Austin Update

 

Chris Couch wins this week on the PGA Tour in New Orleans.   Look at the year he has had a year on the PGA Tour (much like mine on the Champion's Tour).  It can turn around in ONE week.  Next week in Birmingham may be mine.  I'm going to just let it happen.   Some good things happened in Austin.  Look at my greens in regulation and thanks for the support, and the nice things that you send to me.  I really appreciate it.

 

2006 Tournament Data

• Events Played:10
• Money List:228  
• 2006 Earnings:$22,278

Date Tournament (Tour) Round Scores Total Winnings Finish Jan 12 - 15 Sony Open in Hawaii (PGA) 71-76-MC-MC 7-over - T117th Jan 18 - 22 Bob Hope Chrysler Classic (PGA) 72-70-75-70-MC 1-under - 104th Jan 26 - 29 Buick Invitational (PGA) 67-74-73-79 5-over $9,486 T76th Feb 2 - 5 FBR Open (PGA) 71-69-68-72 4-under $12,792 T50th Feb 16 - 19 Nissan Open (PGA) 74-71-MC-MC 3-over - T100th Feb 23 - 26 Chrysler Classic of Tucson (PGA) 71-71-MC-MC 2-under - 97th Mar 9 - 12 Honda Classic (PGA) 73-75-MC-MC 4-over - 77th Mar 30 - Apr2 BellSouth Classic (PGA) 73-72-MC-MC 1-over - 90th Apr 20 - 23 Shell Houston Open (PGA) 78-73-MC-MC 7-over - 136th Apr 27 - 30 Zurich Classic of New Orleans (PGA) 70-70-64-65 19-under - -

 

Kentucky Derby

http://www.kentuckyderby.com/2006/derby_coverage/derby_entrants/steppenwolfer/

Owned by Robert and Lawana Low, for whom I have worked for the past 20 years.

Funny Story

Austin, TX

 

This  story is too funny not to pass on.

 

So Ryan and I arrive at the practice tee in Austin this morn, and an unnamed Champion’s Tour player is on the range.  We see him every week and he talks a lot.

 

First, he tells us about this girlfriend that he hadn’t talked to for 20 months.  Strangely, they are back in contact, and he has told her to quit here bleeping job and come out and travel with him the rest of the year.  His comment is that what she lacks in good looks, she will make up for with good company.  And it won’t cost that much more money in travel expenses………

 

Then he starts his weekly bitching about his caddy.   This week our player has been waiting for his caddy for over an hour, and the caddy has been late every day.  When the caddy finally arrives, he tells the player that he has a job with Woody Austin on the PGA Tour for the next three weeks and won’t be able to work for our player.  So now our buddy is looking for a caddy.

 

Later in the day we run into him again, and he has lost his sand wedge, has no idea where, and is having the Adams Golf rep build him a new one. 

 

And last of all, he asks us if we have any golf balls, because the Titleist rep hasn’t shown up yet.  So he is stealing practice balls from the range to use in the pro am tomorrow.

 

This is the same guy that had a yelling match with his caddy in Tampa after making a nine on a par 5, and had an ear infection and could only hear out of one ear (his bad ear) in Mexico.

 

And this ladies and gentleman is a professional golfer.

 

And so am I.  Someone is probably telling the same sort of stories about my caddy and me….

 

What a life!

 

Scott.

Stateman Column

Practice and Equipment:

 

There is a lot of talk these days about power, customized equipment and length.  The PGA Tour promotes length and has many players that look like they could play in the NFL.  Their power and length off the tee is stunning. 

 

So, for you and I to improve our games should we go to the gym, buy the hottest driver on the market, and hit tee shots on the range?  Probably not, but what could be beneficial is to get a driver fit with the right shaft and enough loft to match your swing speed (meaning the slower you swing the MORE loft you need in a driver).  A lot of manufacturers are making drivers with 12 degrees or more of loft.  On the Champion’s Tour most players are using at least 10.5 degrees (I use a Taylor Made 425, with a 55 gram shaft and 10.5 degrees of loft).  So make sure your driver has enough loft.   A lot of players will even hit a three wood further than a driver off the tee, so don’t be afraid to try that.

