Links Legend: Rob LaBritz
LINKS LEGEND: ROB LABRITZ INSIDE THE ROPES ON THE PGA TOUR CHAMPIONS
By Michael Kaplan
Photos: Alex Quijano
From the time when Rob Labritz first started golfing as a kid, his goal has been to win a Professional Golfers’ Association Tour event. …He’s now competing in his third year on the PGA Tour Champions and, while he’s yet to win on the PGA Tour Champions…after only a year, his fellow PGA Tour Champions players named him the Most Popular Player on Tour!
Labritz has been the Head Golf Professional at Glen Arbor Golf Club in Bedford for more than two decades and, as the Club’s owner Grant Gregory says, “Rob will always have a home here! He’s a very special guy, and our Members love him!”
Labritz is a links legend! Quite notably, during his career as a PGA Club Professional, he was one of only a handful of Club Professionals who qualify to play amongst the field of PGA Tour Professionals in the PGA Championship …eight times! And he was the Lowest Scoring Club Professional at the PGA Championship …twice! …Then, as soon as he became eligible at age 50 to play on the PGA Tour Champions, he won the qualifying tournament!
I met Labritz about a decade ago. I had a Hole-In-One on the Par 3 14th at Glen Arbor – the second of two I’ve had in about 40 years of golf. I walked into the Pro Shop all elated and Labritz, whose reputation as the best golfer in the area preceded him, was there. To memorialize my achievement for a promotional program with Golf Digest, he asked what club I’d used on the hole – set up at a little under 150 yards that day…and I told him I’d used a 7 Iron. …Joking about my lack of distance, he declared, “I’ll put down a 9 Iron on the form!”
When my daughter and I published our Inaugural September/October 2020 Issue of Bedford & New Canaan Magazine, we ran Labritz’s “Competing At The PGA Championship”, about his appearance at the 2020 PGA Championship at Harding Park in San Francisco. In our July/August 2021 Issue of B&NC MAG, we included a feature Labritz wrote titled “The Longest PGA Championship Venue In History”, about his appearance at the 2021 PGA Championship at Kiawah Island Resort in South Carolina. And in our March/April 2023 Issue of B&NC MAG, we included another Labritz diary, titled “My First Year On The PGA Tour Champions’’, chronicling Labritz’s 2022 rookie season on the PGA Tour Champions.
In October 2023, Rob invited me to join him ‘inside the ropes’ at the Furyk & Friends PGA Tour Champions event at Timuquana Country Club, in Jacksonville, Florida. Nearing the end of his second year on Tour, Labritz’s finish at Furyk would help to determine whether he would make the cut to be one of the top 35 on the Tour Champions, and thereby get to play in the $3,000,000-purse end-of-the-Season Charles Schwab Cup Championship.
I am a golfer, and getting a close-up view of Rob, and the two other Champions he was paired with each of the three days, was a tremendous lesson. No bull, I lowered my handicap by about three strokes immediately after the tournament! Mostly by visualizing things I’d seen in the way the Champions approach the ball and position the club, their tempo, and finish, and everything I could glean about how they all seem to drain one putt after another so routinely as to make me think there must be a secret I don’t know.
And it was huge fun to get an insider’s look at the PGA Tour Champions! It was absolutely fascinating to see how Rob, and the other Champions, go about the business of being PGA Champions. I spent just about every waking minute with Rob during the three days of the tournament, so I really got to see his whole day, and what goes into being ready to step onto the first tee every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Rob got me an all-access pass at Timuquana that even got me into the Players’ Dining Room and Locker Room, so I got to rub elbows with some of the other Champions, and their families, caddies, and support teams. And I stayed at the same hotel as Rob, and his wife, Kerry, who’d brought their then-9-year old daughter Ryan and then-2-year old daughter Logan for the tournament. (Rob’s son from his previous marriage, Matthias, is away studying at LSU and couldn’t make it to this Tour stop.) And a bunch of the other Champions and their entourages were staying at the same hotel, so I got to hang-out a little bit with a few of them.
