PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- For obvious reasons, the field this week has been rightly ridiculed as one of the thinnest in recent annals of PGA Tour history.
Which isn’t to say that a few million of the golf-savviest fans in the world will not be monitoring Monday's developments with rapt attention.
Forget Boston Red Sox right-hander Daisuke Matsuzaka, who over the weekend became the first Japanese player to start a World Series game. He's a veritable overnight sensation compared to the country's longtime golfing icon.
The nation's king of swing, Shigeki Maruyama, on Monday will be trying to become a big-time, big-league closer.
Battling through a dismal year that has been marked by poor results and a series of nagging injuries, the seemingly ever-present smile finally returned to the face of Maruyama over the weekend at the Ginn sur Mer Classic at the Tesoro Club.
With a spectacular eagle from the greenside bunker on the par-5 16th hole Sunday night, Maruyama moved into a three-way tie for first at 18-under with Daniel Chopra and Fredrik Jacobsen when play was suspended because of darkness. Each has between two and three holes left to complete.
Maruyama, as long as he doesn’t fall down dead, not only could claim his fourth PGA Tour victory but cement his status for 2008, regardless. The latter had been a shaky proposition as recently as, oh, Saturday night.
In a field devoid of star power, Maruyama had played this year like a struggling journeyman, not the biggest star in Japanese golf. Maruyama, the first Japanese player to claim a victory on the U.S. mainland, back home stands as is the game's version of Ichiro. But he entered the week at No. 137 in earnings, a dozen slots outside the position needed to remain fully exempt for next season.
A knee injury had to be drained in midseason, causing him to miss some time and develop some bad swing habits. After finishing no worse than 79th in his previous seven years in the States and becoming an engaging fan favorite, he did not send his application for Qualifying School, so it was either deliver the goods over the final two weeks of the season, or head back to Japan next year. He would have had minimal status in the U.S.
"The golf courses have gotten a lot harder than they used to be, that was one of the problems," Maruyama explained through his interpreter. "My short game was not always there. The courses got longer and I struggled a little bit."
After winning three times in his first four years as a full-time PGA Tour player, the former Presidents Cup star has fallen progressively south on the annual earnings list since his last victory in 2003, when he finished 23rd in earnings. In 2006, Maruyama made a career-high 30 starts, but slid to a career-worst 79th in earnings at $1.15 million. Not exactly koi feed, but nothing near his previous levels of success.
This year marked an outright retreat by comparison. He made the cut 12 times in 30 starts and was forced to withdraw four times. He had one top-10 finish all year, which had the legion of golf fans back home wondering what was going on with his game.
"They have been questioning, have the golf courses gotten longer, have they gotten better, is he in a slump, those types of questions," Maruyama said.
Forget the famous Ozaki brothers, Joe, Jet and Jumbo, who rarely left the island to ply their trade against deeper fields. Maruyama deserves major kudos for taking a crack at the toughest tour in the world, not to mention posting top-five finishes at the U.S. and British opens.
For those who thought his career was in hot water entering the week, you don't know the half of it. Maruyama's pre-round regimen would make most men wince. Because he has a painful spine injury in his neck and shoulder area, he has to take hot showers every morning to loosen up, followed by a series of stretching exercises. He doesn’t use a pillow and ices his neck after the round.
A top-three finish would serve as a welcome, cold compress for his money woes. A third-place finish would be worth $306,000, which would jump him to around 111th in earnings, well inside the safe zone heading into the season finale later this week at Disney World.
Truth be told, Maruyama admitted to initially having a less lofty objective down the stretch, one which he has successfully achieved.
"I was trying to get inside the top 150," he said.
