Life’S Upward Swing

Today’s premise: You’ve truly arrived once you make somebody’s - anybody’s - Top 10 list.

Letterman’s. Mr. Blackwell’s. The FBI’s.

Or, in Kirk Triplett’s case, the PGA Tour’s accounting of the year’s leading money winners, the most recent audit revealing him to be No. 10 - or ninth if you put the GNP of Tiger Nation in one category and the rest of golf in another.

Triplett has siphoned off more than $1.8 million this year in prize money put up by Buick and Mercedes and John Deere - to name three of the classier rides on the Tour - with three full months of paydays still ahead. This is already a million more than he won a year ago, which was almost twice as much as he won the year before that, which makes him the closest thing the Tour has right now to an overnight sensation.

Never mind the decade he’d already put in on this Tour, or the dog ears his passport, yardage book and Fodor’s picked up as he tromped around bush-tour circuits played on courses where the locals did laundry in the water hazards.

Now, when the PGA galleries see his trademark Gilligan hat come bobbing down a fairway, more spectators are likely to say, “That’s him,” instead of, “Who’s that?”

He will certainly have no recognition issues at Monday’s Pro Classic at The Creek at Qualchan, where he and Hale Irwin are the headliners. Same goes on Tuesday, when he returns to his hometown of Pullman for a benefit exhibition at the Washington State University course where he learned the game.

In these parts, he da man. Our list doesn’t have to go 10 deep.

But it’s interesting to discover that Triplett’s sudden celebrity beyond our neighborhood doesn’t necessarily qualify as a revelation to him.

“I’ve always felt I was a successful player,” he said between rounds of The International, the point-system contrivance being contested this weekend in Denver.

But there’s success, Triplett knows, and then there’s success. Long-term, household name, invited-to-the-interview-tent-out-of-habit success.

“I see qualifying school players come and go,” he said, “and traditional Top 10 players see guys like me from the middle of the pack, I guess, have one good year and maybe drop back.

“You have to prove yourself over a number of years to be considered one of those guys. Even Tiger Woods - he’s trying to be the best of all time, but only time will tell whether he is. Well, for me it’s the same thing. Am I one of the top 10 players on the Tour? At this point, yes. But I have to keep doing it.”

As questions go, however, it’s a dramatic improvement on the one Triplett used to hear - constantly.

At some point along the Tour trail - 1997 or 1998 - Triplett had zoomed past the $2 million mark in career earnings and inched into the golf zealot’s consciousness as the dreaded Best Player Never To Have Won A Tournament.

This he carried around in his bag like a 15th club.

Like the cinch Hall of Famers who, because they are without championships rings, constantly have their legitimacy assailed by talk-radio hyenas, Triplett’s badge was hardly something to be ashamed of - but probably not something to be polished, either.

“Certainly a lot of people - probably me included - say what you’ve done is not complete without a victory,” he admitted.

Well, color Kirk Triplett complete.

Seven weeks into the 2000 season, Triplett strung together four straight sub-par rounds and beat Jesper Parnevik by a stroke to win the Nissan Open at Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles.

It took 266 PGA starts, but Triplett had his trophy.

Last weekend, he almost made it two - making birdie on the 72nd hole of the John Deere to force a playoff, then two more before finally succumbing to Michael Clark II, another first-time winner.

“But last week, I really felt the impact of that win,” Triplett said. “I’m leading going into the last round and no one is asking me, `How are you going to win?’ or `What are you going to do to win?’ or just `Can you win?’ It’s the question they’ve been asking me for six, seven, nine years, and I don’t get it anymore.”

The genesis of his Nissan Open victory, he recalled, could be found the previous week in San Diego, where he made the final group for Sunday’s round.

“And I was playing lousy,” he said, “but I hung in there and finished fourth or fifth. I didn’t lose control of my game or lose my composure, which I’d done in the past.”

Triplett has always been one of the more approachable, accommodating pros on the Tour, full of dry, desert wit and an easy candor - particularly when it comes to detailing his own shortcomings.

And, as a golfer, he only seems to have two. He’s no gorilla off the tee, and he’s been known to feed his inner ape when things go bad.

Emotional management is the phrase. And it’s huge on a golf course.

“But it’s not just golf, it’s every sport,” he insisted. “It’s just magnified in golf because it’s not an action-reaction game. You have time to think about it. I spent plenty of years finding ways to tell myself what an idiot I was for that last poor shot instead of figuring out what I was going to do next.”

Naturally, there’s one easy way to manage your emotions: Don’t play badly.

Triplett doesn’t think he’s doing much different this year than he has in the past. He changed his sand wedge and has developed a soft flop shot, and midway through 1999, he picked up a different putter. Whether it’s the equipment or a modest resolve to pay closer attention to his greens work in practice, the statistical jump has been staggering - from 72nd to fifth in putting average, and 38th to fifth in birdie average. He’s also 10th in greens hit in regulation, though that’s always been a strength.

“When you feel like you’re going to make a putt or two at some point during the round,” Triplett said, “you don’t let little mistakes get to you. Fortunately, when I haven’t been playing well, I’ve still been able to shoot some decent scores. And when I have been playing well, I’ve shot some really good scores.”

A third-round 62 last weekend in Illinois. A 61 at Hartford a couple weeks earlier. Sixty-fours at the Bob Hope and Buick.

In all, Triplett has cracked the top 10 in 10 of 19 starts this year, the top 25 three other times and missed just four cuts. All of which would seem to put him on the fast track - except for the fact that he’s at something of a crossroads.

His twin sons, Conor and Samuel, are pushing school age, and thus it’s probably the last year that Triplett’s family will accompany him full-time on the Tour. In addition, Kirk and Cathi recently adopted a baby daughter, Alexis, who is just 4 months old.

And Triplett himself is 38 - three days younger than another pro from this area, John Stockton - and knows all too well the brief window he’s peeking through.

The prestige accorded a prolonged stay in the top 10 - and not merely to qualify for the honor of playing on our President’s Cup team - carries some weight with Triplett. But it doesn’t necessarily drive him.

“I’m trying to get better at what I do,” he allowed, “but I’m not getting any younger. The guys coming out now play a little different game. At some point, my skills will decline, so I’m trying to do as much as I can right now - I’m trying to get greedy and take advantage of playing well.

“But more important to me is my family. Right now, what I’m doing in my career fits in with what my family’s doing. At some point, when the kids get older and they have more activities I want to be involved in or watch, I’ll scale back and do things differently.”

He says it with no hint of regret or hesitation.

Knowing when you’ve arrived, Kirk Triplett knows, is not nearly as crucial as knowing where you have to be.

This sidebar appeared with the story: IF YOU GO Tickets

Tickets for the Pro Classic are good for both days and can be purchased for $20 at the Latah Creek Tidyman’s store.

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