…But bigger than the golf lesson…or the golf fan’s experience…I was inspired by Rob! His demeanor, collegiality, professionalism, drive, tenacity, perseverance, intense focus, and genuine and oft-repeated belief that he will win a PGA Tour Champions event. Rob is as good a guy as he is a golfer!
DAY ONE…When I arrived at Timuquana on Thursday, I wasn’t sure about how ‘close’ I was allowed or supposed to get during the whole experience, so I had lunch in the Press Room with a couple of PGA Tour Champions marketing execs, and didn’t meet-up with Rob until just before he was headed to the first tee. I walked around with Rob’s best friend, ‘Fast’ Eddie Fernandes…who is a two-time World Long Drive Champion! Rob and Eddie met when they were just 5, and grew up five houses down the road from each other on Pattonwood Drive in Southington, Connecticut – sneaking onto the adjacent Pattonbrook Country Club to play golf together before eventually getting junior memberships there. Eddie is also qualified to play on the PGA Tour Champions, but spends most of his time focused on being and remaining a long drive champion and the business that goes with that. It was an extra-special treat to get Eddie’s insight on Rob’s technical performance, and an absolute blast to hear Eddie declare, with a chuckle, on the Tee at just about every 400+ yard Par 4… ”Maybe not on Tour, but if you and I were just playing golf out here today, I’d be going right for the Green!” …And with a long drive record of 480 yards, he wasn’t kidding! He gave Rob enough encouragement during the round to make me think he might be Rob’s Coach, but when I asked, he told me he was just up from his home in South Florida for the day to give his pal some encouragement.
Rob was 4 Under Par for the day, putting him in the top ten on the leaderboard, and setting him up for an ideal 9:30 tee time on Friday morning. He spent about twenty minutes stretching in the Locker Room, and then drove me in his Volvo courtesy vehicle back to the hotel in Jacksonville. He was enervated and energized all at once. Still thinking about his golf, but also very present and personal. He reviewed the round with me, talking about a few particularly good drives, how he felt he’d managed the course well, and how disappointed he was that he’d rolled this putt and that putt past the cup. He explained that he was also a bit exhausted from having spent a few weeks in a row on the road playing Tour events, but was excited that Kerry and the girls were driving up from Jupiter – where Rob and Kerry have taken a place in order to have a bit more proximity in their effort to maintain a semblance of family life while Rob is on Tour.
We pulled-up at the hotel at around sunset, and right behind Kerry and the kids. I’d actually met Kerry in years past as well, as she worked on my wife’s real estate brokerage team for a minute before becoming pregnant with Logan. She’s smart, youthful, fun, very pretty…and Rob’s undying supporter. …Hugging Kerry and the girls, it was like Rob got put on a charger. Or like when the Tin Man gets the oil. In the warm embrace of his family, Rob seems completely content. It’s easy to see how much he adores Kerry, and the way the girls smile and playfully interact with him says it all. We made plans to meet for dinner in the upscale steakhouse in the hotel about two hours later. When we sat down to eat, Rob said that he was happy to have just grabbed an hour stretch in the hotel gym!
Rob is a family man. Although Logan was a little zonked from the drive up to Jacksonville, Ryan was no worse for wear, and Rob wanted a full report on how she’d done on a project at the prestigious private school she’s enrolled in, and to hear about everything else going on in her life. His interaction with Kerry is playful, like they’re actually friends. The stress on the family of Rob being on the road is obvious, but they seem to be managing quite well. And around Kerry and the girls, Rob seems to maintain a constant calm and manifest obvious joy. We talked about people and politics and world affairs – without a hint of tension – and didn’t really talk about golf much at all. What shines through with Rob and Kerry is their faith, humility, happiness, and mutual respect and admiration. And Ryan is a bright and precocious young teen, who is an outstanding student and who plays the roles of #1 Fan, Mama’s Helper, and Big Sister, ideally. Dinner was delightful.
