ORLANDO, Fla. -- Graeme McDowell was wearing a brace on his right knee, some sort of newfangled training aid, as he stood on the driving range at Bay Hill late Wednesday afternoon, fiddling with his downswing.
Almost everyone else had left the range, save for Robert Damron, an Orlando resident and sponsor's exemption into this week's Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill. McDowell was the 2010 European Player of the Year, but he's coming off a T42 at the WGC-Cadillac at Doral. Damron has dropped off the PGA Tour completely. They were searching, just like Tiger.
Andy Bean, 58, lingered on the practice green. He's playing here to commemorate his Bay Hill victory, which included a second-round course- and tournament-record 62, 30 years ago. So, you know, he's got momentum.
He tees off with Brandt Jobe and Yuta Ikeda at 12:33 ET Thursday.
"Just being around Mr. Palmer is wonderful," said Bean, a longtime resident of Lakeland, about an hour away on I-4, who nonetheless has been staying with a friend in Orlando this week. "Arnold's done so much for the game. I saw him Friday afternoon, and I asked him, I said, 'It's okay if I play, isn't it?' He was over there on the range hitting balls. He said, 'Isn't your name up on the board?' 'Yes, sir.' 'You still got the record, don't you?' 'Yes.' He gave a little wink. He's been great. This is close to home."
Golf unites young and old, straggler and star, because the ball doesn't care who you are. The search consumes us all, and this week it includes Bean, Palmer's grandson Sam Saunders, McDowell, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson, and whoever else the King invited to his island of misfit toys.
Jules (Skip) Kendall, another Orlando resident who has long since dropped off the Tour, fired a 3-under 33 on his first nine, the back nine at Bay Hill, to pop up on the leaderboard early Thursday morning. Um, Skip Kendall? He's 46, and still looking for his first win. His next made cut will be his first, on any tour, of the 2011 season. All it takes is four good days.
Erik Compton, 31, can relate. The two-time heart transplant recipient from Miami is making his fourth start at Bay Hill, not because he has any kind of status on Tour -- he doesn't -- but because he and Palmer have formed a relationship over their mutual interest in pediatric care. Compton was 12 and struggling with cardiomyopathy when he got his first transplant.
"Arnold has been very good to me because of the Arnold Palmer Hospital," said Compton, who is enjoying one of the best stretches of his career after a final-round 64 at the Northern Trust Open (T25), and a T4 at the Nationwide tour's Panama Claro Championship, both last month. "He and the committee and everybody understand my situation -- it's just been a good fit. I've visited the hospital. I played in the [Monday] pro-am with Chris Peters, who I know because his 4-year-old son, Caydan, has had major heart surgery three times. Sam Saunders is a good friend of mine through playing on the Nationwide. And just being from Florida is part of it."
Bean is Florida to the pulp. A former Florida Gator, he got his first and second-to-last of 11 Tour titles at Doral. He's at Bay Hill in part because the Champions tour, where he will play a full schedule in 2011, is dark.
"I needed a place to play," he said.
Bean finished in the top 10 eight times on the 50-and-over circuit in 2009, but his last victory on Tour was the '86 Byron Nelson. The 6-foot-4, 260-pounder admits he'll have to "worry about Andy," and ignore the lithe, young players who can bomb it past him.
"More power to him," said Johnson Wagner, who approached "Mr. Bean" to shake his hand Wednesday. "I hope I'm doing that in 30 years."
Compton is more competitive. He shot a 63 to tie for the first-round lead at the Tour's inaugural Greenbrier Classic last summer, but blew up with a final-round 77 to tie for 73rd place. He qualified for the U.S. Open at Pebble, but missed the cut. His bravest performance, in addition to living a normal life despite being on his third heart: He flew across the country to Monday-qualify for last month's NTO in Los Angeles, and got in with a 66.
From L.A. he went home to Miami to celebrate his daughter Petra's 2nd birthday and carried his momentum to Panama, where he started his first round with five straight birdies despite not having played a practice round.
Lingering on the Bay Hill practice green, eyeing the hundreds of putters encircling a handful of tour bags standing on the fringe, he asked anyone within earshot if he could he just take one. Wouldn't it be stealing? This week marks the former University of Georgia standout's 27th start on Tour since 2000. He got his second heart transplant, from a 28-year-old man who had died in a motorcycle hit-and-run, shortly after a 2007 heart attack.
Compton hasn't grasped the whole entitlement thing yet.
"Everybody asks me about my schedule," he said, "but I'm just going one day at a time. I just found out I got into Houston [next week]. I got in here. All I care about is the day I'm playing or the next day. My whole season could change [with a win or even a top 10 on the PGA Tour]."
The same could be said of Kendall, whose round unraveled with a triple-bogey 8 on the sixth hole Thursday, or Damron, Bean and the rest, even Tiger and Phil. Four good days -- it's so close. It's so far away.
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