Columnist Dean Juipe: McGee sees it all slip away

Dean Juipe

Monday, April 23, 2001 | 10:11 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.

Seventy minutes before he was due on the first tee, Jerry McGee emerged from the clubhouse at the TPC at Summerlin and began feeling a pressure he hadn't experienced in years and one he could only hope to relish.

As the leader through two rounds of the Las Vegas Senior Classic, McGee was in an unusual position. It had been 22 years since he won a tour event, and at the age of 57 and coming off cancer surgery he wasn't getting any younger.

As he prepared for his final round Sunday, he looked as if he was killing time. Yes, there were shots to be hit in preparation for the afternoon's adventures, and McGee systematically worked his way through his bag.

And there was also a TV interview to do and numerous good wishes to receive in his role as the event's sentimental favorite.

But he was out of place to some extent, a victim of his own lack of success in recent years. Never a star on either the PGA or the Senior tours, he needed the right breaks and 18 solid holes to claim the tournament's championship and allow himself a few tears of appreciation.

As the men around him on the range departed one by one for their own tee times, McGee became a solitary figure. Gone were stars such as Hale Irwin, Larry Nelson and Bruce Fleisher, who only moments earlier cast an intimidating presence as they bracketed the underdog McGee.

Call it nerves or bladder trouble, McGee adjourned no less than three times to a nearby outhouse. But there was no relief in sight.

He was under the gun.

"I know at the end of the round I'm going to crash," he said, prophetically to some extent although the crash came earlier than expected. His weight down to a feathery 138 pounds as a result of the surgery on his cancerous neck and tongue, McGee was concerned that he wouldn't have the stamina it would take to hold off Fleisher in particular, who began the day two shots off the lead.

"I just hope I don't blow away," he said, the brisk wind whipping in from the North and making the 70-degree temperature a bit deceiving. "I'll be like a tumbleweed."

When, at last, it was time to open the round, McGee exchanged greetings with Fleisher and the third member of their group, Walter Hall.

"I don't think we've ever played together," McGee said to Fleisher, which only magnified the differences in their stock. For Fleisher, as an 11-time winner on the tour, a spot in the final group was no big deal; for McGee, it was almost uncharted ground.

He was the outsider.

In fairy tales, these stories always end on a happy note. Ideally, the unsung McGee would have won and what might be the final Las Vegas Senior Classic would have come to a proud and distinguished conclusion.

But a bogey at No. 2, then another at No. 11, followed by a double at No. 12 and another bogey at No. 13 eliminated McGee from contention. The lithe man took on a sorrowful appearance and was irrationally talking to himself after he found the water at No. 16.

He seemed bitter.

Maybe it came as no surprise, but he was feeling nothing but disappointment. A potentially great day had been sabotaged.

He was once again an also-ran.