PDA

View Full Version : Hensby geared up for Presidents Cup



jaster
22nd September 2005, 11:12 PM
This is rather long, but it is a fantastic read, stuff in here that I never knew....all I can say is "GO MARK"!!!

Hensby geared up for Presidents Cup
By Tim Rosaforte
Golf World

Mark Hensby is an edgy guy. In less than two years on the world stage, the feisty Australian has been: (a) critical of Augusta National GC; (b) disqualified from Bay Hill; and (c) outspoken on Michelle Wie's invitation to play in the tournament he was defending. Hensby has also feuded with the Australian Golf Union and skipped both his country's National Open to play in South Korea and the British Open because he didn't have a passport. On top of all that, he has not been talking to The Golf Channel because he believes it slighted him during this year's Masters. When confronted with the question about a chip on his shoulder, Hensby admits his reputation is partially deserved. "Anyone would have a chip on their shoulder if they had a background like me," he says.

Mark Hensby
After years of toiling on tours throughout the world, Hensby is now a PGA Tour stalwart.

Go back to Hensby's days growing up in Tamworth, New South Wales, and he tells stories of an abusive father and a golf club that shunned him. Trace his path to next week's Presidents Cup and you'll learn about jobs delivering mail, cutting grass and washing dishes. All that baggage, all those hard knocks, came before the infamous story about Hensby sleeping in his car at Cog Hill GC outside Chicago.

International team captain Gary Player remembers what it was like sleeping in sand traps and having people tell him he wouldn't make it -- so he can relate to Hensby, who is nearly his equal in height (5ft8") and weight (150 pounds). Hensby's trump card, Player knows, is that edginess. It has allowed the 34-year-old Hensby to overcome size, pedigree and the remnants of a dysfunctional childhood, and rise from No. 373 in the world at the start of 2004 to one of the game's grittiest and most respected players.

"He's a little fighter," says Player, "with a big heart." Most fans don't realize it, but Hensby had the fifth-best record in the majors this year and backed up his win at the 2004 John Deere Classic with a playoff victory over Henrik Stenson in the 2005 Scandinavian Masters. He led the Masters early, was in contention on the weekend at the U.S. Open and came close to a top-10 at the British Open. He hasn't had his breakout moment, but it could come next week against the Americans at Robert Trent Jones GC, when he gets to play for the International team for the first time.

"Mark Hensby has a little bit of that brash, give-it-a-go, don't-take-anything-from-anybody type of attitude," says International assistant captain Ian Baker-Finch. "I think that will make him good as far as team competition in the Presidents Cup. He could be a giant killer. He might be the guy we put against Tiger."

If that happens, Hensby won't back down. He first encountered Woods when the two played a practice round before the 1994 Western Amateur, and much like Player against Jack Nicklaus 40 years ago, Hensby talked himself into believing he could handle the challenge. "He came back and said, 'I can beat Tiger Woods,' " recalls Jeff Rimsnider, the head pro at Cog Hill. "He wasn't afraid of Tiger then. That's the kind of confidence he has."

Since then they have become mates. Hensby is one of the few guys with nerve enough to tease Tiger and get away with it -- and it goes both ways. At the Wachovia Championship earlier this year, Woods was penalized two strokes for moving a temporary immovable obstruction. When Hensby saw Woods walking onto the practice range the following week at the EDS Byron Nelson Championship, he hollered, "Hey, I just bought a new house. Want to come over and help me move the fencing?" At the PGA, the first time they played together since Hensby's win in Sweden, Woods returned the favor. "Well done in Scandinavia," Woods said to him. "But it's nice to see you come back and play some real competition."

"He and I have fun," says Hensby. "It's enjoyable to be around a guy as positive as he is." Hensby also shares a bond with Vijay Singh that was born on the practice range and solidified when they shared a third-round tee time this year at Augusta. Hensby won the duel by a stroke, 70-71, and eventually tied the Fijian for fifth place. He has adopted Singh's practice of swinging weighted clubs -- and shooting from the hip. "Vijay said ... there are fake guys on tour who say what people want to hear because it makes them sound better," Hensby says. "That's hard for me to do. I'm not out there to please anybody."

Not many golfers are welcome in both the Woods and Singh camps. Hensby is because of how much work he puts into his game, and how he treats the superstars. The way Hensby looks at it, "They're both human beings ... not much different than me." That's quite a statement considering where Hensby came from in his rise to world-class player.

Tamworth is a sheep-grazing town of 32,000 located 250 miles from Sydney. Hensby's home was on the range. "He'd be on the golf course at 6 in the morning, a bike ride away," his mother, Enid, told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "And then he was there after school until dark."

There was a hidden reason for that. It was an escape from the tension at home. His late father, Jim, was a flight sergeant in the Air Force who worked nights as a security guard. Hensby's memories of being hit for leaving a bar of soap on the floor of the shower, or not sitting up straight at the dinner table, are nightmarish. If he didn't make his bed properly, his father would rip off the sheets and leave them in a pile on the bedroom floor. Golf was his escape. He'd set the alarm for 5 a.m. and get out of the house before his father came home from the graveyard shift.

"You grow up a certain way and you don't know anything different," Hensby says. "Not once did my dad ever say he loved us. Not once did he say, 'Good job.' He was a military guy, and it was his way or no way. [We suffered] mental abuse and also physical abuse. It was a harsh way to grow up." (Jim Hensby passed away six years ago.)

