THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 5, 1995 TAG: 9505050698
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JIM DUCIBELLA, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines
Before 1993, Paul Azinger saw his life as a professional golfer as a long, infuriating climb up a mountain so high he could only dream what it looked like at the top.
As a high schooler in Sarasota, Fla., he almost never broke 80 and showed so little potential that he didn't rate a college scholarship offer. Instead, he attended the junior college down the street.
Although he qualified for his PGA Tour card on his first attempt in 1981, all that accomplishment brought was a bittersweet, roller-coaster series of seasons. He lost his card and spent a year off the tour. He got the card back at the '83 Q-school, lost it after that season, and had to qualify again in the fall of 1984.
He made so little money playing tournament golf that he didn't pay income tax on the winnings until 1985 - his third season as a pro.
Then there was the media. He's hardly reluctant to discuss his long-standing differences with television and newspaper reporters.
At first, they scoffed at his ability to make the tour, which infuriated him. When he made the tour, they questioned whether he'd stay, which insulted him.
Once he proved he could stay, they questioned whether he'd ever win, which helped motivate him. Once he won, they doubted he could do it again, which perplexed him.
In 1987, after he was named PGA Player of the Year after a year in which he won at Phoenix, Las Vegas and Hartford and finished second by a stroke to Nick Faldo in the British Open, they wondered if he was a fluke, which astonished him.
Ultimately, and most discouragingly, they wondered whether he'd ever win one of golf's four majors - the Masters, U.S. or British Open, or a PGA Championship.
That burdened him, this best-player-never-to-win-a-major label that was attached to him in what he would consider often less than polite circles.
So when he captured the 1993 PGA Championship at Toledo's Inverness Club, beating Greg Norman on the second hole of a sudden-death playoff despite shoulder pain so intense it hurt too much to put his scorecard in his back pocket, Azinger was confident his troubles were over. He'd even convinced his doctor to delay examining his shoulder until he could finish competing in several lucrative, made-for-TV golf matches.
``The satisfaction of winning a major, I thought, would never go away,'' Azinger told 400 or so members at the Suffolk Leadership Prayer Breakfast, held Thursday at the city's National Guard Armory. ``Corporations had discovered me and were knocking down my door. Everywhere I went, people were lining up for autographs.''
Then a freak back injury forced him to see that doctor he'd so successfully eluded. With three words, orthopedic surgeon Dr. Frank Jobe took a sledgehammer to Azinger's hard-earned security:
``You have cancer.''
``Sometimes, you feel immortal when you've accomplished as much as I have,'' Azinger said. ``But when I heard those words, I ran to God. I wasn't ready to meet my maker. That weekend, I recommitted my life to Jesus Christ and I felt an immediate peace.
``The PGA championship meant nothing to me.''
Today, he'd be the first person to say he was lucky. The cancer was a rare bone-related lymphoma, the slowest spreading form of the disease and the most easily cured by chemotherapy and radiation.
All of this, and more, are detailed in Azinger's new book ``Zinger.'' It has been in bookstores for three days now, and led to a promotional tour so exhausting that Azinger asked his audience at the Armory what day it was.
He has returned to the Tour and enjoyed a measure of success. In 10 events this season, he has made the cut seven times and earned $107,321. He tied for fourth at the Hawaiian Open last January and was 17th at the Masters in April.
What he hasn't done is score consistently. In 1993, his scoring average was 69.75, fifth-best on Tour. This year, it is 71.34, or 69th.
But he is confident that will come, and even if it doesn't Azinger says his experience has taught him a lesson he tried to pass on to his audience Thursday.
``You never get contentment from the things of this world,'' he said. ``I live each day now as if it were a gift.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
JIM WALKER/Staff
Paul Azinger explains his illness to members at the Suffolk
Leadership Prayer Breakfast Thursday at the National Guard Armory.
by CNB