We’d been seated at a table toward the front of the restaurant, right next to the bar, and a half-dozen Champions staying at the same hotel came in for dinner while we were eating. The interaction between Rob and Kerry and the other Champions and their significant others felt a little more like what you would expect from long-time teammates, than guys competing head-to-head, week after week, for big money. We chatted with Miguel Jiminez and his significant other and Stephen Ames and his significant other, who were all seated at the bar together for their dinner. With his trademark cigar and an after-dinner drink in hand, Jiminez explained that they almost always sit at the bar, because meeting new people wherever the Tour takes them helps to break-up the monotony of being on the road – as Jiminez has been since he started on the European Tour in 1988.
One of the things that’s most interesting and exciting about the PGA Tour Champions, is the very fact that everyone is 50+. In no other sport are the ‘old guys’ competing on such a big stage or for so much money. They are a diverse and worldly group. Most of the Champions played for many years on the PGA Tour, and many were even PGA Tour greats and have earned great fortunes in the process. A whole bunch of Champions share private jets – or even take their own – to get around from event to event, while others take the PGA’s bus or make the drive together with their caddy. Rob stands out – at 53 – as one of the youngest and most fit Champions and, even compared to the way other Champions looked when they were in their 50s, it certainly appears that Rob may have two decades or more of playing on the PGA Tour Champions in front of him…and a reasonable shot at accumulating a fortune of his own to come with it.
DAY TWO…My photographer and I met with Rob, pre-dawn, on Friday morning, to get some shots of him stretching before leaving for the course. Rob showed up at the gym a little late, apologizing profusely, saying that he’d stayed-up after our dinner the night before taking Ryan for a swim in the hotel pool. He was more ‘off’ about having missed his alarm than I saw him at any other time all weekend. But what became immediately apparent when Rob got started, was that what Rob calls ‘stretching’, is actually a workout that would leave most mere mortals laying on the floor. His contortions are extreme, and there’s more calisthenics and isometrics than I even care to emulate. He went at it, while complying with my photographer and talking with me, for about an hour-and-a-half, saying he usually stretched for a couple of hours every morning, but wanted to get over to the course to hit some balls and work on his putting before his tee time. Rob explained to me that he spends almost as much time every day on fitness and conditioning as he does practicing and playing golf. The whole ‘stretch’ really got me thinking about everything that goes into Rob being a Tour pro. It’s a job, and Rob works really hard at it.
I left for the course with my photographer before Rob, and when I got to Timuquana I went to the range to watch the Champions practice from a VIP area only about ten feet behind the pros and their caddies. Close enough that one of my personal golf heroes, Davis Love III, said ‘Good Morning’ to me as I camped-out behind his practice session, and even commented to me on a few of his shots. Then, when I was standing aside the practice green watching Vijay Singh practice putting, John Daly dropped a few balls close enough to me for me to have putted them. He had a cigarette and a drink – I don’t know what was in the paper coffee cup – in his left hand, and started taking at least half-serious right-handed putts. He must have taken two dozen one-handed putts…and was sinking a good number of them…so I asked if he was seriously trying-out a new putting style. He laughed and said that if it kept working so well, he might try it!
One of the Champions who Rob was paired with was none other than former World #1 David Duval. Rob and Duval know each other from when they competed as Juniors, and the lighthearted banter between them started when the players and the caddies and the PGA officials were all posing for official photos before teeing-off. Duval always seems to be a bit pompous, and at Timuquana Duval’s chest is puffed-out a bit extra. His family is so well established that…well… Timuquana is located in Duval County! And Duval grew-up playing on Timuquana …because his dad, Bob Duval, was the PGA Club Professional there before he went on the PGA Tour and the PGA Tour Champions!
