Tag: Mark McCumber

Patience wasn’t always Tyler McCumber’s virtue. But he’s learned it traveling a long road to the PGA Tour.

“My Dad [10-time PGA Tour winner Mark McCumber] told me many times that I had to learn more patience.”

ST. SIMONS ISLAND, GA. — Tyler McCumber admits there was a time in his life where he wasn’t the most patient person.

“I didn’t have any,” he said on Wednesday, prior to playing in the RSM Classic Pro-Am at the Sea Island Club’s Seaside Course. “My Dad [10-time PGA Tour winner Mark McCumber] told me many times that I had to learn more patience.”

But the 30-year-old second-generation PGA Tour player has shown that attribute in abundance since turning professional in 2013.

Few players with current PGA Tour status paid more dues and traveled more of the world to do it than McCumber.

He got a Korn Ferry Tour card two years later when he finished third on the PGA Tour Latinoamerica, but then lost it in one season, the product of 12 missed cuts in 20 starts.

McCumber regained his Korn Ferry status in 2018 by winning the Mackenzie Tour-Canada Order of Merit, with three victories and he only lasted one year again — but for the right reason, coming in 22nd on the 2019 money list to earn his PGA Tour card

He then retained it by finishing 99th on the 2020-21 FedEx Cup points list, with two top-10s and five top-25s.

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“I feel like it was a big learning year,” he said. “Learning all the courses, getting comfortable on Tour … it’s such a fun process, but there’s a lot to take in. Having this sort of weird, hybrid rookie season, with two years under my belt, I’m going to take a step back this offseason and go over what I’ve learned, make a plan for going forward and make the necessary adjustments. But also, sort of soak it in. It was a big year-and-a-half.”

It was an odd situation for everyone. The Tour suspended play because of the pandemic in March of 2020, just two weeks after McCumber posted a 20th-place finish in Puerto Rico. When play resumed in June, he missed six cuts in a row and had to withdraw from another tournament as he battled through a prolonged bout with a stomach virus.

In February, McCumber nearly withdrew from the Genesis Invitational after cutting his finger on a sliding glass door. He shot 67-68 in the first two rounds to get a spot in the final group on Saturday but then shot 77-74 on the weekend and tied for 52nd.

The good news is that the Tour froze the membership status for another year and McCumber was able to rally with a series of strong finishes.

That included a tie for 22nd in The Players Championship, the tournament his father Mark won 33 years before, and a second in at the Tour’s event in the Dominican Republic when Harris English birdied the final hole to win by one shot.

McCumber hasn’t gotten off to the best start in 2021-22. He’s missed four of his first five cuts entering this week’s RSM Classic but he said he’s at peace with the process.

His pattern has been to miss cuts in bunches but rebound quickly. In early 2021, he missed four cuts in a row but rallied at The Players, then tied for 33rd at the Honda Classic and tied for 12th in the Dominican Republic.

After six missed cuts in a row, he tied for 15th at the Wyndham Championship.

“I don’t know why, other than it’s kind of my pattern,” he said. “I’m trying on every shot. Golf is a wild game. There are a lot of variables that are out of your control. I try to focus on what I can control and give my best every shot. But missing a few cuts and then coming back to have chances to win is not a bad pattern. I hope I can flip the script and go in the right direction.”

Paying dues is sort of a family tradition. McCumber’s father needed eight attempts at the PGA Tour qualifying school under the old system to get his card, won his first tournament at the age of 28 and won The Players at 36.

McCumber doesn’t regret the road he’s taken through Canada and Latin America to get to the PGA Tour. Indeed, he’s an avid outdoorsman and surfer and once spent six weeks hitch-hiking in New Zealand and Australia with nothing but his board and his backpack.

He also remains the answer to a trivia question: he’s the only player to earn Korn Ferry Tour status off the money list of two of the three PGA Tour’s international circuits.

“I think golf demands patience and perseverance,” he said. “The path to the PGA Tour took that, plus a strong belief in myself. I’m still figuring out what works but I have a pretty good formula in mind and I’m going to play with that plan and trust and believe it.”

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Tyler McCumber makes first start at The Players, 33 years after his father Mark won

Mark McCumber’s road to The Players is the result of a lot of paid dues, on the Korn Ferry Tour and two of the international circuits.

Tyler McCumber didn’t see his father Mark win the 1988 Players Championship: he wasn’t born until three years and one week later.

But he’s watched archived video supplied by PGA Tour Entertainment of his father mastering the Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass that week, firing that was then the course record of 15-under-par 273 and playing 32 holes on Sunday (there was a rain suspension the day before) and not making a bogey until the final hole, when he had a five-shot lead on the 18th tee.

“He was in total control of his game,” Tyler McCumber said. “What struck me were the number of holes he went without a bogey, on that course, against those players. He loved the pressure. He thrived on being the hometown guy wanting to win his hometown tournament.”

He will get a taste of that this week as the family business at The Players Championship starts a new chapter on Thursday in the first round.

