Talor Gooch goes from ‘hometown legend’ to PGA TOUR winner

At 2, Talor Gooch rigged his Power Wheels Jeep so it could carry his plastic golf clubs. He accompanied his father to the course at 3, occasionally hitting a few shots from the fairway. As a 6-year-old, he made an albatross and broke 80. He was already driving it 150 yards. He was a world champion three years later, claiming the second U.S. Kids Golf World Championship. Gooch’s exploits quickly earned attention in Midwest City, an Oklahoma City suburb with a population of approximately 50,000. By the time he graduated from Carl Albert High School – where he won 19 of his 40 tournaments, including a state individual title – he was good enough to sign with Oklahoma State, one of the nation’s premiere golf programs. Even the Cowboys’ longtime football coach, Mike Gundy, who also grew up in Midwest City, knew about Gooch. “I’ve heard about you. You’re a hometown legend,” said Gundy, according to the Cowboys’ former golf coach, Mike McGraw. Now the ‘hometown legend’ is a PGA TOUR winner and the FedExCup leader entering the first event of the calendar year. Gooch’s victory came in November, a few days after he celebrated his 30th birthday. He played a sterling Sunday round after starting the final round of The RSM Classic with the first 54-hole lead of his career. He hit 16 greens and didn’t make a bogey, becoming just the seventh player in the last four seasons to hold a 54-hole lead and then shoot 64 or lower to win. The others? Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, Brooks Koepka, Webb Simpson, Joaquin Niemann and Si Woo Kim. That’s a group that features three former World No. 1s. All but one of those players has won either a major or THE PLAYERS. The PGA TOUR’s 2022 season resumes this week with the Sentry Tournament of Champions. Gooch had to cancel his annual buddies’ trip because of his debut at Kapalua. Not that he minds. This has the makings of a breakout season for the former phenom. He finished 11th or better in all but one of his six starts in the fall portion of the schedule. With 852 FedExCup points, he holds a 122-point lead over second-ranked Sam Burns. That success — along with winning RSM’s Birdies Fore Love, which awards $300,000 for charity to the player who makes the most birdies or better in the fall — has allowed Gooch to start the Talor Gooch Foundation, which will benefit children’s causes. It wasn’t always this easy. Then again, it’s often not. We can forget that the Morikawas and Hovlands are the exception. But Gooch was prepared for the trials inherent to so many pro-golf careers. He grew up around athletes, starting with his father, Ron, who played in the Texas Rangers’ organization, and knew self-belief was key to success, especially during the struggles. “Any athlete will tell you if you don’t believe in yourself, nobody else will,” said Kelsey Cline, Gooch’s mentor and a former University of Oklahoma golfer. “Golf gets complicated, and we all make it tough. The two most important things are self-belief and ball control. Everything else will take care of itself.” Growing up in the winds of Oklahoma helped him develop the latter. He’s one of the best iron players on TOUR and his low “stinger” tee shots were key on blustery days at The RSM. The former has been steeled by experiences earlier in his career. He had to endure two seasons on the Mackenzie Tour-PGA TOUR Canada and a scare at Q-School’s second stage – which left him wondering if he’d need to work at Best Buy to fund his career — before making it to the PGA TOUR. His rookie season in 2018 was interrupted by the removal of his appendix. Instead of seeking a medical extension, he tried to tough it out and keep playing. He secured conditional status for the following season, and in that second TOUR campaign he shared a leaderboard with some of the game’s biggest stars at Torrey Pines to prove he belonged. “A takeaway from my dad, all these great athletes that I’ve been fortunate to spend time with, is don’t get down, don’t let anyone see you’re down,” Gooch said. “You can get a little frustrated, but get right back up and dust yourself off and get going.” Ron Gooch played minor league baseball in the Texas Rangers’ organization, amassing a .271 batting average in more than 1,600 plate appearances. He hit .293 in more than 100 games at Triple A but never made it to the majors. Through his friendship with Cline, Talor played childhood rounds with Sam Bradford while the Heisman Trophy winner was starring at Oklahoma. J.T. Realmuto, the Philadelphia Phillies’ All-Star catcher, attended Carl Albert at the same time