TearDrop Tommy: S.C. golfer living his dream

He was golf's ultimate minor-leaguer, a 31-year-old who had knocked around the bushes on and off for 14 years, circuits like the TearDrop Tour, Hooters Tour and Tarheel Tour, where a bunch of guys put up entry fees and play for it and where they don't need gallery ropes.

But then that long, winding road made a sharp turn this week and Tommy "Two Gloves" Gainey went to golf heaven. He qualified for a PGA Tour event, the Wachovia Championship at the Quail Hollow Club. He has never even played in a Nationwide Tour event, golf's Class AAA farm league, much less the big league. But at Quail Hollow, they gave him a locker close to Davis Love III's and a Mercedes courtesy car and a chance to win $1,134,000.

"This is my dream," he said. "This is my life happening, playing in a PGA Tour tournament. I'm in a whirlwind right now. Obviously, I'm not going to win. My goal is to make the cut. If I can do that on this course, it would say a lot about my golf game. I'm just going to try to have fun.

"People say I have a God-given talent. I've got a chance to someday do something great. I don't want to let God down."

There's a small-town easiness about Gainey, who wears gloves on both hands when he plays, a throwback to childhood baseball days when he wore two when he was batting. He comes from Bishopville, S.C., ("three stoplights and you're past it," he says).

When a young Tiger Woods was winning national amateur events, Gainey was working on the assembly line at the AO Smith water heater factory in Bishopville. He did win a tournament in Myrtle Beach when he was 17, but it didn't get him any closer to making it a career.

Then when he was 21, he put up $100 and a friend, Cliff Wilson of Waxhaw, put in the other $650 to get Gainey into a TearDrop Tour event in Columbia, and "Two Gloves" won it. Won $15,000 and started thinking.

"It took about four days for me to decide," he said. "I really didn't know what I was going to do. I had a good job making $8.75 an hour at the factory, which was not bad back then, but I had just made $15,000 and I had proved I could play with good players because I had just beaten them.

"I was really scared. It was a big decision for me, trying to play for a living, but I said I think I'm going to try it."

He's been on and off a couple of times since then and he's won close to a dozen mini-tour events, but never made it to the big dance until now. He has made it to television, though. He's one of the contestants in "Big Break VII," a golf reality show on the Golf Channel. It's not exactly American Idol, but it's show biz.

Gainey had to play through two qualifying tournaments to make it into the Wachovia Championship. He wound up tied for the last spot in the decisive qualifier and had to play off. He holed a 20-foot putt for par on the first playoff hole to stay alive, then birdied the next to claim the spot.

"All I can say is I felt strange," he said. "I was on Cloud Nine, but it was a strange feeling because I really don't think I knew what had just happened. I was getting to play one tournament with the best in the world. A lot of people can't say that.

"(Tuesday) when I was playing my practice round, I got a lot of crowd support. I didn't know they liked me that much."

He goes off shortly before 9 this morning. He'll be out there with Woods and Singh and Furyk and Mickelson and Els and locker neighbor Love, stars everywhere. He'll be the one wearing two gloves.

Provider:
Knight-Ridder / Tribune Business News / Charlotte Observer, The (NC)