Kevin Na’s first PGA Tour win on Sunday in Las Vegas earned the preeminent plodder a passel of goodies, including fully exempt status on the tour through the 2013 season. Finally, after his 211th career start, the 28-year-old Las Vegas resident will have free rein for the next two years to school his peers on the glories of six-hour rounds.
It was somehow fitting that it took the, shall we say “deliberate,” Na so long to lift his first tour trophy. After all, it’s hardly a secret that Na is one of the slowest golfers on tour (a recent Yahoo! search for “Kevin Na, slow play” returned 2.3 million results). Indeed, golf fans determined to watch him finish his third round on Saturday could have used a healthy dose of 5-Hour Energy just to see him through the par-3 17th hole. By the time he teed up his Pro V1x, brushed away some detritus on the turf, waggled his club a couple of times, backed off, set up again, took another waggle, and clubbed an air ball into the right green-side bunker, 50 seconds had elapsed.
As ESPN.com’s Gene Wojciechowski humorously noted back in March, “Time doesn’t stand still when Na plays; it goes backward.” Put Na in a foursome with his speed-challenged cronies Webb Simpson (who made his deliberate way to the 2011 Deutsche Bank Champtionship title at TPC Boston), J.B. Holmes, and Ben Crane and they’ll need glo-golf balls and night-vision goggles to finish their round.
After beating Nick Watney by two shots at TPC Summerlin, Na gave observers a glimpse into some of the reasons for his sluggish pace.
“I had a lot of thoughts going through my head throughout the whole round today,” Na told reporters after posting three birdies in his final four holes Sunday. “I pictured myself winning, pictured myself failing, but mostly I pictured myself winning.”
With such contradictory considerations swirling through Na’s mind, Wojciechowski’s observation that the 62nd-ranked golfer in the world “sees ball and then contemplates the meaning of life” was right on target.
And just when you thought you had seen all of Na’s eccentricities, along came his patented whiffle ball. The shot — which Na said occurs with some regularity and which rules officials had deemed legal — looks like a complete whiff at the end of his half swing.
“I’ve done it on TV a few times…and I do it…probably one or two [times] a round,” Na explained. “I take [the club] back; it doesn’t feel good and then I stop. I’ll take a step back.”
He also employs the aborted swing at times when (no, really) he believes he’s moving too fast.
“I’ll take it back; it feels decent, and my transition is what I’m always working on. It’s always my bad habit is I get quick,” he said, presumably with a straight face. “And on the way down my transition doesn’t feel right, and I try to stop, and obviously it’s impossible for me to stop. The only way for me to stop is I have to come up and go over the ball.”
For those who believed there was no way Na could make his way around a course at any more leisurely a pace, the golfer noted that he had worked his swingus interruptus into his repertoire and convinced tour officials it was not a swing and a miss.
“We had a big talk,” Na noted, “and [one official] said, ‘It’s not a big deal. As long as you don’t make contact [with the ball], it doesn’t matter.’”
(Emily Kay is a regular contributor to New England Golf Monthly. Check her out on the Waggle Room, Boston Golf Examiner, National Golf Examiner, and GottaGoGolf websites. You may also follow Kay on Twitter @golfexaminer.)
Related posts:
- Massachusetts Golfer Kevin Blaser Makes 3 Aces in 24 Hours
- Kevin Na's "Tin Cup" Impersonation (Video)
- Celebrity Golfer: Kevin Millar
- Kevin J. Ryan Memorial Golf Tournament
- Massachusetts Will Be Well Represented on the 2010 PGA Tour; Three Bay Staters Earn Tour Card and Others Still in the Hunt at Qualifying