 

But more importantly to your game, practice PITCHING and CHIPPING!  A high percentage of the amateurs that I play with in social rounds or pro-ams waste more strokes and create more frustration around the greens than they do off the tee.  Most amateur players have NO idea how far they hit the ball in the air and so NEVER hit the ball the right distance around the greens.  I spend 80% of my practice time hitting shots from 110 yards and shorter and I carry four wedges:  60,54,50 and 46 degrees.  I can hit each of them two specific distances, so in essence, I’ve turned 4 clubs into eight and when I get inside 110 yards, I KNOW what shot to use to get the ball the right distance.  Every player, regardless of age or athletic ability should have a shot in their bag that they KNOW they can get in the air and carry 30 yards.

 

In summary, to improve your score this year, understand that distance IS important.  But not in the way you might think.  Driving the ball a longer distance probably isn’t going to help your score, but hitting your wedges the RIGHT distance will.  So the next time you go out to play, take half of the warm up time that you normally spend hitting drivers and find some targets and pitch the ball at those targets and see if your score improves.   I’ll bet it will.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kentucky Derby, Steppenwolfer

Lawyer Ron rests his case

Steppenwolfer's second place is enough to join Ron, the Arkansas Derby winner, in Kentucky.

Lyndal Scranton
News-Leader

HOT SPRINGS, Ark. — Rarely has second place tasted so sweet.

Steppenwolfer's closing kick came up 2 3/4 lengths short of heavily favored Lawyer Ron in Saturday's Arkansas Derby, before an Oaklawn Park record 72,484 people. But the runner-up finish is enough to earn Steppenwolfer a trip to the Kentucky Derby in three weeks.

Robert and Lawana Low of Springfield, owners of Steppenwolfer, were smiling afterward — almost as brightly as if they had won the Arkansas Derby.

"He was running like we hoped he would (all spring) even though he didn't win," Robert Low said. "He did everything today but win this race.

"Steppenwolfer will fly to Kentucky on Monday and we'll be there in plenty of time for the race. We won't miss it," Low said of his first Kentucky Derby starter.

Steppenwolfer overtook Private Vow in the final strides for second and the $200,000 share of the $1 million earnings.

That's a key as it gives Steppenwolfer $230,000 in graded earnings, which will be plenty to get him into the Kentucky Derby.

If the Kentucky Derby has more than 20 entries, it's limited to the top 20 in graded money.

"I was rooting hard for second at the end, knowing how important it was," said Dan Peitz, Steppenwolfer's trainer.

While the Steppenwolfer party celebrated second, they were no match for the winning machine that is Lawyer Ron. With his sixth straight victory — including three in a row over Steppenwolfer this spring at Oaklawn — Lawyer Ron goes to the Kentucky Derby as one of the favorites.

Trained by Hot Springs veteran Bob Holtus and ridden by John McKee, Lawyer Ron earned $600,000 and increased his lifetime earnings to $1,220,008.

"Odds for the Kentucky Derby? I think he will be no worse than second choice," the 71-year-old Holtus said. "Of course, I might have a biased opinion."

McKee called it Lawyer Ron's best race of the streak. He finished the 1 1/8 miles in 1:51.38.

"It was just a monster performance," McKee said. "He's a competitive little horse. All the credit goes to Bob Holtus. This is his hometown and it's a little bit overwhelming for him."

Lawyer Ron was sent off at 1-2 odds, shorter than the last two Arkansas Derby winners Afleet Alex and Smarty Jones. The strategy was to sit just off the lead, McKee said, but Lawyer Ron was eager to run and took the lead a half-mile into the race and never gave it up.

"I thought I'd be mid-pack," McKee said. "My horse got real aggressive and I had to go to plan B. He just kind of took over the race."

Said Peitz: "Lawyer Ron ran big, being rank and everything."

Lawyer Ron's owner, James T. Hines Jr. of Owensboro, Ky., died in February. The horse's winnings go into a trust overseen by Ron Bamberger, the lawyer the colt is named after.