Tyler McCumber will make his first career start after qualifying for the tournament through his FedEx Cup points of the last two seasons (he’s 57th entering the week) and the Nease High and University of Florida graduate will complete the eighth father-son pairing in Players history.

Mark McCumber of Jacksonville celebrates his 1988 Players Championship victory with family members. His son Tyler, who is in the field for this week’s Players Championship, was born three years later.

Mark McCumber — a Jacksonville native who grew up playing the game at Hyde Park, graduated from Lee High School, won 10 times on the PGA Tour and went on to design a half-dozen First Coast golf courses — isn’t sure if he will be more nervous when his son steps to the first tee in the first round than he was fending off World Golf Hall of Fame members such as Payne Stewart, Lanny Wadkins, Greg Norman, Tom Kite, Ben Crenshaw and Bernhard Langer on the weekend 33 years ago.

“It took me a while to get comfortable in this tournament,” Mark McCumber, said referring to his first eight Players starts in which he missed four cuts and finished no higher than a tie for 35th until he tied for 12th the before he won, kicking off a streak of five top-13 finishes in a row.

You grow up in this town, with all the distractions of playing in front of your family and friends, and it’s not easy. People think you have a home-field advantage but you press a little bit. But I think he’s more prepared for that than I was. He’s incredibly strong, emotionally, and I think he excels more when it matters. Bert Yancey [McCumber’s mentor as a young pro] always told me, ‘it’s good to be nervous. If you can’t spit you’re having fun.”

Tyler McCumber isn’t cruising into the tournament with a ton of momentum. He missed the cut last week in the Arnold Palmer Invitational with rounds of 79-75, and since his two best combined weeks on Tour last fall, when he was solo second in the Dominican Republic and tied for sixth at the Sanderson Farms Championship, McCumber has missed six of nine cuts and finished no higher than a tie for 40th.

But he’s still learning to put four good rounds together on the PGA Tour. McCumber was in the final twosome for the third round of the Genesis Invitational with opening scores of 67-68 — just two days after he bashed his finger in a sliding glass door at his hotel and needed to have his nail removed.

Tyler McCumber lines up his putt on the 11th hole during the first round of the Sony Open golf tournament at Waialae Country Club. Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Doctors advised him to withdraw. McCumber played on.

“Last week … was just a matter of being on a hard course with a couple of swings that were two-shot penalties,” he said. “I still feel like I’ve got a lot of positives going for me. I think I’m fighting the ball really well in my windows, my short game is very sharp and that can come in pretty handy at the Stadium course. I’m working on tightening up my iron play and I’m driving it well.”

His road to The Players is the result of a lot of paid dues, on the Korn Ferry Tour and two of the PGA Tour’s international circuits. McCumber was the first player to get his Korn Ferry Tour card through two of those tours, PGA Tour Latinoamerica and the Mackenzie Tour-Canada.

He won three times on each tour and has 45 career starts on the Korn Ferry Tour.

McCumber got his PGA Tour card by finishing 22nd on the Korn Ferry Tour money list in 2019, highlighted by four top-10 finishes.

Tyler McCumber has played the Stadium Course dozens of times, from late afternoon rounds with his father to junior tournaments, college events with the University of Florida and amateur events.

One thing he does know: the course that the rules staff and TPC agronomy staff will present to the players will be nothing like he’s seen before.

“I’ve played this course in every kind of condition, weather, wind direction — except under PGA Tour conditions,” he said. “But I think I have a good database of knowledge that will help me. It’s a chess game. Be aggressive when you have the opportunities but know when to respect the course and its teeth.”

Mark McCumber, shown here following through his shot during the 1989 Doral Ryder Open, was a winner at TPC-Sawgrass and admitted this will be an emotional week. RVR Photos-USA TODAY Sports

Mark McCumber said the shock to the system of young pros who compete in The Players for the first time is a combination of green speed, firmness and hole locations.

“Any rookie or first-time player in this tournament can’t really know what the course is like until the week of the tournament,” he said. “They will see hole locations they’ve never seen. You don’t normally hit into greens that are firm, rolling 13.5 [on the Stimpmeter] with the hole cut three paces from the edge. The patience he and the other young guys will need, their ball-striking, short game, putting and emotional control will test every single aspect of their game.”

Mark McCumber didn’t deny one other thing: his emotions will be tested watching his son play the same course he conquered in 1988. He’s followed his son in hundreds of amateur and professional golf tournaments and said he eventually learned something.

Practice what he preached.

“I’d tell Tyler about being patient, but then I’d be like any other parent watching their kids at a dance recital or soccer game, anxious for them, wanting them to do good,” he said. “But I catch myself being so nervous that I’d have to tell myself, ‘you’re always telling him to do all you can to prepare, totally commit yourself, and then you can live with the results. I needed to be confident in what he was doing.”

But Mark McCumber said the main emotion that will be running through him when Tyler tees off will be sheer joy.

“His mother and I and his entire family will be really happy for him,” he said. “Not many people get to play on the PGA Tour and only the best players in any given year got to be in this championship. It says a lot about his hard work paying off.”

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