There was more rejection at Tamworth GC. Hensby recalls the members being jealous of him and trying to exclude him from the club championship because of his age (14). When he qualified for the New South Wales Open in 1986, he had to join a club two hours north with sand greens just to be eligible. Two years later he began a run of six straight club championships. Former coach Geoff Simmons called him "a fiery little bugger," but one official told the Australian Age he thought Hensby needed a psychologist more than a golf coach. "I'm not saying I was a choirboy there," Hensby says. "All the things that got me in trouble were related to trying to get better at the game."

That desire (and the money earned from working for the postal service) took Hensby to Chicago, where he won the Illinois State Amateur and developed his game at Cog Hill. He stayed with Tamworth member and Australian businessman Ray McGill for six months until McGill was transferred to a new location. With less than $1,000 in savings, Hensby started living like a gypsy -- from a couch in the Cog Hill clubhouse to the homes of Rimsnider and the mother of LPGA golfer Nicole Jeray. Occasionally he would sleep in a Ford Scorpio that had more than 100,000 miles on the odometer.

Hensby looks back on those days with indifference. "Most guys who play golf in America come from money. I never did," he says. "I always did everything by myself. I don't look at [the Cog Hill experience] as a low point. I live in a beautiful house, but it doesn't matter if I live in a shed. It doesn't do anything for me."

From Chicago Hensby migrated to south Florida, where he started hanging around Bob Toski's golf school and playing practice rounds with tennis great Ivan Lendl, who was attempting to switch careers. In 1996 Hensby won the Illinois State Open by eight shots. "I looked at his golf swing and liked what he was doing," says the irascible Toski. "I told him, 'You just keep playing, Mark. You've got game.' " Lendl taught Hensby how a world-class athlete thinks -- and trains. "Mark used to be chubby. Now he's cut," says Lendl.

Hensby made it to the Nationwide Tour and played well enough in 2000 to finish second on the money list and qualify for the big show. But he made just seven cuts in 29 events, finished 186th on the money list and returned to the developmental tour. Along the way, he was married briefly to a woman he had met in Chicago. They had a son, named Chase, but ultimately separated under the mounting pressures of his career. "When I was playing good golf, everything was fine," Hensby says. "The bottom line is I saw things in my ex that I saw in my dad. I didn't feel like I was getting the support I needed. We were not meant to be married."

Despite the personal upheaval, Hensby wouldn't give up. He scratched his way back to the big tour in 2004 by finishing seventh on the '03 Nationwide money list with a victory and two second-place finishes. This time he segued right into the flow of the PGA Tour, losing by a stroke to Zach Johnson at the BellSouth Classic and finishing third at the Western in his return to Cog Hill. He won the following week at the John Deere but made more news for not accepting his exemption into the British Open.

He had legitimate reasons for not going -- Hensby's passport was home in Arizona, and he wouldn't have arrived at Royal Troon until the day before the opening round -- but he was criticized anyway. Golf Channel analyst and former tour player Frank Nobilo was one of the most vocal, which, according to Hensby, is where the bad blood between him and the network started.

His next brush with fame was also controversial. At the Bay Hill Invitational earlier this year, he hit a tee shot out of bounds on his 36th hole, failed to complete his round and turn in a score and was disqualified. His story is that he ran out of golf balls and accompanied playing partners Mike Weir and Andre Stolz to the scoring trailer. Other players question whether there were balls in his bag, and there were reports that tournament host Arnold Palmer called Hensby's actions "unprofessional." Hensby smoothed it over with a letter explaining his circumstances. "I heard [Palmer] laughed and said, 'I've done that,' " says Hensby. "Arnold knows me. I'm not the sort of person to do that. I'd never disrespect his tournament."

Nobilo got on Hensby for that, too, but they talked for 45 minutes at the Players Championship and sorted things out. "I like his attitude ... that he's prepared to take people on," Nobilo says. "He's got the fight that's actually missing from other players, which is why I think he'll be a good asset for the Presidents Cup team. He's not going to back down." Nobilo partially understands why Hensby has been sensitive, especially at commentary from a New Zealander. "Like a lot of Aussies and Kiwis, he was born with a chip on his shoulder. That's just the way Antipodeans are. It's a form of motivation."

The corps of golf writers who follow the circuit don't quite know what to make of Hensby, but they certainly can't wait to quote him -- whether it's on Wie getting an invitation to play in the John Deere ("I don't think a 15-year-old girl who's done nothing at all should get a sponsor's invitation to a PGA Tour event.") or his thoughts about the lengthening of Augusta National ("It seems like they're trying to eliminate half to three-quarters of the field. They're doing a good job of it.").

Hensby's candor makes him a tough sell to potential sponsors, but in the end, he is not chasing the dollar. "He will speak his mind in a minute," says his business manager, Dave Maraghy. "What I really like about Mark, candidly, is he doesn't care about the deals and the money and the off-course stuff. He just wants to play golf."

With almost $4 million in earnings the last 20 months, Hensby is, as fellow Aussie Peter Lonard says, "good for a loan." A decade after driving around Chicago in that beat-up Scorpio, Hensby now tools around Mesa in a Mercedes. And best of all, 5-year-old Chase is usually with his dad, as he was inside the ropes at Augusta as a caddie at the Par 3 Contest. Hensby wants his son to have better -- not bitter -- memories of his childhood. He wants his boy to see his trophies. Most of all, Hensby would like Chase to be able to point at the big one and say, "My dad helped win the Presidents Cup."

McMw
22nd September 2005, 11:33 PM
great read...

but somehow, I don't think it's gonna be the Hen vs Tiger on Sunday...more like Vj vs Tiger... :wink:

jaster
22nd September 2005, 11:36 PM
:lol: Still...wouldn't it be great to see him go 5 - 0 8)

Jarro
23rd September 2005, 01:28 AM
nice read Jaster 8)