Hopes for breakthrough victory on PGA Tour dashed

Dean Juipe

Friday, Oct. 24, 1997 | 9:28 a.m.

John Adams awoke and allowed himself to think the unthinkable.

Twenty years on the PGA Tour and here he was without a victory yet tied for the lead after the opening round of the Las Vegas Invitational. Of all the players currently on the tour, Adams -- with 533 starts since 1978 -- holds a distinction of dubious merit: No one has played more events without experiencing the euphoria of a win.

Feeling confident, he rolled out of bed Thursday and headed for the Desert Inn Golf Club knowing his name was atop the leader board at nine under par. He was ready to test the popularly held golf axiom that a player almost never can come back from a low, low round with another low, low round the following day.

Matching his opening 63 was his goal and he felt it was a realistic one.

"I thought I could come over here and dominate," he said following his second round, which went nothing like he had planned. "To have the kind of day I did is really disappointing."

Adams had an awful day, shooting a one-over 73 that dropped him not only off the leader board but into a tie for 36th place. His frustration level was such that he even swore at his caddy after an errant shot on his next-to-last hole.

"Seems like I shot even more" than 73, he said. "I guess I'm lucky to shoot what I did."

He was all over the place, straying off the fairway into bunkers, water hazards and rough on a semi-regular basis. And he couldn't compensate with his putter.

For the day he finished with only 11 greens in regulation and his longest successful putt was from eight feet. He caught six bunkers (five on his front side), hit the ball into the rough four times (all on his back nine) and twice hit a ball into a pond.

Those misadventures made a low score impossible, particularly when he had four putts of 30 feet or better on his front nine and three putts from 25 feet or better on his back nine. None of those long ones went in, of course.

"I didn't play good," he understated. "But I've never played this course good."

The greens at the D.I. were much slower than the ones Adams had mastered the previous day at the TPC at Summerlin. It took him several holes to adjust and, by the time he did, the rest of his game was crumbling.

"I haven't played well this year," he added, a fact substantiated by his No. 118 position on the tour's money list. While he'll safely keep his card for the 1998 season by finishing in the top 125, another year is about to pass without Adams claiming a victory.

"Sure it bothers me," he said. "I had a couple of nice chances to win last year and didn't do it, and I had one good chance this year and didn't do it."

A final-round 71 at the CVS Charity Classic in Sutton, Mass., last month derailed Adams' shot at a victory there, although he had a share of the lead going into the final round.

Now he has to regroup for today's round at the Las Vegas Country Club, as another 73 could result in his missing the cut. (Last year's cut in the LVI came at eight under par, which is where Adams stands heading into the third round.)

"The way the young guys play out here, you have to shoot some low numbers or you'll have tread marks on your back," he said, feeling run over after sliding so far down the leader board in one day. "I've got to somehow pick myself back up."

Adams, 43, is eight strokes behind tri-leaders Bill Glasson, Billy Mayfair and Duffy Waldorf as he enters weekend play. He's a good-sized man at 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds who takes a relatively deliberate swing and putts cross-handed.

He also plays with a certain emotion, conversing easily with those around him while being capable of boiling over if the circumstances dictate.

"I feel like a stud when I'm playing good," he said, "but I beat myself up when I'm playing bad."

Thursday he left the D.I. parking lot metaphorically bruised, his caddy a silent passenger after a long afternoon of wishful thinking gone awry.