Who Is Ted Potter Jr. And What's He Doing Winning The Greenbrier Classic?
/The AP game story on the 218th ranked player in the world capturing his first PGA Tour win in a playoff over Troy Kelly.
Sean Martin's Golfweek column from February has some fantastic background on a homegrown lefty who hit rock golfing bottom on the Nationwide Tour.
After finishing 148th on the 2010 Nationwide Tour money list, he began 2011 with no status. He Monday-qualified for the South Georgia Classic, then won it to regain his Nationwide Tour card and set in motion his climb to the PGA Tour.
Daren Robinson, director of instruction at Potter’s home course, Golden Hills Golf & Turf Club in Ocala, describes the quiet left-hander as “homemade.” The swing is as self-made as the man.
Potter didn’t grow up with formal lessons. He developed his game by playing, often with father Ted Sr. after the elder Potter’s shift as a golf-course maintenance worker. Ted Sr. could break par, and mom Dale, a Walmart worker, could break 80. They gave their son clubs before he turned 2. Young Ted, a natural right-hander, would flip the clubs over and swing left-handed to mirror his father.
After posting four wins by mid-March on what was then still called the Hooters Tour, Potter was able to Monday qualify for the Nationwide Tour’s South Georgia Classic at the end of April. He won that week, earning full playing privileges once again, then punctuated that victory with another at the Soboba Golf Classic five months later, clinching his first career trip to the big leagues.
It should hardly come as a surprise that once again he failed to find an immediate comfort zone. Potter finished T-13 in his first-ever PGA Tour start at the Sony Open, but followed with missed cuts in nine of his next 14 appearances, with no result better than 30th place.
“I know I can play the game very well,” Potter said of his previous efforts. “I struggled the last few weeks, but I just tried to work on my swing and get it back to where it was feeling, where it was last year out on the Web.com Tour. So I got very close to where it was last year and it felt good. I had a lot of confidence going into this week.”