Watching the action on Day Two, I was more focused on how Rob was out there working, than the way I’d been focusing on technique on Day One. I walked with a high school friend of Rob’s – Rob’s family moved from Southington, Connecticut to Hobe Sound, Florida when he was a young teen – who’d driven-up from Port St. Lucie, and a couple in their 70s who’d met Rob when he was playing in a tournament in Atlanta on the course where they live, and who now travel to see Rob play whenever the PGA Tour Champions is even close to nearby. Kerry and the kids made it about half-way before they had to bring Logan into the Clubhouse. …I’d rate Rob’s performance on Day Two as ‘workmanlike’. He seemed a tad unsettled all day, like he just never found the zone. I thought I saw Rob turn and mutter a few angry words at his caddy, Mark Schoenwald, right after teeing-off on 17, and Rob later admitted to me that he was unhappy about a read Mark had given him on the 16th green, where Rob three-putted. Two Birdies, two Bogies, a few missed putts from inside ten feet…even Par for the day.
After the round, we went to the Player’s BBQ out on the Clubhouse Patio, overlooking a wide swath of the St. Johns River, for a bite amongst players and their families, caddies, trainers, and agents, and some PGA Tour Champions officials and execs. It was past lunch time, but Rob packed-down a plate like it might be his last meal. We sat at a picnic table with Mark and a couple of other caddies, and I got to listen-in on them talking about other caddies and their changing assignments, gossiping about the way one of the most famous Champions may have hit a cart while leaving the parking lot the night before without taking responsibility, and discussing arrangements for getting to the next event. As Rob relaxed – despite scrolling through a bunch of texts that seemed to be perterbing him – he revealed to me that he was a bit out of sorts, and maybe not perfectly loose, because his physio had left him high-and-dry the week before and was now ghosting Rob’s texts. And Rob talked openly with me about the costs of having a caddie, a physio, and a golf guru, and some of the other practicalities, requirements, and vagaries involved in competing on the PGA Tour Champions. I was again struck by the notion that Rob was out there competing with a kind of urgent sense of having to win and needing to prove himself, while most of the Champions were feeding their egos and overstuffing their already fat pockets.
Leaving Timuquana, we needed to stop for gas for the Volvo at the first station down the road. Rob, Kerry, the girls, and I were all packed into the car…and it took us at least fifteen minutes, and asking the clueless guys inside the station and a couple of other people at the pump, before we figured out how to open up the gas cap! {Hint: See Volvo website. Button is on key and not in car.} Then, on the ride back to the hotel, I asked Ryan if the kids at her school understood that her dad was a famous pro golfer, and if they’d be waiting to hear about her dad’s performance on the Tour when she got back to school on Monday. …To which she responded, “Well, Charlie Woods goes to my school,” and went on to talk about how Charlie had just won a tournament for the school. …Rob may be a big famous golf pro, but at home he’s just dad. He’s genuinely humble, and takes things with generally good humor. Drives his own car and, I can attest, pumps his own gas.
We all walked a couple of blocks from the hotel to go out to dinner – far enough that Rob, in his flip-flops, joked about not exactly needing to have to do any more exercise. The restaurant was kind of chi chi and pretentious, the crowd was rather avant-garde and, far from recognizing Rob as one of the PGA Tour Champions in Jacksonville for the Furyk and welcoming us as honored guests, the maître d’ pretty much sloughed us off and told us a table would be available ‘whenever’. …Right in stride and without a word of consternation, Rob led us out of the restaurant, and we went back to the hotel and had dinner in the lobby grill. Another nice dinner. A few more Champions stopping by the table to say hello. When we said goodnight at about 8:30, Rob and Kerry and the girls were headed up to the pool for some much needed family-time…and then I think Rob was going to get in yet another stretch before going to bed.
