Friday, January 19, 2007
Wagner puts Tech on Tour
Randy King
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After being Vick-timized again, supporters of Virginia Tech athletics can find some solace from a story brewing almost 3,000 miles away from Blacksburg.
Forget Pimp Daddy, Hokies. Think Daddy Wags instead.
Who? We're talking Johnson Wagner here, folks. Thanks to Wagner, a 2002 Tech graduate, Hokie fans now have a player they can pull for every week on the PGA Tour.
Wagner, a two-time All-Big East performer who helped lead the Hokies to back-to-back league golf titles in 2001-02, has come out of the gates smoking in his rookie season on the big tour. After cashing a decent week's paycheck of $26,325 in his tour debut last week in the Hawaii Sony Open, Wagner entered today's third round of the Bob Hope Chrysler Classic tied for third, only one shot off the lead.
The straight-hitting, long-knocking Wagner continues to exhibit serious game and the right attitude to play with the big boys. In the first two rounds of the Hope, the 6-foot-3 New Yorker only missed two greens in regulation, bagging 11 birdies and an eagle to go with only two bogeys.
Rookie nerves? No evident signs of such.
"I definitely feel like I belong out here and I have seen guys that I played with for years win on the Nationwide Tour go on to win on the PGA Tout. I feel a lot of comfort with that, and, hopefully, I can do that, winning multiple times," Wagner told the media after his 66-67 start put him at 11-under, only one shot back of co-leaders Scott Verplank and Justin Rose.
Wagner, 26, made it to the big circuit thanks to a breakout season on the AAA Nationwide Tour last year. Wagner won twice and finished second on the Nationwide Tour money list with $372,069. The results automatically earned him his PGA Tour playing card for 2007. It's a long season, but early indications point to a guy who will be around for a long time.
After going winless in his first three seasons on the Nationwide Tour, Johnson said his two 2006 victories injected him with a big booster shot of confidence.
"I think it's helped tremendously," he said. "I almost got out of [PGA Tour] Q-School in 2005 to be out here last year. I struggled a lot in the final round, and I think it was really a blessing that I missed that week and got another year on the Nationwide Tour and was fortunate enough to win twice."
Wagner finished a respectable 34th at Hawaii. He confessed to having a stomach full of butterflies in his first time out of the gate.
"Last week I was definitely nervous the first couple of days ... [with] all of the names, basically the people I've grown up watching, Vijay [Singh] and [Jim] Furyk, and I was nervous," Wagner said.
"Playing with amateurs, it's kind of a little different ballgame this week. So I was a little less nervous and hopefully that will continue as I get more experience out here. But I definitely think we are susceptible to a lot of nerves."
Wagner is joined on tour this season by ex-Tech teammate Brendon de Jonge of Zimbabwe. De Jonge, however, doesn't have the luxury of full-exempt status as Wagner does this season, meaning his road on tour will be much more difficult because he won't have an automatic pass into events.
De Jonge, a second-team All-American at Tech in 2002-03, finished tied for 22nd in last December's PGA Tour Q-School. He's on the long list of new faces -- 40 Q-School graduates and 22 off the Nationwide Tour -- whose entry status many weeks will be decided by how many of the circuit's regulars decide to tee it up. The newcomers can expect to get only 18 to 20 starts.
TECH TIDBITS: Ex-Tech star tailback Lee Suggs of Roanoke is back in Blacksburg. Suggs enrolled in classes this semester in hopes of completing academic requirements for his college degree. Suggs still hasn't given up on his NFL career, which was derailed in Cleveland by injuries. Suggs was traded by the Browns to the New York Jets, but the trade was rescinded when the ex-William Fleming High star failed to pass his physical. He later had a tryout and was cut by the Miami Dolphins. ... It looks like Tech will have a strong connection with the Pittsburgh Steelers soon. Russ Grimm, whose sons Chad and Cody both played for Frank Beamer's Hokies this past season, is the heavy favorite to replace Bill Cowher as Steeelers head coach. ... So you didn't like the new clock rules designed to speed up college football games? Well, neither did the coaches. A written survey of 91 Division I coaches revealed that 60 percent want to rescind the new rules. Games averaged 3 hours, 6 minutes last fall, a decrease of 13 minutes from 2005.
