GARY BAINES: A Matter Of Perspective

Lean Times Give Way to
Big-Time Success for Wiebe

Denver resident relishes second win in 12 starts on Champions Tour

     The question was innocuous enough, but it elicited a chuckle from Mark Wiebe.

      In retrospect, I can see why.

      Last summer, after Wiebe finished playing in the Colorado Open, I asked him if he was looking forward to playing the Champions Tour later that year when he turned 50.

     “Are you kidding me?” he said. “I’m looking forward to it a lot.”

      Given what’s transpired before and since, it’s little wonder why.

Colorado Golf Journal, Monday, April 7, 2008

On Sunday in the Dominican Republic, the longtime Coloradan won for the second time in a dozen tournaments on the Champions circuit. At a picturesque setting in the Caribbean, Wiebe cruised to a picture-perfect, wire-to-wire, four-stroke victory in the inaugural Cap Cana Championship. Another Coloradan, Craig Stadler, finished a season-best third.

    Considering the roller-coaster ride that Wiebe has been on over the last six years, he has reason to savor every bit of his recent success.

   "One tournament win is great," Wiebe said Sunday. "Two kind of proves that I'm hopefully here to stay."

    Wiebe had a workmanlike run on the PGA Tour from 1985 through 2001. He was never one of the game’s elite players, but he stuck around and made a decent living, racking up about $4.3 million in official earnings. He won twice (1985 and ‘86) and finished second eight times.

    But his game went south in 2002. That year, he shot in the 80s nine times on the PGA Tour, including an 89 at the Kemper Open.

    The year 2001 marked the last time Wiebe played a full-time schedule on the PGA Tour. Since then, he’s competed in 29 Tour events, the last being the 2005 International in Castle Rock. Of those 29 tournaments, Wiebe survived the cut only twice.

     In the years after 2001, Wiebe played more and more on the Nationwide Tour, but even that proved a rocky road. In 61 Nationwide events, he cracked the top 10 just once (a 10th-place showing in 2003).

     In 2005, Wiebe failed to make a cut on either the PGA or Nationwide Tours. The next year, he cashed in just three of 15 Nationwide events.

     But when the Champions Tour turned from a carrot far off in the distance into one within immediate reach, Wiebe’s game started to blossom. At the 2007 Colorado Open, a tournament Wiebe won in 1986, he finished 18th. And in his last two Nationwide Tour events, late last summer, the Denver resident ended up a very respectable 15th and 30th.

     The magic day came on Sept. 13, when Wiebe turned 50 and thus became eligible for the Champions circuit. Ten days later, at the SAS Championship near Raleigh, N.C., he won a Tour-sanctioned event for the first time in 21 years.

      Wiebe needed a sponsor’s exemption to get into the field, and took advantage to the fullest degree by tying Bobby Wadkins’ record for youngest player to win a Champions Tour event (50 years, 10 days). Wiebe became only the 12th player in Champions history to win his first event, and the first in more than three years.

     The $300,000 Wiebe won was the largest paycheck of his career.

     Then on Sunday, he matched that payday, vaulting from 34th to sixth on the Champions 2008 money list.

     After some lean years financially, the six-figure winning checks are a welcome sight. Just seven months into his Champions career, Wiebe has accumulated a cool $870,000 in over-50 earnings.

     It looks like Wiebe has a new lease on life.