as Gooch, and the two remain close today. Gooch’s former Oklahoma State teammate, Wyndham Clark, calls him “a gamer” because of his toughness and ability to get the ball in the hole. In high school, Gooch won a tournament less than 48 hours after his clubs were stolen from his car; he used a backup set and a driver borrowed from his coach to shoot 68. Charles Howell III, another former Cowboy, says Gooch possesses a quiet confidence. His decision to attended Oklahoma State is testament to that. He knew some questioned if he’d crack the Cowboys’ starting lineup, which featured three first-team All-Americans (two reached No. 1 in the world amateur ranking, while another was the son of a major champion). Gooch started every event as a freshman. “If you don’t have that little bit of grit to go prove people wrong,” he said, “you’re not going to make it long.” In his second TOUR season, with just conditional status, Gooch finished third in the Farmers Insurance Open. Only Justin Rose – the No. 1 player in the world and reigning FedExCup champion — and Adam Scott beat Gooch. He tied Hideki Matsuyama, while Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, and Jason Day finished directly behind him on the leaderboard. Gooch was fifth at this year’s PLAYERS, the tournament with the game’s strongest field, behind only Justin Thomas, Lee Westwood, Bryson DeChambeau and Brian Harman. And in October, he shot a final-round 62 in THE CJ CUP @ SUMMIT to get in the mix with McIlroy, Collin Morikawa and his fellow Oklahoma State alum, Rickie Fowler. “I want to be the best and I want to compete against the best,” Gooch said. He’ll have more opportunities this year. His RSM win moved him to a career-best 32nd in the world ranking. He’ll make his Masters debut in April and, thanks to his incredible haul in the fall, likely will qualify for his first TOUR Championship. A coaching change in March has helped Gooch’s game reach a new level. He started working with Boyd Summerhays, best known as Tony Finau’s instructor, at THE PLAYERS. Gooch has been fifth in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green since (behind only Daniel Berger, Collin Morikawa, Paul Casey and Justin Thomas). Summerhays’ schedule at TPC Sawgrass was full because of his commitments to his other TOUR students, but he was told by a caddie that he shouldn’t pass on the opportunity to work with Gooch. “Everything I had heard about him being a competitor, a dog, having that fight, I saw from the beginning,” said Summerhays, a fellow Oklahoma State alum. “I had a caddie, when he heard Gooch may come to see me, say trust me, Talor has the ‘it factor.’ I didn’t question it. I trust my friend’s judgement.” Summerhays couldn’t meet with Gooch until late on the eve of THE PLAYERS, however. He texted Gooch at 4:30 p.m., inquiring if it was too late for him, but Gooch didn’t hesitate to show up. They worked until 7 p.m. on the eve of one of the year’s biggest events. Late afternoons at the course are nothing new for Gooch. Golf became his father’s passion after his baseball career ended. Talor soon asked if he could come to the course, as well. “I wanted to play golf, but I didn’t want to leave him out of anything,” Ron said in a 1988 story in The Daily Oklahoman about his 6-year-old prodigy. “You can feel guilty, or you can take him and make your handicap go up.” Ron chose the latter, and Talor quickly started garnering attention, which is why he was featured in the local paper at such an early age. Talor would tee it up from 150 yards on the par-4s and 175 yards on the par-5s. He made 2 on the par-5 16th at John Conrad Regional Golf Course after hitting his drive about 30 yards from the green and holing out with an 8-iron. “Yes!” he shouted and sprinted after his ball, the newspaper reported. Conrad became like a second home. “I may go eat a sandwich at Conrad, and he’ll go hit two buckets of balls,” Ron told the Oklahoman. Talor calls Conrad “your typical muni,” with flat fairways and shaggy greens. The modest beginnings molded him. In junior golf, his family would often spend up to 15 hours in the car traveling to tournaments and scrambled to make ends meet. “So much of my makeup starts from where I started from, not having the best of everything … and having to make the most of what I’ve got,” Gooch told the Talk of the TOUR podcast. “I wanted for nothing, but I had to go work to get everything I wanted.” That includes a PGA TOUR win and a spot among the game’s elite this week at Kapalua. Talor Gooch’s perseverance allowed him to make good on his promise.

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