Columnist Dean Juipe: Drought intact after Barlow fades

Dean Juipe

Monday, Aug. 5, 2002 | 10:07 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

Another Sunday, another local golfer in the running for a victory on the PGA Tour, and another disappointment.

Yes, it is getting monotonous, even if the overall experience was a good one for Craig Barlow this week and Robert Gamez in each of the two preceding weeks.

But speaking on behalf of the Las Vegas golf community, we've been ready to celebrate, to raise a glass and toast a championship winner. It has been 12 years since a player from here won on the tour and now it's three straight weeks that one of them has flopped in the final round after being poised to end the drought.

What can you say? You get to where you're sympathetic toward the player(s) yet distraught and critical when things go awry.

Barlow, almost like Gamez a week earlier at the John Deere Classic in Illinois, was realistically out of contention by the time the televised portion of the final round of the tournament came on the air. Although he completed the third round as the sole leader in The International at Castle Pines, Colo., Barlow disintegrated at the outset Sunday and was nine points back of eventual winner Rich Beem and in a tie for fifth place through a mere six holes as CBS began its telecast.

The network all but ignored him the rest of the afternoon, which stood in contrast to the previous day when Barlow forced the attention his way with a stirring back nine and 11-point round.

(The International, of course, has those bizarre scoring rules that reward birdies and eagles with points and penalize bogeys and the like with a loss of points; it's the only tournament on the tour schedule where you want to finish with a plus sign next to your score.)

Barlow, 30, hit everything perfectly Saturday yet did little right a day later as Beem -- and several others -- stormed past him. It was not what he or his fans had hoped for or expected.

The 1994 Nevada Amateur champion and a graduate of Basic High, Barlow turned pro in 1995 and has been on and off the PGA Tour since 1998. He had a good year in '99 with a third, a fourth and a ninth (at Las Vegas, after opening with a 61) but stagnation and injuries have cost him the past three seasons.

He had hip and shoulder surgeries last year and said he didn't touch a club for three months prior to gradually rehabilitating and rejoining the tour in March. He has also placed a greater emphasis on conditioning, mentioning a "lack of fitness" as a factor in holding him back in previous years.

But when he made the cut at The International, it was only the fifth time this year he was playing on the weekend and earning a check. He came into the week a distant No. 199 on the tour's money list.

Yet by the time a rain delay interrupted the final round and sent players and fans scurrying for cover, Barlow was off the leader board and playing in isolation. Drama was in short supply as it pertained to him.

Those factors made for a day that was nothing like it could have been, a golden opportunity lost.

It rained on Craig Barlow in Colorado and it rained on our parade here.