No-name Willis eager to shine amid not-so-starry field

Difference is, Willis doesn’t have near the professional golf resume of the other two.

The other difference is, he’s actually playing here this week.

He’s in a three-way tie for the second-round lead at 13 under par, having treated TPC Summerlin on Friday as you might a pitch-and-putt. Willis shot 10 under in a morning and nearly wind-free stroll that included nine birdies and an eagle. His round of 62 — the day’s lowest — is one shot off his career PGA Tour best.

Not that you would know that. Or much of anything else about him.

Willis is one of many anonymous poster boys who define the tour’s Fall Series, where leaderboards such as the one at the Frys.com event often resemble more obscurity than a room full of shoe cobblers, where the trio of McNeill, Trahan and Gore might pass more for a law firm than names with a chance at winning this week.

PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem has described the seven-event fall schedule as one that appeals to a broad cross-section of players while offering a variety of late-season story lines.

It’s a typical stuffed-shirt way of saying this: The inaugural FedEx Cup is over, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson and most of the world’s other top-50 players have withdrawn to the leisure of resting vacations and now is the time casual fans annually learn about golfers they couldn’t pick out of a lineup with a cheat sheet.

It’s not to say they aren’t all terribly talented, obvious to anyone who has attempted the remarkably discouraging act of a backswing. Most are just not recognized by anyone beyond your common golf extremist.

“I’ve been a huge fan of the FedEx Cup from the get-go,” said Willis, 33. “It gives me a chance to focus on the Nationwide Tour early in the year, and if I don’t play well, can then defer to the PGA Tour, which sounds funny. But the FedEx Cup allows schmoes like myself the opportunity to play (PGA events).

“(Professional) Jay Williamson said it best. The (Nationwide) is the reality tour. This is the fantasy tour up here. Courtesy cars. Big spreads. Big purses. Galleries. A lot of people have asked me why I haven’t stuck it out on the Nationwide and played the whole year. I’ve become accustomed to putting a roof over my head, paying my electric bill, eating. It’s really tough to do that playing the Nationwide.”

Willis is in the Frys.com field as a past Tour champion, having won at Tucson in 2001. It’s still his only PGA Tour victory in a career in which he has since missed the cut in 67 of 137 events.

Part of it can be attributed to Willis’ aggressive style. He has admittedly found it difficult to play the smart shot, to shoot away from the pin when common sense demands, to safely aim 20 or 30 feet from certain peril. It’s like he’s Mickelson, only without the $45 million in career earnings and 32 wins and three majors and universal fame.

“I don’t know if I’ve got some kind of chemical imbalance or something,” Willis said, “but I need to play a lot smarter shots at times.”

This is what happens to more guys than you can imagine. They win, earn their Tour card and can’t produce enough consistent results to keep it. Their existence then becomes an amusement park ride of twists and turns between PGA Tour events and those on minor tours.

Willis’ bumpy journey began in 2003, when in the final six events of the year he missed the cut four times and withdrew two others. It guaranteed him a limited PGA schedule ever since, like the veteran Triple-A ballplayer always awaiting September call-ups.

So he and most others in contention here live for this moment, a rare opportunity to secure a Tour card for the next two seasons. It’s your standard plot this time of year: which of those mysterious names up on that board will feel most fortunate late Sunday?

“I put a lot of pressure on myself after I won (in 2001) to try and win again,” Willis said. “If you look back at my record, I have a lot of real high rounds and a lot of real low rounds. I don’t have a real solid medium in my scoring.”

It’s a truth that annually defines numerous players competing in the Fall Series, unlike a Furyk or DiMarco.

Who, despite what you might hear on local airwaves, aren’t here.

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