Unheralded Brazilian Faced Long Road to First Tee

Buyinggolfonline.com / 2010-03-11

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. — The first round of the Honda Classic seemed to be unfolding as usual on a blustery, bright and chilly Thursday afternoon at PGA National Resort. Starched flags snapped behind the grandstand at the 18th green. An international player was tied with a recent qualifying school graduate for the lead over a South American and the only American player to win here in the last five years.

But pieces of the familiar puzzle were slightly and delightfully askew. The first was one of the two golfers who was at four-under-par 66, one stroke behind the leaders, Nathan Green of Australia and the Q-School grad Michael Connell, who each shot 65. Tied for third with the 2007 Honda champion Oliver Wilson at 66 was a Brazilian golfer with the melodic name of Alexandre Rocha, a tall, dark-eyed interloper.

Rocha is a 32-year-old veteran of the PGA European Tour and the European Challenge Tour who fought his way through two qualifying tournaments in the past week just to get a spot in Honda, beating 163 players.

Then, riding a strange wave of calm across the brutally tough 7,158-yard, par-70 Champion Course, Rocha birdied his first three holes, offset a bogey at the sixth with a great par save at the seventh and a birdie at the eighth, and managed two more birdies coming in for a startling round of 66.

“Going through two qualifiers just to get here, one of which was played in conditions just like this,” Rocha said. “I was fortunate to get through that, then  fortunate to get through the Monday qualifier because it was one of the four spots. And then this.”

Rocha looked at the surroundings, a line of people waiting his autograph, a scoreboard with his name near the top. He shook his head slightly and smiled.

“So, here I am,” he said.

Here he is, after nearly quitting the game last year, a season he said had been the worst he had ever experienced. Here he is, after playing golf without winning a tournament in an estimated 80 countries since 2000, after emerging from Mississippi State University following an all-American college career that landed him on that team with heralded players like Luke Donald of Northwestern and Paul Casey of Arizona State.

Rocha could not even speak English when he arrived in Starkville, Miss., but soon afterward he signed a contract with Gaylord Sports, the agency where Phil Mickelson was a client along with the soon-to-be P.G.A. Championship winner Rich Beem. Much was expected of him, but he somehow knew even then that he was  over his head.

He played in just three PGA Tour events before this one. He struggled off and on in Europe, gaining experience but barely maintaining his exempt status. On Thursday he recalled what it was like missing cut in his last PGA Tour appearance, the Southern Farm Bureau Classic in Madison, Miss.

“I remember my last PGA Tour start was seven years ago and I was petrified,” he said. “I was just horrified. I wanted to get off the course as soon as I could because I felt so uncomfortable.”

He shot 81-70 at Annandale Golf Club in 2003, and the next time he stepped inside the ropes was Tuesday for a practice round. He might not have made it here at all but for a eureka moment last year when he heard on television that the 2016 Olympic Games were to be played in his native Brazil. Those Games will be the first for golf since 1904.

“It was my saving grace when they announced that we got the Olympics,” he said. “I was just struggling after the worst year of my career and I was just ready to pack it in and come home.

“And right then and there I made up my mind to go to the drawing board and start all over again,” he said. “I changed everything. I changed my coach, I changed my manager, I changed my equipment. I would have changed me if I could — and I guess I have done that. I’m a changed guy.”

Now, in something approaching irony, Rocha is reunited with Connell, his old college teammate and a two-time all-American whose fortunes on the PGA Tour have not been much better than Rocha’s. He has never had a top-10 finish, and his best finish is a tie for 17th at the 2006 John Deere Classic.

Every now and then in the cosseted world of $5 million purses, up pops an unlikely story of resilience. Such a story rode across the chill winds on Thursday. At a tournament featuring 14 major championship winners and a dozen of the top 30 golfers in the world, two long-separated teammates are joined near the top, and for at least a day they are showing just how scant the differences are in the elite game.

If you want to read more golf news or find the golf clubs shop(you can get the best American golf clubs)You can click