In Desperate Need Of Mulligans Kite, Couples Feel The Pressure Of Career Free-Falls

Forgive Tom Kite if he is a little light-headed when he heads to the first tee. The fall from the top of the golf world was so sudden, so steep and so unexpected, it had to be dizzying.

Fred Couples can relate. His crash is likewise severe enough to cause whiplash. At least, he often feels like he has been rear-ended. Back problems were as debilitating for the powerful Couples in 1995 as were short-game breakdowns for the meticulous Kite.

Many storylines offer intrigue for the 1996 golf season, which gets under way this week at the Mercedes Championships. Few are as compelling as the two Texans’ drive to get their games back into the form that has characterized their careers.

Couples, a Seattle native who lives in Plano, Texas, and the Austin-born Kite won major championships in 1992. Each ranked among the PGA Tour’s top 10 moneywinners in 1993 and the top 25 in ‘94. Each is coming off a season he couldn’t have imagined when ‘95 dawned.

Kite, named in November as captain for the U.S. 1997 Ryder Cup team, not only went winless for the second consecutive year, but managed only one top-10 finish. His scoring average climbed from 70.07 to 71.08 - a difference that meant a drop from 22nd to 104th on the money list.

Couples won five times in ‘95. But his victories came in the United Arab Emirates, the Phillipines, China (with teammate Davis Love III), Jamaica and on Mars - actually, in the Skins Game at the crater-laden Bighorn Golf Club in Palm Desert, Calif. He could play everywhere, it seemed, except on the PGA tour.

On golf’s main stage, he saw his scoring average climb from 69.28 to 70.22. He dropped from 23rd to 63rd on the money list. Among those ahead of him: Craig Stadler, John Morse, Mike Hulbert, Lennie Clements, Bob Lohr.

Puritan work ethic demands that Kite and Couples work harder than ever in ‘96 to regain the standing. For different reasons, however, they are hard-pressed to work the pieces back into place.

Couples has been haunted by disk problems in his lower back for two years. His preparation has suffered, he says, with the result being a difficulty to keep his swing on track for four days in a row.

Kite has practically lived on the driving range throughout his career. He was asked in a 1991 interview if he had to work harder as he got older. “Can’t work harder,” Kite said. “I have always worked hard.”

Kite had always putted well, too. Even his father, Tom Kite Sr., had trouble believing what he was seeing at last year’s Masters. “I’ve never seen him putt like this,” he said. “When you’re missing a lot of little putts, your confidence is shot.”

Kite never got on track. He ranked 36th on the tour in total driving (which reflects length and accuracy) and 20th in greens in regulation. But Kite was 231st with an average of 29.93 putts per round. That statistic says as much about his chipping and bunker play as his putting.

“I’m coming off a year that I hope is an aberration, something that I can correct and start playing much better,” Kite said. “And I know that there’s going to be a lot of demands on my time. … So I’m really going to have to focus in on getting my game back in shape.”

Questions about such indifferent play are met with defiance by Kite. He does not believe they are a signal that he is on an inexorable downhill spiral at age 46.

Kite’s competitive nature is visible when he is asked about his desire to be the United States’ first playing captain in the Ryder Cup since Arnold Palmer in 1963.

“Say you get your game in shape but you’re not quite there,” a reporter begins. “Could you …”

Kite interrupts.

“‘Say’ I get it?” Kite corrects. “You mean, when I get my game in shape.”

Whether he turns his game around or remains in a funk, Kite’s Ryder Cup role will focus attention on his golf game. It has strengthened his desire to at least contend for one of the 10 Ryder Cup spots that will be awarded based on play in 1996-97.

“My goals, as far as my game, are to get it back in shape and get playing Tom Kite-style golf, if you will,” Kite said. “And, you know, if I do that, well, then whether I make the Ryder Cup team will be a secondary decision.”

Kite said he would have been looking forward to 1996 even if he hadn’t been named Ryder Cup captain. He just wants to be himself again.

“I did not enjoy playing golf the way that I played in 1995,” Kite said. “I had planned on playing much better in ‘96 and ‘97 and actually plan on making the team or at least getting very close to making that team. And whether I’ll actually be able to become a player and a captain at the same time remains to be seen.”

Couples needed captain Lanny Wadkins’ sponsorship to land a spot on the Ryder Cup team that lost to Europe in September. While he clearly still has the competitive edge to turn it on for short spurts - he won a quick $1,086,958 in those five unofficial events in November and December - he feels limited by the back injury he first experienced at the 1994 Doral-Ryder Open.

Couples has tried every conceivable remedy short of surgery for his bad back. He took three months off in ‘94, then played well. He went into ‘95 optimistic, but experienced stiffness and spasms early in the year.

Back pain might have contributed to unproductive Sundays at the Nissan Open in February and the Masters in April. He took two months off after missing the cut at the MCI Heritage Golf Classic the week after the Masters.

Couples needed daily treatment on his back even while en route to an amazing come-from-behind victory at the Johnnie Walker World Championship in mid-December. He tied Loren Roberts and Vijay Singh with an eaglebirdie finish, then birdied the second playoff hole to win.