THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, July 15, 1995 TAG: 9507150490
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DAVE PATON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WILLIAMSBURG LENGTH: Medium: 64 lines
Straight downhill putt.
When it dropped, Carl Paulson of Virginia Beach stood 5 under par. He was in the top 10 at the Anheuser-Busch Golf Classic. He had hit the leaderboard. Did that cross his mind?
``It did,'' Paulson said after his 2-under 69 Friday at Kingsmill's River Course.
If his smile was a bit rueful, it was because bogeys on the final two holes cost him some of his hard-earned gains.
Paulson went off the 10th tee Friday and made a run at the leaderboard by birdieing the 16th, 17th and 18th holes. But, trying to bring his good number into the clubhouse, he found the right rough with his 5-wood tee shot at the 413-yard No. 8 hole, his 17th. He couldn't get his 5-iron cleanly on the ball in the dense rough and his ball landed in more rough, 30 yards short of the green. His pitch up a hill didn't make it to the back shelf of the two-tiered green, leaving him about 30 feet short of the hole. He two-putted for a bogey 5.
He found the fairway of the 452-yard ninth hole with his driver and hit the green with a mid-iron approach. But he was a good 60 feet right of the hole, which was tucked up on another, U-shaped ledge at the left edge of the putting surface. His first putt bent 8 feet long and right and his try for par just stayed out on the left edge for a closing nine of 1-over 37 and the 69.
``I was trying to make a couple more (birdies),'' Paulson said. ``Didn't want to give away those two coming in.''
He certainly was thinking birdie at the end of his front side, when he finished Kingsmill's back nine with three of them. He found the range with his pitching wedge, rifling approaches to 2 feet at No. 16 and 8 feet at 18 after a 300-yard-plus drive. In between, he struck a perfect chip at the par-3 17th from the light rough left of the green, and the ball dropped softly into the hole without touching the flagstick. After that barrage, Paulson had a 3-under 32 on his opening nine and had gone to 4-under for the tournament.
A bad wedge from the fairway at No. 1, his 10th hole, blunted his momentum, though, and he was working to make pars - he hit only six fairways, but compensated by needing just 25 putts.
Then the rookie struck for the short-range birdie at No. 7 that lifted him to within eye-level distance of a big check that could help keep his tour card a valid ticket for 1996.
His closing bogeys put him more into the middle of the field, but afterward Paulson was upbeat. He said that he was putting effort into the mental side of his game and was working with sports psychologist Dr. Bob Rotella.
``I birdied the three toughest holes - 16, 17, 18 - then I hit a bad shot at No. 1 and it took the wind out of my sails,'' he said. ``I struggled in. I scrambled all over the back nine.''
Still, in for the weekend's play at a third consecutive tournament, comfortable before a supportive home crowd, he's only looking up. ``I want to go as low as I can,'' he said. ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]
PAUL AIKEN/Staff
Carl Paulson acknowledges the cheering crowd as he finishes with a
2-under 69.
by CNB