Lunde “Turns” first PGA Tour Win

By John Craig

VERNON – When Bill Lunde looks at the tree trophy he won at the Turning Stone Resort Championship, he just may credit Bob Vavrina of Rochester with the win.

On Saturday, after rallying Friday afternoon with three birdies in the final four holes to make the cut by one, Lunde was having a good time making his way around the Atunyote Golf Course with his friend Vavrina, who he calls “Dog.” Vavrina and wife Robin were driving back and forth everyday.

“I put the heat on him,” Bob said. “I said ‘I’m not schlepping an hour and a half every day for you to come in at the bottom. Go win the damn thing.’”

So Lunde did just that. He shot a final round 66, (-6), to finish 17-under par, 271, to edge PGA Tour veteran J.J. Henry by one stroke. Henry tied the course record with a 63 and was in the clubhouse at -16.

“I played great…to shoot 63, 9-under, on Sunday you’re always going to make a move,” Henry said. “Maybe I was a little too far back, maybe not.”

The win comes for a guy whose name most of the gallery couldn’t pronounce, including tournament ambassador Notah Begay III, who said “Lund” during the trophy ceremony, before being corrected and saying “Lundy.”

Either way, he earned more money on Sunday in the win – $720,000 – than he had in his short two-year career, $324,734 (162^nd on the PGA Tour money list). The total purse for the moved TSRC was $4 million.

Jerry Kelly (64), Josh Teater (66), Michael Sim (66), Billy Mayfair (69) and second and third round leader Alex Cejka (72) tied for third, 273, 15-under.

“Everybody was 16-under,” Cejka said. “I just said, you know, one more birdie. And then I just hit it in the water (on 14). A bogey under those circumstances really cost me.”

“Anytime you get your first win out here it’s a big improvement,” Mayfair said of Lunde. “Seems like a lot of guys I’m right behind them when they get that first win, so maybe one of these years the old guy can maybe come through.”

Richard S. Johnson (67) and Rory Sabbatini (68) were eighth; Jonathan Byrd shot 63 to finish in a tie for 10^th (-13) with D.J. Trahan (65), Steve Elkington (68), Woody Austin (69), Charles Warren (70) and Charley Hoffman (69), Lunde’s longtime friend.

“Charley grew up two houses down from me,” Lunde said. “Since I have memory, Charley’s been there.”

Lunde won once on the Nationwide Tour, the Children’s Hospital Invitational (2008). He is ranked 362^nd in the World Golf Rankings, a fact that was blazoned on the scoreboard next to the 18^th green as he stepped into the bunker to try and save par.

On 18 tee, Lunde had said to himself: “If I’m standing here on a normal day, it’s like I could kick it off the tee and throw it in the trees and still make par. And under those circumstances it’s a lot more difficult, but fortunate enough to do it, and it feels great.”

LUNDE’S UPSTATE NY VISITS

“Upstate New York has been very good to me,” Lunde said. “One of the first amateur tournaments I was able to get into was the MIC at Monroe…I was obviously very excited.”

As Lunde walked off the 18^th green, he was given a big hug by volunteer Bob Jordan of Pittsford, NY. Jordan met Lunde in the late ‘90’s when Lunde would play in the Monroe Invitational.

“We follow him whenever we can,” said Jordan, who was keeping score with Garth Mulroy and Tim Wilkinson, who also played at Monroe.

“I finished, (Lundy) was making the turn so I went out the back and followed him,” said Jordan, a second year volunteer. “I tried to get his group to score but couldn’t make that happen.”

Upstate ties? “Us,” said the Vavrinas.

Lunde stayed with them for three years when he would play the Monroe while a student at UNLV. “Dog” caddied for Lunde in the U.S. Amateur at Oak Hill, when Lunde made the quarterfinals.

“He’s like our adopted son,” Vavrina said of the 34-year old Lunde. “When you know him out of UNLV, and they’re 18-19 years old, and they grow up with your kids. He’s just a great, wonderful guy.

“His grandfather taught him and provided him the opportunity for the game. This is a big moment to have it happen near Rochester, it really is.”