As Lawyer Ron was passing High Cotton and Superfly quite early, pulling McKee with him to the lead, Steppenwolfer had only two of the 12 others beat after a half mile. The son of 2000 Belmont Stakes winner Aptitude, purchased last spring by the Lows for $375,000, then began to pick up momentum and pick off horses one by one entering the far turn.

But midway on the turn, about ? from the finish, jockey Robbie Albarado had to suddenly check Steppenwolfer as three horses in front of him slowed dramatically.

"If we don't get stopped on the turn, it's going to be very close," Peitz said. "He had all the momentum going and he had to steady up in there and for a a big horse like him, it's kind of hard to get back into stride again.

"It cost us at least a length, maybe a little more, but probably not enough to have cost us the race."

Private Vow, sitting behind Lawyer Ron most of the way, made a brief try for the lead on the final turn but was no match.

He wound up third, 7 1/4 lengths ahead of Simon Pure.

Lawyer Ron returned $3 for a $2-to-win bet. Steppenwolfer, off at 7-1 odds, returned $4.40 for a place bet with Private Vow, at 5-1, paying $3.60 to show. The Lawyer Ron-Steppenwolfer $2 exact was worth $13.80.

"We are very proud of the way Steppenwolfer ran," Robert Low said. "Lawyer Ron has just been a monster all spring. To close that kind of ground ... we've been talking about more ground, more ground and now we can say there is light at the end of the tunnel and it's not a freight train coming at us."

The Kentucky Derby will give him another quarter-mile of ground, which figures to suit his style even more.

It's time, Robert Low said, to catch a full-blown case of Kentucky Derby fever.

"We can't wait," he said.

A SPRINGFIELD WINNER

Okolona, owned by Springfield's Charles Chappell, won the final race of the meet, the 1 3/4-mile Trail's End. The 4-year-old earned $16,200 for winning the longest race of Oaklawn's season. Okolona was dismissed at 10-1 odds and paid $22.80 for a $2 win ticket.

Steppenwolfer Made the Kentucky Derby

Riding the Derby trail

Robert and Lawana Low move closer to realizing their dream of a winner.

Lyndal Scranton
News-Leader

As a teen from the tiny Ozarks town of Urbana, Robert Low made annual treks to Oaklawn Park in southcentral Arkansas and placed $2 wagers.

Soon he was bitten by the bug and smitten by the beauty of horse racing — the power and grace of the equine athletes, the thrill of winning money.

 All this before building Prime Inc. from a one-truck operation into a multi-million dollar trucking business.

Someday, Low thought, it would be cool to own racehorses. Bluebloods. Not just run-of-the-mill plodders at a bush-league track.

Kentucky Derby? Now you're talking.

"It's like someone once said: 'Running in the Derby is not a matter of life and death, it's more important than that,' " Low said.

That dream, once seemingly as far-fetched as turning a $2-to-win bet into a wallet full of $100 bills, could be happening.

And Low's old stomping grounds, Oaklawn Park, could be the launching pad.

Next Saturday, a 3-year-old gray colt named Steppenwolfer, owned by Low and his wife Lawana, is scheduled to run in the Arkansas Derby.

If Steppenwolfer finishes first or second — and comes out of the race healthy — he will be headed to Churchill Downs to run May 6.

"We're hopeful," Lawana Low said, not wanting to get her Kentucky Derby hopes too high just yet.

Her husband isn't quite as cautious with his enthusiasm.

"Once you get that Derby fever a little bit, it occupies way too much of your thought process," Robert Low said with a smile.

It's something Low has thought about for a long, long time.

FANS BECOME OWNERS

The Lows turned their passion for horse racing into something more in 1995 when they purchased their first thoroughbreds.

Danny Peitz, their trainer since that time, laughed while recalling his first conversation with Robert Low.

"I asked him what he hoped to do and he said, 'I'd like to win the Kentucky Derby.' I kind of said, 'Whoa,' " Peitz said.

"I told him, 'You and every owner who gets into the game wants to do that.' But realistically, most people don't have the (financial) means to find a horse good enough.

