1999, Tewell hired a personal trainer.

“I realized how competitive this tour is,” Tewell says. “It was an eye-opener. I had to get in a lot better shape. I lifted some weights, I did some serious work. All my friends had been telling me I was going to win millions of dollars on this tour and I didn’t want to make liars out of them.”

His friends aren’t liars. Tewell won $1.4 million last year. He won the Senior PGA title. If that wasn’t as momentous as winning the PGA title on the regular tour, Tewell took about five minutes to realize it was darn close.

“I walked into the clubhouse and looked at the names of some of the other winners,” Tewell says. He looked at the trophy and saw Nicklaus, Trevino, Arnold Palmer, Sam Snead, Gene Sarazen had also held the trophy. “Pretty cool,” Tewell says. “You suddenly feel a little part of history.”

Tewell was never the young golf phenom. He grew up in Stillwater, Okla., son of an Oklahoma State professor, and went to OSU. On a basketball scholarship.

For four years after graduation Tewell worked as a club pro. “It was quite by accident I ended up on the tour,” he says. “I had gone to school with Mark Hayes, who was quite well known back then. I qualified for the 1974 Phoenix Open as a club pro and Mark said I was in for a treat.

“I shot 71-69 and made the cut. Mark said ‘I cannot believe you can just walk out here and make your first cut. There is something special about that. It is so hard to make the cut. You need to think about playing out here if it’s that easy.’ ”

As a Class A club pro, Tewell gained immediate entree to the tour. So he listened to Hayes, quit his job and became a pro golfer.

Tewell found out making the cut wasn’t so easy. He and Pam “almost starved,” Tewell says. He didn’t gain full exempt status until 1979. For 19 years Tewell was one of those guys whose name you’d hear but whose accomplishments you could never remember.

It is those guys, the Tewells, the Dana Quigleys and Bob Eastwoods, the Mike McCulloughs and Ed Doughertys who play for real, who come out for every tournament, who want to win more than anything.

It is the Tewells who can say after winning the Senior PGA that “I feel like I’m in the club now, that I was missing something and now I have it. I don’t care how old I am, I love to compete against them all. I played with Jack Nicklaus a couple of weeks ago and I loved it. I wish I could play against the Jack Nicklaus who was at his best. I wish I could play against them all--Snead, Palmer, Sarazen. When I was playing with Jack, I realized that all of the baby boomers are learning about Jack because of Tiger Woods. Maybe, after they walked the course with Jack, some of those baby boomers will remember Doug Tewell. That’s nice.”

Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: diane.pucin@latimes.com