Renewed Faith

Thanks to a passionate belief in both his golf game and his religion, Manchester-by-the-Sea native Pat Bates is living a dream on the PGA Tour

By Gary Larrabee

His childhood memories in Manchester-by-the-Sea, Mass. are as vivid as yesterday’s rainfall for the PGA Tour’s Pat Bates.

“Our house was at 7 Friend Street in Manchester, so it was easy for me to tag along with my brothers, Gary and Drew, when they went to caddie at Essex [Country Club],” said Bates, an all-exempt player this season after finishing 123rd on the official money list last year ($537,284). “In the summertime after five o’clock, they used to let the caddies play and we’d go out and tee it up. A lot of times we’d play the fifth, sixth and seventh holes over and over because they were close to the house.”

Those earliest of golfing experiences are dear to Bates’ heart. His home page on the PGA Tour’s website refers prominently to his Manchester golf roots.

“I’ll never forget my first par,” Bates continued with unbridled enthusiasm. “It was late into the evening on caddie day. I made a four on the seventh (a downhill par-three) using a Patty Berg driver. I ran back to the tee – it was pitch black – and made par the second time. You never forget a moment like that.”

There have been an amazing number of “moments like that” ever since for the 6-foot-3, 195-pound Bates:

• After moving to Florida as a pre-teen, a breakthrough victory at the International Junior Masters in Aurora, N.Y., that led to a golf scholarship at the University of Florida

• Winning the Golf Digest Intercollegiate his junior year at Florida

• Being named All-America and All-SEC each of his final three years as a Gator

• Capturing the 1993 Massachusetts Open in emotional fashion at Tedesco Country Club in Marblehead only weeks after his father had died unexpectedly

• Winning his first Nike Tour event at the (North) Dakota Dunes Open later the same summer

• Winning four Buy.com Tour events in 2001 and earning a second shot at the PGA Tour after a disappointing rookie season in 1995

• Posting three top-tens on the 2002 PGA Tour, including a tie for sixth at the Buick Open.

This season, Bates got off to a slow start through The Players Championship on March 30, with five missed cuts and four made cuts. His best finish was a T-27 at the Ford Championship at Doral, Fla. where he won $29,601, but a double bogey on the 72nd hole cost him nearly $50,000. At press time, he had earned $72,037, good for 144th place on the money list.

“I’ve had a few downs, but an awful lot of ups to this point in my career,” Bates, who turns 34 on July 26, said. “I have a great deal to be thankful for, whether I win a lot of money on Tour or not.”

Helping him along has been a combination of persistence, extraordinary family support, Bates’ Christian Faith and a near-miraculous recovery from a seemingly devastating neck injury.

“I was slowly working my game back to a PGA Tour level when I hurt my neck in 1999,” Bates explained. “I’d initially hurt my neck lifting weights. I couldn’t move for a few days, but it got better and I played in Lafayette (La.) a month later. But a few days after Lafayette I tried lifting my son John Spencer (16 months old at the time) and I felt something pop.”

An MRI showed a disc was protruding in his lower neck and pressing on the spinal cord. Surgery was necessary. During the delicate operation, the spinal cord was harmed. When he woke up he could not move his left hand nor walk. Doctors admitted they did not know how much sensation he would regain in the hand. In fact, he could not even move it for a month.

“I thought my golf career was over,” admitted Bates, who became a born-again Christian in ’92. “I started therapy and I was making no progress. At this point I only hoped I could recover adequately to be a good husband and father. I figured if I did the best I could with what I had, God would lead me down the right path.”

“I simply wanted Pat to be able to walk again and be the kind of husband and father he prayed to be,” said his wife, Kristine. “We weren’t worrying about money or golf, just that Pat would fully regain use of his leg. We asked the Lord for help in dealing with this and we got through it. Even today he doesn’t feel his right leg, but he’s managing with it.”

Bates began his comeback in September of 1999, returning to his native North Shore to play Essex, Tedesco and Salem and catch some of the Ryder Cup at The Country Club.

“I was lucky to drive the ball 210 yards at first,” Bates recalled. “It was humbling. I was having a hard time keeping the club in my left hand.”

After receiving a one-year medical exemption from the Buy.com Tour, Bates struggled through the first half of the 2000 season.

“I made only five cuts the first 16 tournaments. I was alright with that,” he said. “I was hitting the ball straighter if not as long. I believed I could improve the second half of the season.”

Bates was right. He made 10 of 13 cuts after that, earned $75,000 and finished 57th on the money list. He had a foundation on which to build for 2001. After missing the cut at the second stage of qualifying school, Bates had conditional status on the 2001 Buy.com Tour, which meant he would play in an undetermined number of tournaments, “but not many unless I played well,” he pointed out.

Bates did not mess around. After Kristine, gave birth to their third child, Cooper, in February, Bates went to work.

He received an exemption into the season opener in his college hometown, Gainesville, and finished 17th. He followed that with a 27th place finish the following week and he played every event from there. He won four times, including the Buy.com Championship in November, and automatically received all-exempt status for the 2002 PGA Tour.

“There were many times when I doubted I would get back on the PGA Tour,” Bates confessed. “We’re talking over the course of several years, when I couldn’t get over the hump and get back on the big tour. Well, I kept God in my life when I could have packed it in and I got a second chance.”

A chance aided in large part by his father-in-law, Champions Tour standout Doug Tewell.

“Pat’s come a long way since the neck surgery,” said Tewell, a six-time Champions Tour winner (two last year) who also has four PGA Tour wins to his credit. “It took a lot of courage to return to the Buy.com Tour and get back his game, then to finish in the top 125 last year on the big tour. I’m very proud of him.”

Bates’ second go-round on the PGA Tour did not get off to an auspicious start. Bates, known as the dude with the long flowing hair (“My wife loves my hair long,” he said), missed five of his first six cuts last year.

He finally showed some promise in April at the Greater Greensboro Open, where he made his Tour debut in ’93 and missed the cut by a bundle. This time he finished tied for 10th, earned $91,000 and was truly on his way to a gratifying season.

Two months later, Bates finished 64-68 in Hartford and tied for 13th, then followed that with a ninth place finish in Memphis, giving him $167,000 in earnings for the two weeks.

After placing 26th at the John Deere Classic, Bates tied for sixth at the Buick Open and made $106,000.

“The key through all this was that my swing was holding up under the pressure and my nerves were holding up around and on the greens,” said Bates. “That wasn’t the case in 1995.”

He appeared to be a lock to make the all-exempt top 125 money-winners list for 2002. But the plot thickened. After taking a few weeks off, he got a virus and missed three additional weeks. He dropped from 92nd on the money list to 115th and had four events left. He missed the cut in three of those tournaments, including the season finale, but finished T-46 and earned $9,749 at the Buick Challenge at the end of October.

Several players could have passed him the last two weeks, but when they all faltered, he finished 123rd in money and placed $22,000 ahead of the 125th man.

“The last couple weeks were the most nervous I was all year,” said Bates. “It shows you how competitive and pressurized it is out there when you see so many good players unable to make up ground when it counts most.”

It is a new year now, though, and Bates has lofty goals.

“I’ll try and do it like John Wooden says. ‘Each day can be your last. Learn as if you will live forever. Live as if you are going to die tomorrow. For if you stop learning, you’re through.’