There’s a very thin line between success and failure in athletics, and, for that matter, in life as well. For Bay Area sports fans, sometimes those successes have been mere moments whereas other times they have occurred over a period of time. For instance, had Dwight Clark failed to make “The Catch” during the NFC Championship game against Dallas in 1982, then that 49ers first Super Bowl triumph might have had an entirely different scenario. Then again, had Dan Bunz failed to make “The Hit” during that goal-line stand against Cincinnati in Super Bowl XVI, then that game too could have gone in a much different direction.
Sometimes those magic moments take longer to develop. Madison Bumgarner’s heroic relief appearance against Kansas City in Game 7 took much longer to develop over the course of those five innings. Kevin Durant’s dagger-to-the-heart 3-pointer in the waning moments of Game 3 in last year’s NBA Finals was the difference maker in the series, even though the Warriors still had to win a fourth game before they could claim the title.
And sometimes that magic moment is an event that takes place and doesn’t pan out for several years as evidenced by the fact that Nick Foles decided against retiring from pro football some three years ago. Could Philadelphia sports history have been rewritten if he had spent the last few seasons sitting at home wondering what might have been?
Last weekend at Pebble Beach was more like a Nick Foles moment for Ted Potter Jr. as he held off an all-star cast of great golfers to win the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Normally guys like Ted Potter Jr. don’t play one of the world’s most iconic golf courses and prevail in the heat of the moment against the likes of five-time major winner Phil Mickelson, former PGA champion Jason Day, world No. 1 Dustin Johnson, and Chez Reavie, currently the hottest golfer on the PGA Tour. Yet some four years after Potter suffered a debilitating ankle break, there he was back on tour finding his way to the winner’s circle in dynamic fashion.
The 34-year old Potter was born in north central Florida in the town of Ocala. His father worked as a maintenance man at nearby Silver Springs Shore Country Club and was a single-digit handicap golfer. When Ted Jr. was just 4 years old, his dad made him a set of cut-down golf clubs and suddenly the young boy was a regular at the golf course. He swung left-handed even though he was naturally right-handed in everything else that he did.
Potter was the dominant high school golfer in northern Florida for a three-year period of time, but instead of continuing onward and playing golf on the collegiate level, Ted Jr. decided to turn professional as an 18-year-old. He started out competing regionally on the Moonlight Tour, the Florida Professional Golf Tour, and then the Hooters Tour. Although he was traveling around the south, often playing in one- or two-day events, there was still a very difficult learning curve for Ted before he could consistently perform on the mini-tours. On off-days from competitive golf, Ted supported himself by working as the cart boy at Lake Diamond Golf Club in Ocala. For the first four years of his professional career, he bounced around from tournament to tournament, occasionally winning events such as the Dothan Classic, the Buffalo Run Casino Classic, the Marion Masters, and the Ocala Open. In the fall of 2003, Potter got through all three stages of Q School and received exempt status on the Nationwide Tour (now the Web.com Tour). That early success was a case of too much too soon. During the 2004 season, he missed every cut on the Nationwide and returned to Florida for more seasoning.
In 2006, Ted had a rock-solid season on the Hooters Tour and was named their player of the year. He repeated the feat again in 2009 and during that period of time he won 12 times on the Hooters Tour. After those successful 2006 and 2009 campaigns, Potter found himself back on the Nationwide Tour, and while the results weren’t as bad as they had been in the all-missed-cuts year of 2004, he still had a hard time finding success on golf’s version of AAA competition.
A full nine years after turning professional, it all started to make sense for Ted as he won twice on the Nationwide Tour in 2011. Potter Monday qualified into the South Georgia Classic and ended up winning by three strokes over Matthew Goggin. Later that summer he won the Soboba Classic in a three-hole playoff. Ted ended up second on the Nationwide Tour money list and was promoted to the PGA Tour for the 2012 season.
Playing in his first PGA Tour event that January, Potter finished in a tie for 13th in the Hawaiian Open. He played indifferently for the next half of the year. In June and July, he had a stretch when he missed five cuts in a row. When it seemed like he would probably lose his tour card at the end of the season, Ted arrived at the Greenbrier, barely made the cut, then shot back-to-back 64s on the weekend, and defeated Troy Kelly with a birdie on the third playoff hole to win.
The victory at Greenbrier garnered Potter a two-year exemption on the PGA Tour, but midway into that year of exempt status, Potter severely broke his ankle and then had to have a second surgery when it didn’t take. He missed two full seasons of active golf, spent last year on the Web.com Tour, and once again earned a promotion to the big tour for the 2017-18 season. Yet up until last week, there was nothing special about Potter’s return. He was ranked 246th in the world, was 170th in driving distance, 143rd in greens in regulation, 146th in putting, and 126th in scrambling. He came into Pebble with no expectations, shot 68 there on Thursday, carded a 71 at Spyglass Hill on Friday, and then jumped over most of the field by shooting a 62 at Monterey Peninsula on Saturday. He might have gone lower on Saturday except for the fact that he bogeyed his final two holes. Nonetheless, he was the best player among the top five on Sunday, held off charges from Day, Mickelson and Johnson, shot a 69 with 11 consecutive pars, and went on to win by three strokes. He actually played as if he had been there before.
Yes, it truly is a thin line between success and failure, victory and defeat. In Ted Potter Jr.’s case, a healthy helping of resilience was also the key. With a wife and a young family, he couldn’t afford many more trips back to the mini-tours. He is no longer a one-hit wonder, and there is no longer any doubt about what might have been. As unexpected as it may seem, Ted Potter Jr. is the champion of the 2018 AT&T Pebble Beach National Pro-Am.