DAY THREE, Saturday, the final day of the Furyk, I headed to Timuquana with Rob in the Volvo while Kerry and the kids were going to follow in their own car and get to the course in time to see Rob tee-off. Rob was pretty pumped-up and a little more animated than usual. He said things like, ‘If a few putts roll my way, I still have a chance’ and, as usual, stated his intention to win on the Tour Champions. A little concerned about throwing-off his mojo in any way, I nevertheless asked Rob about what was going on in his golf brain. Was he thinking about the course? Or about something in his swing? …And, succinctly, Rob responded saying, “As I mature on the Tour, I find that the key is total and complete focus on each and every shot. Not on what just happened. Not on what’s going on around me. Just step up to the ball knowing that I’ve practiced enough to make everything rote, and apply myself completely to the analysis and execution of every swing.” I asked about how he deals with the proximity of the crowds and whether he was bothered by someone standing very close behind him on the 15th the day before – as I thought I’d noticed Rob look around after the drive, and Rob said, “What guy?”
When we got to Timuquana, I joined Rob for breakfast in the Player’s Dining Room! It was like one of those fantasy travel experiences they auction-off to buy with American Express points. PGA Tour Champions G.O.A.T. Bernhard Langer sat down to eat right across the table from me! And although he didn’t make any smalltalk with me or really anyone else, I did get to chat with several other Champions! …And when David Love III came in and sat down near Rob and I, I thought it seemed like maybe somehow he remembered me watching him on the range the morning before when he said ‘Hey, Good Morning, How Are Ya’ as he passed by!
After getting a rub-down and doing about a half-hour stretch in the Locker Room, Rob headed out to the range. He spent about a half-hour hitting a few shots at the range with every club in his bag. Then another half-hour hitting sand shots and tricky shots from all sides of one of the practice greens. And then another half-hour putting, with Rob’s caddie Mark checking Rob’s alignment from every angle. Everything seemed to be a bit more serious and critical than on Thursday or Friday.
I walked the whole route with Kerry and Ryan, with Logan spending some of the time in her stroller and some walking around and playing with her big sister like she was in a park. The crowd was much larger, and Timuquana was pretty packed. There were huge crowds in grandstands surrounding a couple of the Par 3s, where fans were whooping it up in the style of the Waste Management Open in Phoenix. The pressure was on…and there’s a lot of money on the line! A few strokes means hundreds of thousands more or less for Rob!…And yet, Rob paused after every couple of holes to get a high-five from Ryan and give Logan a hug! He had an errant drive on the 1st hole, but scrambled to make Par. He missed the green on a couple of approach shots. He went at every hole, but nothing seemed to drop until he made a long one on 18.…Even Par for the day.
4 Under Par for the 3-day event, tied for 15th, Rob won $30,000 for the effort at Timuquana. With his finish there and a good performance the next week, Rob did qualify as one of the top 35 players on the PGA Tour Champions and went on to compete in the Charles Schwab Championship Cup. Last time I checked, he’s already won $1.25M on the PGA Tour Champions, and he has sponsorship deals with Titleist, Foot-Joy, Athlade, Orion Infrastructure Capital, EPIC Insurance Brokers and Consultants, J. Alexander’s, and Krystal Restaurants – for whom Rob plays with a bright red patent leather golf bag emblazoned with the Krystal logo that’s more than noticeable out on the Tour! …And Rob still plays an active role at Glen Arbor when he’s not out on the Tour!
By all accounts, Rob is living the dream, and I said that to him when we were saying our goodbyes in the Clubhouse after the round. But he held my hand with a firm grip as we shook hands, looked me right in the eye, and said, “I may be living the dream, but my goal is to win out here, and I wouldn’t be out here if I didn’t know I can do it! Michael, I can feel it, I’ve got a win coming!”
On the way out of the Timuquana Clubhouse, I had to stop in the Locker Room to pick-up the suitcase I’d stashed with the gentleman in charge. As chance would have it, Davis Love III was picking-up his stuff, and saying his annual goodbyes to the gentleman who runs the Locker Room at exactly the same time. …Walking out of the Locker Room to an outdoor area where a few dozen kids were waiting to get autographs, Davis turned to me and said, ‘Well, on to the next stop. See ya, buddy…’ as we headed for our Ubers. …Did he think I was an insider??