"He said, 'I have plenty of money and plenty of luck' and my response was, 'Mr. Low, that is going to be severely tested in this game.' "

Within months, the Lows had their first winner. A filly named Lawana Go Fast won an upper-level claiming race in New York.

The next year, their filly Capote Belle won the Grade-I Test Stakes at Saratoga, one of the most prestigious races for fillies around.

An easy game, right?

"We did not understand how difficult it was to get any kind of winner, let alone a Grade-I," Robert Low said.

They soon did realize the challenge. It was another five years until the Lows' next Grade-I win when Real Cozzy scored in the Fairgrounds Oaks.

But by then, the Lows had a plan in place. They were in the game for the long haul.

LIFE ON THE FARM

Just a couple of miles north of Prime Inc.'s location in northeast Springfield is Primatara Farm. It's a 200-acre slice of Kentucky horse country in the Ozarks.

Not only is it home for the Lows, it's the heart and soul of their horse-racing business. Sixteen broodmares roam the rolling hills and sleep in a spacious barn.

"If somebody blindfolded you and dropped you out of a helicopter, you'd swear you were near Lexington, Ky.," said Missouri State University basketball coach Barry Hinson, a friend of Robert Low since 1989.

The mares are bred each year and their offspring are either put into training or sold. It's part of the business model Low uses to at least break even in the costly business.

Earlier this year, while he purchased a 2-year-old Storm Cat filly named Yakity Cat for $650,000, he also sold a filly from his Capote Belle for the same price.

"We've tried to buy carefully and we have bought some pretty expensive horses," Low said. "Capote Belle, for example, we purchased for $225,000, but knew she had a lot of residual value as a broodmare.

"When we started we had in mind we would buy quality fillies, well-bred fillies, and race them. Ones that performed on the track, we could keep those and eventually get into (breeding) operation, to either race or sell."

The plan has evolved to where the Lows are at their limit of mares. It has allowed them to focus more on colts the last couple of years — specifically, a colt capable of winning a Kentucky Derby or another Triple Crown event.

They purchased Steppenwolfer a year ago for $375,000, thinking ahead to the 2006 Derby trail.

FALSE ALARM

Horse racing is a business where emotions soar and sink with regularity. A year ago, the Lows were riding high with a 3-year-old colt named Biloxi Palace who displayed enormous talent.

But on a February afternoon before a major race in Louisiana, Peitz called Robert Low and told him the colt had a fever.

Biloxi Palace was scratched and spent the next few weeks too sick to train. He was off the Kentucky Derby trail.

Though it has taken nearly a year, the horse is back in training with Peitz and is expected back on the race track this summer.

The Derby dreams were dashed, but it was a much better outcome than watching a horse break down physically on the track and have to be euthanized. That is an owner's worst nightmare, financially and emotionally.

"We've had a couple of those," Robert Low said. "Every time a horse goes out there, they're putting it all on the line."

That's why even if Steppenwolfer fails to win the Arkansas Derby or get to the Kentucky Derby, Robert Low will try to remain upbeat.

"Whenever Steppenwolfer hasn't won, it's like, 'doggone it,' but you soon let it go," he said. "We're fortunate to be associated with a horse like this, let alone own him.

"Horse racing is like life. There are highs and lows and you have to cope."

THE DREAM NEARS

When Steppenwolfer is led from the barn to the paddock at Oaklawn on Saturday, don't be surprised if Robert and Lawana Low tear up a bit.

Even though the Lows have had horses in the Breeders' Cup and won a major stakes undercard on Kentucky Derby day, this is special.

"It's like going back home to where we started going to the races," Robert Low said.

Peitz, seemingly a perfectmatch for the Lows with his low-key personality and attention to detail, will feel the same way. A native of nearby Little Rock, Peitz hasn't missed an Arkansas Derby in 34 years, even though he has never had a horse entered.

"Being from right here, it's huge for me," Peitz said in a telephone interview from his Oaklawn barn.

Lawana Low said the Arkansas Derby likely will be similar to any race one of their horses is entered.