As they watched the trophy presentation from the clubhouse porch, Robin was wiping a tear from her eye and Bob was clutching a prized souvenir – the caddie bib with the name “Lunde” still velcroed to the back to mark the first PGA Tour win.

“We’ve housed him,” Bob said. “We’ve stayed close friends over the years.”

The couple came all four rounds and kept him loose, caught every key shot, and chatted and relived old times.

“Just an emotional train wreck,” Bob said. “Big day, big day.”

“Exhilarating,” Robin said. “I wish his wife (Dana) was here. And I wish we were allowed to have cell phones so I could be calling her right now talking to her.”

“It’s great to get inside the ropes and walk with these kids,” Jordan said. “A lot of them we know from Rochester, they’re all amateurs and now they’re pros.”

LUNDE’S FINAL ROUND

This is Lunde’s second full season on the PGA Tour. He took command of the final round with six birdies on the front nine, enroute to a 30. He shot even par for the last nine holes.

“That front nine was something I won’t forget for a long time,” Lunde said.

Lunde shot 73-68-64 before the 66 Sunday. He birdied 15, 17 and 18 to make the cut by one stroke on Friday.

“I guess it’s pressure, but nothing like what I just experienced here,” Lunde said.

Conditions were a bit breezy on the course that is hosting just its fifth PGA tournament.

“It got a little breezy at times but with the conditions being so good weather-wise and the greens soft I knew I couldn’t just sit there,” Lunde said. “I had to try to make birdies and keep pushing along.”

Lunde saw that J.J. Henry had posted his course record tying 63, (-16), but saw he was atop the leaderboard on 13 when he saw a scoreboard.

“Actually, I heard someone say, ‘There’s the leader right now,’” Lunde said. “I was like, ‘Oh, I must be leading’ or they were talking about someone else nearby.”

He birdied the par-3 16^th, knocking a six-iron close from 177-yards. Then he stepped onto the 17^th tee box.

“I was standing on the 17 tee going, ‘Wow, I have a one-shot lead in a Tour event with two to go,” Lunde said. ‘It feels a long ways away.’”

Not as long as it once was, when Lunde gave up the game in late-2005 and actually went out to get a real job.

He had played the Nationwide tour in ’04-’05 but said he wasn’t enjoying any part of pro golf. He went to work for a title company in 2006 but was let go “because of the whole house of cards, the housing doom, gloom, whatever you want to call it.”

He had used all his money to get the first couple of jobs and, like a lot of folks, thought “what am I going to do now?”

Lunde played a mini tour in Las Vegas – the now defunct Butch Harmon Tour – and spent $17,000 to play 13 events.

His wife was working and he wasn’t.

“If your wife works and she’s getting up in the morning, going to a long day of work and comes home and you’re home on the couch, it’s not good,” he said. “And the other thing when you want to go out with the boys and you’ve gotta ask your wife for $100 bucks, it’s even more humbling.

“So I had to do something and started playing golf again.”

Next week, Lunde will play just his second professional Major at the PGA Championship at Whistling Straits. He also picked up 250 FedExCup points.

“It’s hard to be successful at anything, let alone this level of golf, if you don’t enjoy what you’re doing,” Lunde said.

On 17, he called on his six-iron again.

“Being in the moment, you know, adrenaline and everything, I decided to hit 6 and I just kind of sat it a little bit and hit it kind of the front side of the green and…had a great two-putt there” for par.

As he stepped to the 18^th tee, a 624-yard par-5, he chuckled to himself.

“One good tee shot,” he thought. He did but then had to wait in the fairway while Chris Tidland and Scott McCarron finished up.

The pin was on the right, behind a huge bunker that Matt Kuchar needed to get up and down from last year.

“I’m just thinking, ‘OK, don’t hit it in the bunkers on the right,” Lunde said. “Anything up the left is fine.”

He put it in the bunker and had a 60-yard sand shot. He stepped in, blasted out, and left himself 21-feet, one inch, according to ShotLink, to make par. His tap-in from a foot gave him relief and validation to his career.

“Just working made me appreciate golf more and the lifestyle and the opportunities we have,” Lunde said. “I mean, you’re life could change in one week.”

And it has.

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