Keeping it Real
Hardly your typical Tour player,
Jonathan Kaye says one of his goals this season is simply to blend in

It's easy to see why all eyes are on Jonathan Kaye as he walks through the bar off the main lobby at La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, Calif., during February's Accenture Match Play Championship. His oversized Drunken Monkey jersey is appropriately fly, and his low-slung jeans are stylishly urban. The Titleist cap atop his head is slightly askew, and there's a well-groomed soul patch beneath his lower lip. He has all the accoutrements of rebellion not often seen on the bleached-white, church-whisper PGA Tour, and the thwock-thwock sound made by his flip-flops rounds out the effect. What is this guy, a two-time Tour winner or a skate rat who has evaded security?

After graduating in 1994 from Colorado, at which he was a walk-on turned All-America, Kaye played well enough to get through Q school in the fall of 1994. Rotator-cuff surgery cost him most of the '96 and '97 seasons, and when he returned in '98, his confidence was shot. Kaye played so poorly that by October he was forced to return to Q school. "I started to think that maybe I'd had my run," he says. "It was almost to the point where I quit. I couldn't play. I couldn't swing. I didn't know what to do." Says Jennifer, "It was the worst year of our lives."

Three weeks before Q school, almost as an act of desperation, Kaye contacted Manuel de la Torre, the legendary swing coach from Milwaukee, who was in Phoenix working with some club pros. Kaye was more confused than impressed when de la Torre told him to address his ball with a driver, then stood two feet behind Kaye and commanded him to swing.

"But I'll hit you," Kaye said.

"Swing the club," said de la Torre, sounding like Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid.

Forced to keep his hands inside, Kaye rotated on a perfect plane and smoked the ball. After 15 minutes of similar swings, "I was back," Kaye says. "I felt better than I'd ever felt before. It was almost scary." Kaye tore through Q school, coming in second to Mike Weir. In 1999 Kaye finished 49th on the money list and has never looked back.

Sports Illustrated May 200 By Josh Elliott