Q&A: PGA Tour Champions’ Tom Lehman
with Tom Lang
PGA Tour Champions competitor Tom Lehman, who grew up 90 minutes from his newest course design at Cragun’s Resort in Brainard, Minnesota, won five times on the PGA Tour and reached World No. 1 in April of 1997. He had three more international wins and won eight times in team and match play special events. In 2000 he won the Open Championship and the TOUR Championship.
Q: You chose to play golf at the University of Minnesota, not a golf hotbed. Why that choice and why not go south?
A: “I wasn’t recruited at all. My recruiting experience with Minnesota was simply a phone call in the first week of August (after he finished high school) from the coach asking ‘where are you going to go to school?’ And I answered saying I think I’ll enroll in a college called St. Johns (where Lehman’s late father, Jim, was a football star).
“I had thought about going to St. Louis for a school in aeronautical engineering and design, but I didn’t like it. I ended up telling the (Minn.) coach if I could get into the school of Architecture, maybe I’ll go to the University of Minnesota and play golf. So, that phone call took me down to Minneapolis to check out it all out, and the architecture thing didn’t work, but the golf did and the rest is history.”
Q: Can a Big Ten school win the NCAA Championship?
A: “Well, Minnesota won it one year in the early 2000s (in 2002, played at Ohio State’s course). It was an amazing story. And Ohio State won it when I was in college (1979). Illinois has been one of the top teams in the country for quite a while now but I’m not sure if they have won it all. So, Big Ten schools can compete, but it’s not as easy.”
Editor’s note: Minnesota’s win was the last national title for a Big Ten school. In addition to Ohio State’s in ’79, Purdue won in 1961, the Buckeyes again in 1945, and the Michigan Wolverines in 1934 and ’35 with Michigan legend Chuck Kocsis leading the charge. In other words, not often and not lately.
Q: I talk to many people from the north who don’t want to go south; they think learning to play in bad weather gives them an advantage when faced with golf’s challenges in bad weather.
A: “I agree with that about the conditions. And I might look at golf a little differently, but nobody wants to compete for 12 straight months in a row. You need a break, to take some time off. I kind of feel like some of these northern schools have that built-in break because of the weather from November to February. So, you can use those three months to really accomplish a lot, in terms of training, or using an indoor facility for chipping and putting.
“Whatever the case may be, you can still have a really strong nine-month competitive season with three months of downtime where you can fix some stuff. When I competed, I don’t want to play from January to December. I need some time off. So, built in time off can be used in a really positive way with the northern schools.”
Q: You had five PGA Tour wins and 19 runners up, being that close to more wins. Are you more pleased with yourself getting 19 runners up, or that you made the cut 70 percent of the time in your career?
A: “I was pretty steady, and in my best years (1990s) I probably made 85-90 percent of the cuts. Then compared to the shoulder times of just starting, which started way earlier than most people know, right out of college. And back in those days we’d play 25 tournaments and I’d make 6 cuts. So, starting in ’92, I became a very consistent performer. And I’m proud of that, but I’m way more proud of the quality golf I played in some of the really difficult conditions, the major championships. And then reaching No. 1 in the World, that’s what I am the most proud of than anything.”
Q: Will you be returning to play in Michigan at the Ally Challenge (where he has finished in the top 10 three times)?
A: “I do love it there. I love the golf course, and the course has been good to me. I’ve played well there over and over again. It’s a disappointment I didn’t make it (in 2023) but Lord willing I’ll be back next year.”
