Columnist Dean Juipe: Colbert eases into new role

Dean Juipe

Monday, May 17, 1999 | 10 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

As Jim Colbert tapped in on the 18th hole, the Las Vegas Senior Classic leaders were still three and four hours behind him.

Very few of the seats in the corporate boxes were filled and only a smattering of spectators lounged on the hillsides that protect the TPC at Summerlin's finishing hole.

Anyone who chose to speak out could be heard and when a couple of Colbert supporters hollered toward him, Las Vegas' finest professional golfer acknowledged their greeting with a friendly wave of his own.

The fact that his 5-iron approach had leaked into the water and that it would cost him a double bogey didn't appear to faze him. He applauded lustily as playing partner Harold Henning improbably holed what looked to be a 100-foot putt for a birdie, and he left the green patting the boy on the back who had been toting the group's portable scoreboard.

After signing his card and autographs for anyone who asked, Colbert was still smiling as brightly as ever in spite of the fact his 295 total would leave him 21 shots behind the eventual tournament winner, Vicente Fernandez.

His demeanor was noteworthy because Colbert once owned this event, winning it in both 1995 and 1996 during what has to be regarded as his Senior Tour heyday. Now, after prostate surgery in June of '97 and lingering knee troubles, he was something of an also-ran with the tour in his hometown.

Yet, at a time when he could have been surly, Colbert was anything but.

"I got a lot accomplished today, I think," he said Sunday. "I'm really ripping the ball, just ripping it. If you only saw my scores this week you'd say I must be playing terrible, but I'm actually encouraged."

He closed with a 71 following rounds of 77, 71 and 76. Putting was his downfall and the oddity is that he came into the tournament ranked No. 9 on the tour with a 1.774 putts-per-hole average.

"My putting's terrible," he said. "My left hand is breaking; I'm pretty wristy. You can putt that way if you know you're doing it, but, for me, it means my mechanics are way off."

Colbert is now 58 and, realistically, in the midst of at least a slight decline -- although he did win once late last year. To some extent he ruled the tour in the 1990s, winning 19 times, finishing in the top 10 a habit-forming 105 times and accumulating more than $8 million in official earnings.

Nonetheless, he doesn't seem a prisoner of his glory days. It could even be said he's more jovial, more affable, than when he was riding the crest of that prosperous wave.

With only one win in the last two years, he realizes his day as the tour's leading money winner -- which he was in both '95 and '96 -- has passed, although he's a little too feisty to be throwing in the towel.

"I'm a hard trier," he said. "I certainly think I can win and if I didn't, I'd quit."

He'll do a little more self-evaluation at the end of the season, saying "I'm committed to finishing the year, then I'll take a look to see where I'm at."

Where he's presently at is an interesting crossroad, a meeting point of fame and increasing obscurity. While his heart still pumps with a competitor's zeal, a gentle breeze is steering him in an inevitable direction.

It's the hand of time in the role of enemy and a more outgoing Jim Colbert, it should now be assumed, isn't going to concede without smelling the roses.