ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, November 13, 1996 golf TAG: 9611130045
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: SPORTS EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: JACK BOGACZYK
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
Chasing around a little white ball is one thing. Chasing a dream is a very different game.
Chip Sullivan is doing both this week. The assistant pro at Hanging Rock Golf Club embarked Tuesday on the second stage of his bid to qualify for a PGA Tour card. His is not a Tiger Woods trip to the big time.
Most pros can't call the chairman of the Greater Milwaukee Open and ask for a spot in the field and a courtesy car. These aren't accidental tourists. To get to Doral and Kapalua, you stop at Shoney's Inn, where the Roanoke golfer is sharing a room with his father-in-law/caddie this week in Florence, S.C.
Sullivan figures he needs an under-par score for 72 holes at the long Country Club of South Carolina course just to reach the final stage of the qualifying school in December. He took one step toward that goal Tuesday with an opening round of 2-under-par 70 that left him tied for 10th place, five strokes behind PGA Tour veteran Donnie Hammond.
Sullivan should know what it takes. This is the sixth time he's tried the Tour qualifying school, but the first since 1990. And perhaps the red numbers he needs on the scoreboard aren't those that are most challenging.
Sullivan is playing at the toughest of the five second-stage school locations, where more than a few PGA Tour players who didn't finish in the Top 125 on the annual money list are trying to regain their cards. There are 81 players in Florence shooting for 24 spots at the December qualifying-school finals in Santa Barbara, Calif.
There will be about 200 in that field, from which the top 40 will get a 1997 card on what now is an all-exempt PGA Tour. The next 75 get a Nike Tour card. Sullivan, hired by head pro Billy McBride at Hanging Rock 3 1/2 years ago, wants to play with the best.
``I decided to try again now because I had a great year,'' said Sullivan, who will be honored at a dinner Thursday as the Mid-Atlantic Section's player of the year. ``It's the best I've played since after I got out of college.
``I hadn't tried because I didn't think I was ready. I've always thought, `If I can't beat up on the people in my section, the other club pros, then I have no reason to think I can go out and beat the best in the country.'''
Sullivan, 31, skipped the first stage of the qualifying school because he was exempt for three reasons, including his top-50 finish in the national club pros championship. Two weeks ago, he tied for fourth at the PGA assistant pro championship in Port St.Lucie, Fla.
His stroke average in 1996 tournament play is 70.3.
``It's tough to figure what's different,'' Sullivan said. ``It's the best I've ever done.''
The gregarious Louisiana native has spent time trying to analyze more than Hanging Rock members' swings.
``I've changed my swing a bit,`` Sullivan said by phone from South Carolina. ``The game is different for me now, too. It's golf, and it's my career, but I don't feel like I'm married to it anymore.''
That's because in April he married Kari Hall. Sullivan didn't just get a wife, he also got a caddy. His father-in-law, Tom Hall, is on a bag-carrying sabbatical this week from his principal's job at Roanoke's Mountain View Elementary School. Hall obviously knows something about yardage to the hole. He owns Countryside's course record from the white tees, a 62.
``Getting married made me relax on the golf course,'' Sullivan said. ``I used to feel like winning was the only important thing. I'm attacking the qualifying school differently this time. I look at it like I've worked for a living while the guys out there [on Tour] have played. I have a lot more confidence that I belong than I have in the past.''
Sullivan, who earned a golf scholarship to a Houston program that has produced numerous Tour players, left for Ole Miss because he wanted a chance to play. He graduated in 1987, a semester after he had started a five-year stretch in which he annually played for his Tour card.
``It helps a lot having been through this before,'' he said. ``You have to try and treat this just like any other golf tournament. I've seen some guys here this week who look like me out there six years ago. The idea is to have others sweating more than you down the stretch.''
LENGTH: Medium: 77 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: (headshot) Sullivan. color.by CNB