COLORADO SPRINGS -- A simple bit of calculation shows how Mark Wiebe’s career has been resurrected on the Champions Tour.
In less than a year on the over-50 circuit, Wiebe has made more than 15 times the amount of prize money he did in the previous 5½ years on the PGA and Nationwide tours combined.
Life is good for the 50-year-old Aurora resident, who is gearing up for his U.S. Senior Open debut this week in his home state, at the Broadmoor.
“My game was in decent shape, but I worked my butt off for a long time,” Wiebe said Tuesday before a practice round at the Broadmoor. “For four or five years, I had trouble with injuries and I think I played bad mainly because of those injuries.”
But in the 10½ months since turning 50, Wiebe has won twice on the Champions Tour, matching the number of victories he posted in nearly two decades of full-time play on the PGA Tour.
Wiebe, the 1986 Colorado Open champion, won the first event he played on the Champions Tour last September, then proved that was no fluke by claiming the title at the Cap Cana Championship in April.
“I thought I was playing good” when turning 50, Wiebe said. “I had no expectations. I felt my game was good, but you never know. There are so many great players out here, I take it as it comes. But when I play well I have a shot at winning.”
Wiebe owns four top-10 finishes this year and stands 11th on the Champions Tour money list, with $753,061.
“I’ve worked hard for this and I’ve played some good golf,” he said. “I feel good about that, but I don’t take anything for granted.”
• Eaks coming on strong
R.W. Eaks was voted Comeback Player of the Year on the Champions Tour by his peers last year, and if ever an award was well-deserved, that one was.
Eaks, who grew up in Colorado Springs and was a standout athlete at the University of Northern Colorado, has played tournament golf for more than 30 years, but until 2007 his biggest wins were three on the Nationwide Tour. However, he’s hit the big time in his mid-50s by winning three times on the Champions Tour since the beginning of 2007.
“I didn’t learn how to play until I came out here,” Eaks said Tuesday after a practice round for the U.S. Senior Open at the Broadmoor, where he used to work. “They taught me how to play golf.
“At (Champions) Tour school for 2005 I finally figured it out. I didn’t try to hit perfect shots. I still want to be perfect, but now I know you can’t be. It’s been a great career ever since. … I know now you don’t have to press all the time. You can let it come to you.”
Eaks credits veteran tour players such as Lee Trevino, Hale Irwin, Jim Colbert and others for teaching him the ropes. And since qualifying for the 2005 Champions Tour, Eaks has won a cool $3.4 million. His latest big payday came two weeks ago with his victory in the 3M Championship.
This week Eaks returns to the course where he worked for four years as a caddie, for two years on the grounds crew (“I was in charge of killing gophers and changing holes,“ he said) and a few months as a go-fer for then Broadmoor director of golf Dow Finsterwald.
“I’ve probably played a couple of hundred rounds here -- 100 I was supposed to, and the other 100 I snuck on,” he said.
Even though Eaks lives in Arizona these days, Colorado Springs “always feel like home, even when I fly over at 30,000 feet,” he said. “It’s nice to see a lot of family and friends. I’m not sure it’s nice for them.“
• Just like the Masters
Bernhard Langer, the top money winner on the Champions Tour, was meticulously going over the fast, sloping greens at the Broadmoor during a practice round on Tuesday.
“I’ve played greens like this before; Augusta is not a whole lot different,” said Langer, who should know, having won the Masters in both 1985 and ‘93. “I told my caddie during the practice round that you need a real good look at this course.”
• Attendance
USGA officials announced that Tuesday’s attendance at the Broadmoor was 8,211.
