NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
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Jay Don Blake played his first PGA Tour event as the reigning NCAA champion out of Utah State in 1980 and got a handful of starts before joining the PGA Tour in 1987 and playing a full-time tour schedule for 18 years, through 2004. He’s made only three PGA Tour starts in the last 20 years – once each in 2005, ’13 and ’18 – making his last cut (310th overall) at the Barbasol in 2018.
It all added up to one tour victory, in 1991 at Torrey Pines, and 499 career PGA Tour starts – a frustrating number to end on.
“I never thought I’d make that 500th,” said Blake, now 65. “I’ve tried to get sponsor exemptions, I’ve tried to qualify a few times, and it just hasn’t kind of worked out. I thought that I’m not going to get there, and just felt like I’m going to get stuck at the number.”
Then the Black Desert Championship came last week to St. George, Utah, which happens to be where Blake was born and raised in the valley below the resort course, learning the game on his own golf course that he created in the trailer park where he lived. For the inaugural event at Black Desert Resort, the tournament made an elaborate presentation back in March of a sponsor’s exemption, gathering Blake’s family that included 10 grandkids to offer him his 500th start in his hometown.
Blake was overcome with emotion – and appreciated both the gesture and the time it allowed him to get his game ready.
“The journey of thinking 500 PGA Tour starts – I mean, if you play 20 years, 25 tournaments a year, that’s a pretty long career,” he said. “Great accomplishment. I’m pretty proud of it. The situation of the scenario of being born and raised in St. George and having the opportunity to get that milestone of 500 PGA Tour starts is a dream kind of story. You can’t make it up; can’t script it.”
While he was the only player in the field who’d ever shot his age, the three-time PGA Tour Champions winner (in another 178 starts) hoped he was “comfortable enough that I feel like maybe my knowledge can outsmart them and out-whoop those young kids.” After an opening 73, Blake faded to shoot 79 Friday and finish 127th.
For the most emotional start of his career, Blake had a special piece of equipment in his bag – a Titleist Bullseye Deep Face John Reuter Jr. Design putter which was given to him by his late father more than 50 years ago. The 1,100-word story Blake then told is like a history lesson in putter evolution.
“Acushnet Bullseye putter was kind of a popular thing when I was a kid,” Blake said of the iconic flatstick. “So to have one of those was kind of a neat thing to have. I’ve had a few of them, and I just remember my dad giving me a putter, and that’s it, a Bullseye. … The putter is probably, I think, 52 or 53 years old that I’ve got. I just saw it sitting in the corner. I always keep it right there. … I’ve hung on to the one that my father has given me.
“I took my putter out about three months ago and played with some buddies of mine in town. And they still to this day keep saying, ‘He made every single putt he made with that thing.’ Then I go back to a Scotty Cameron putter that I’ve been using for quite a few years and I’d putt OK with that. And I’d bring that Bullseye back out, and every time I putted with that thing, I felt like I putted pretty exceptional. I’ve been debating whether I put it in play or not.
“I mean, it’s nice that I feel comfortable with the putter, but it’s a remembrance of my father. And so I’ll be walking the fairways again with that putter. I’m proud to do that. I’m comfortable with it, and I feel like I’ll have no issues. I know a lot of guys have looked at me like, What do you got there? Some people haven’t even seen a putter like that. I’ll enjoy it, and all this stuff is going to be a lot of good memories.”
The brass Bullseye was revolutionary when John Reuter Jr. first designed it in the mid-1940s. Instead of attaching the shaft to the heel like most early putters, Reuter moved the Bullseye’s shaft closer to the center of the putter head to create a more pendulum stroke while reducing twist upon contact. It could also be used either right- or left-handed. The Acushnet Company bought Reuter Jr.’s company in 1962.
While the Bullseye has nostalgic meaning for Blake, so does his usual Scotty Cameron. Back in 1991, Blake putted poorly in the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic in Palm Springs, California. His woes on the green continued a day later in a casual round with friends at Canyon Country Club, so Blake decided his putter (a different Bullseye he’d been using since high school) needed to be deposited in the bottom of a pond.
“I don’t know what came over me,” the then 32-year-old Blake said in 1991. “That’s very much out of character for me. I’d just got tired of missing all those short birdie putts, reaching the par-5s in two then three-putting.”
Later that afternoon at Torrey Pines, Blake started noodling around with some demo putters on the practice green before the Shearson Lehman Brothers Open.
“There’s a gentleman, Scotty Cameron, that had just got credentials to provide putters that he’d built with his dad in the garage,” Blake said. “He grew up there in San Diego, so he was out there promoting his equipment.
“Turns out he let me use one of the putters that I felt comfortable with, and using that putter [a Blue Goose model] I ended up winning the San Diego golf tournament that same week. So me and Scotty have been kind of buddies for a long while.
“You’re leading the tournament, they come and ask you some questions, ‘What’s changed in your game?’ I couldn’t think of anything. … oh, wait a minute, I got a new putter. So they asked me what happened to the other one, and I had to tell that story.
“Then as the story goes on, they send a scuba diver over to Palm Springs and they fished the putter that I threw in the lake out, and I’ve still got it. It sits in the corner with the one my dad gave me. It still looks as good as ever, but it’s got a few little nicks in it. That’s kind of the story of the Bullseye putter of how I went from that to the Scotty Cameron.”
Scott Michaux