"I get so nervous that I can't enjoy it," she said of her usual race-time emotions.

But one thing is for sure. If Steppenwolfer wins the Arkansas Derby, the winner's circle will be a happy place.

"You'll easily be able to hear me," Robert Low said.

If that happens, there's an even bigger race coming up three weeks later. One where 150,000 people show up, sip mint juleps and sing "My Old Kentucky Home."

You want goosebumps in Arkansas? You will get them double in Kentucky, guaranteed.

"That's the (ultimate) dream," Robert Low said. "In this game, you always have to have hope. You always have to dream."

NEWS-LEADER.COM FORUMS: Sign up for our forums today to discuss news, sports, entertainment and other community events with readers around the Ozarks. VIEW FORUMS

Robert and Lawana Low own Primatara Farm, a 200-acre slice of Kentucky horse country in northeast Springfield. Not only is it home for the Lows, it's the heart and soul of their horse-racing business.

DEAN CURTIS / NEWS-LEADER

Robert and Lawana Low's trophy case at Primatara Farm shows the couple's successes in horse racing. "We did not understand how difficult it was to get any kind of winner ..." Robert Low said.

DEAN CURTIS / NEWS-LEADER

What's in a name?

Robert and Lawana Low came up with the name Steppenwolfer for two reasons. The horse's dam was named Wolfer and the Lows were fans of the 1960s music group Steppenwolf. Thus the name.

All horse names must be submitted to the Jockey Club, a national organization that tracks horse-racing data, for approval. It's not uncommon for names to be rejected if they are the least bit suggestive in an objectionable way.

Robert Low said to be careful when naming a horse after a family member. One of the first horses he and wife Lawana owned was named Lawana Go Fast. When the horse quit going fast, it was hard to sell a horse named after his wife.

"I finally kind of snuck off and sold her in the dead of night," he said with a laugh.

— Lyndal Scranton

 

Snake River Below Our House

Puerto Vallarta

Another disappointing finish in Puerto Vallarta.  I have just continued to not be able to score very well.  I’m fine physically, but just have no confidence at the moment

 

I’m back in Idaho for about three weeks (I’m not in the Savannah event, it is an invitational) and then will play in three in a row:  Austin, TX, Birmingham, AL, and Destin, FL the first three weeks in May. 

 

I’m going to work with Dave Bartels, relax and develop some confidence during the break to get my play turned around.  I know I can do MUCH better; I just need to get some momentum.  And I’m in the right situation and place to get that done.

 

On another note, many of you have asked about the sponsorship arrangement that I have with Tamarack Resort and Hopkins Financial.  Both companies are successful Idaho companies and I’m looking forward to a long-term relationship with each of them.

 

Tamarack Resort TamarackIdaho.com is a four-season, destination resort 90 miles north of Boise.  This is the resort in which President Bush and his family spent four days last summer.  Tamarack has built a beautiful Robert Trent Jones, Jr course, called Osprey Meadows in the pines and meadows below the ski area and I will be doing appearances and promotional events at the resort.  It is a stunning mountain setting, with fabulous accommodations and a myriad of recreational options.

 

Hopkins Financial HopkinsFinancial.com is a company founded/owned by a long-time acquaintance, Randy Hopkins.  In addition to offering investment funds and non-conventional real estate financing, Hopkins is a 60% owner of Osprey Meadows.  This is a fascinating company founded in 1983 ($84 Million under management), that continues to provide a nice solid return to investors of 8-10%/year, by offering funds backed by real estate secured loads.  On the other side of the coin, Hopkins helps real estate borrowers in the marketplace when conventional sources cannot.  A typical Hopkins borrower has non-conforming property; credit issues or just needs the money more quickly than a conventional source can respond. 

 

If you would like to play the new course, need more info on either company or would like to experience the resort, don’t hesitate to let me help you.  I’ll be glad to.

 

Thanks for all the tremendous support, I’ve enjoyed seeing many of you at the events, hope to see more of you in the future and I PROMISE that I’m going to give you something to cheer about, soon.