PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. – Hank Lebioda has heard of Craig Perks but needed a refresher course on how Perks won the 2002 Players Championship.
“Wow,” he said when told about perhaps the most scintillating finish in tournament history, when Perks chipped in for eagle at No. 16, stroked in a long birdie putt at No. 17, and chipped in for par from behind the 18th green to beat Stephen Ames by two shots. “It’s incredible he was able to do that. Hopefully, I won’t need to chip in for par at No 18 to win.”
Lebioda is one of 15 players in the field for this year’s Players who are making their debuts in the PGA Tour’s marquee event. Not all of them knew the Perks story but it’s understandable since almost all of them were in elementary school when Perks became the last first-year player to win the tournament.
“I’ve heard the name,” Cameron Young said of Perks. “Remind me.”
Joseph Bramlett, however, would be the teacher’s pet in Players 101.
“Chipped in on 16, made a bomb on 17, chipped in on 18. … I was watching it,” Bramlett said.
While the memories vary, one thing this year’s crop of first-time pros in The Players seem to have in abundance is confidence—not only confidence in their ability but confidence that they could pull off a Perks finish if necessary.
“If you’re here it’s because you’ve proven you can be anybody on any given day,” said Young, a former Wake Forest player who has finished 26th or better in his last five starts and contended at the Genesis Invitational before finishing in a tie for second behind Joaquin Niemann. “Anybody in this field could walk away on Sunday beating everyone else.”
Bramlett, who qualified by finishing 102nd on the FedEx Cup points list last year, knows all about spectacular finishes. He took the lead in the Korn Ferry Tour’s King & Bear Open two years ago with an albatross at the par-5 18th hole.
“I can’t speak for everybody else,” he said. “I don’t know what goes on inside their heads. But I definitely believe I have what it takes to win here. This golf course provides an environment for an exciting finish. I look forward to having that opportunity to go to the ceremony.”
Kisner came close in 2015
Aside from Jack Nicklaus winning the first Players Championship in 1974 at the Atlanta Country Club (someone had to win the first), only two players have won the tournament in their first start, Hal Sutton in 1983 and Perks.
Perks and Tim Clark in 2010 also are the only ones to make the Players their first PGA Tour title.
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Given the qualifying requirements, 15 first-time Players is on the low end of the usual number. There have been as many as two dozen first-timers but the closest anyone has come to winning since Perks was Kirk Kisner in 2015 when he made a three-way playoff with Rickie Fowler and Sergio Garcia.
Xander Schauffele (2018) and Tommy Tolles (1996) tied for second in their first Players but were four shots behind the winners. Since Perks won, 12 first-time players have finished among the top-10.
But consider how tough that maiden experience can be: Fifteen Players champions missed the cut in their first start in the tournament, including two-time winners Fred Couples and Steve Elkington.
And 20 years later, where is Craig Perks?
Winning, then changing
Craig Perks, an affable, unassuming New Zealander, lives in Lafayette, Louisiana, with his wife of Maureen. They have been married for 30 years.
Perks is also a cautionary tale. After winning the Players and earning a five-year exemption on the PGA Tour, he decided to change his game.
Perks was as long as anyone and hit few fairways, which didn’t make him any different from the “bomb-and-gouge” mentality that had begun to take hold on the Tour when driver heads became bigger and balls whistled straighter through the air.
But Perks wanted to be a complete player so he changed coaches and worked hard to hit more fairways. It didn’t work and he lost distance and what remained of his accuracy.
“My only regret is the way I went about trying to get better,” said Perks, now 55 who works for Golf Channel and on the PGA Tour Live ESPN+ platform. “As I reflect upon what I tried to do, I was very inconsistent, went searching for the answer, and I wandered too far from home base. I lost the foundation of my golf swing.”
By the time Perks exhausted his five-year exemption, he had only two more top-10s and made only one more cut in the Players, tying for 17th in his title defense. In his last three seasons on the PGA Tour, he missed 75 percent of his cuts.
“I was grateful for what I accomplished,” he said. “But I am remorseful for changing to much in a short amount of time. I get a little wistful now and then. All I was doing was trying to improve.”
Perks happy at home
But there’s more to life than making birdies. Perks began teaching at the Le Triomphe Golf and Country Club in Broussard, Louisiana, and went to work for Golf Channel. He and his wife moved to Florida for a brief time, then back to Louisiana.
Their 23-year-old son Nigel graduated magna cum laude in engineering from Louisiana-Lafayette and is now working in Birmingham, Alabama, and their 25-year-old daughter Megan is a Carmelite nun, a contemplative order. She is now Sister Lucia and is cloistered in a convent in Louisiana.
She is permitted to exchange letters with her parents and brother and they are allowed limited contact a few times per year.
“The sacrifice she’s making is incredible,” Perks said. “We’re still amazed. It’s not easy to have such little contact with her but we’re obviously proud of her commitment.”
Perks said having an abbreviated PGA Tour career was made easier by having the support of his family.
“I tried to keep my priorities in order,” Perks said. “Maureen has been the rock in our marriage and our family and when I’ve been home, whether I was playing or doing TV, I was a full-time father and husband.”
‘Why not me’
Perks said he relives that 2002 Players often and remembers the exhilaration of his 3-2-4 finish that for one week topped the best players in the world.
“It’s flown by,” he said. “I was just a Kiwi from a small city but for one week I beat the best in the world. I’m thankful I had that opportunity.”
Perks sometimes gazes down those 2002 results to see the names of players he beat. Sergio Garcia tied for fourth. Tiger Woods, Retief Goosen and Jim Furyk tied for 14th. David Duval tied for 22nd. Phil Mickelson tied for 28th.
The list goes on: Ernie Els, Nick Faldo, Colin Montgomerie, Davis Love III, Mark O’Meara, Vijay Singh and Fred Couples are among the members of the World Golf Hall of Fame who were looking up at Perks’ name ahead of them that week.
When Woods, the defending champion, presented The Players trophy to Perks, he said, “You’re amazing, man.”
Perks had some advice for first-time pros in The Players who want to have that feeling.
“That course exposes your weaknesses so play to your strengths,” he said. “Prepare around and on the greens and remember that Pete Dye is a master in visual intimidation.”
He also encouraged Players rookies to have the same mindset he had.
“Think to yourself, ‘why not me?’” he said.