Game of golf can make monkey out of most talented

There seems to be a bit of confusion as to the only golf course in Tonga. Some insist it is 15 holes and there is no penalty if a monkey steals your ball.

Others say it is a nine-hole layout a few miles from the airport but that clubs aren’t always available for rent.

No one has said this is because monkeys are using them.

To call the game’s

history meager within the South Pacific islands is to call Bill Gates prosperous.

Vijay Singh is one

exception.

Tony Finau, whose mother is half Samoan and half

Tongan and whose father is 100 percent Tongan, hopes to be another.

He has a chance, given he is 17 and drives the ball farther than most walking the planet. This kind of length places anyone breathing at the doorstep of the PGA Tour. It just won’t be enough to push Finau inside.

He’ll need to think a lot more for that, preferably without a driver in his hand.

Finau used the Ultimate Game at Wynn Golf & Country Club to make his professional debut and was very much the typical talented, nervous, roller coaster of a young player in Friday’s final round.

He began the day two strokes off the lead, was within one at the turn, was five back not two holes later and finished with a two-day total of 1-over-par 141.

His game had all the twists and turns and dips and dives of your favorite thrill ride.

“I need to be a lot more patient,” said Finau, eight strokes back of winner Scott Piercy. “For my first (professional) event, I thought I played well. I feel like I can play with these guys.”

He certainly can hit with them, but there is a reason the average age of those who advance onto the tour from Q-School each year is around 33.

It’s a lesson Finau and his 16-year old brother Gipper (who also turned pro at this event but was eliminated during last week’s preliminary stage) will either learn or not eventually reside inside PGA ropes for long: Power is important, but course management is more so.

There is no question the home-schoolers from Salt Lake City are full of raw ability.

They hit the ball and a different sound resonates than from most other drives.

The wind howls as their tee shots tear through it.

But now comes the difficult part, which has been known to destroy countless players who at one time or another have been bestowed that next-great-thing label: The refinement stage.

“Making the (PGA Tour) is the hardest thing you can imagine,” said Kevin Streelman, a 28-year-old from Scottsdale who is second on the Hooters Tour money list and who played in Finau’s threesome Friday.

“When I graduated from high school, I thought I knew how to play collegiately. I had no idea. When I graduated collegiately, I thought I knew how to play professionally. I had no idea. It’s a long, long struggle.

“(Tony Finau) is extremely talented. But he has to hit it straighter. He has to bring his shot pattern in and view a golf course.”

He has to realize pin placements on mini-tours and in Q School (which he will attempt this fall) are often 3-4 steps off the edge of each green and you can’t rip a drive to 50 feet out and expect to stop your second shot any closer than 20 feet from the hole.

He has to learn about the importance of laying up to 110 out for the proper angle and then using enough spin to get within 6-7 feet. Simply, he has to know more about life without a driver.

He can’t be all over the place as he was Friday, untamed at times with double-bogeys at 4 and 10 and terrific at others with consecutive birdies at 7, 8 and 9 and an eagle at 12.

He hit one drive 385 yards and others consistently reached the 370 range.

He also spent more time in the trees than a flock of grackles and afterward probably dumped out a good handful of pine needles from his shoes.

He wasn’t nearly good enough to sniff the $2 million winner’s purse, and yet his decision to turn pro (Finau lives in a three-bedroom home with his family, which includes nine siblings) isn’t absurd.

He won $100,000, exactly enough to cover what sponsors put up for the brothers to compete. It’s not a terrible beginning, breaking even.

“He’ll learn as he goes,” said Streelman, “that it’s a lot different playing for paychecks.”

Could be worse.

Could have lost a few balls to monkeys.

Ed Graney’s column is published Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. He can be reached at 383-4618 or egraney@reviewjournal.com.