Steve Jones turned 50 years old on Dec. 27, but unlike many tour players when they reach that milestone, Jones didn’t have much reason to celebrate, at least professionally speaking.
For a significant number of tour players, hitting 50 translates into a lucrative fresh start as a competitor. For Jones, it just means more uncertainty. Instead of making his debut on the Champions Tour when the 2009 season gets rolling this month and next, the former University of Colorado golfer will be recovering from the latest in his long line of surgeries, injuries and ailments.
Jones, best known for winning the 1996 U.S. Open, underwent a left shoulder operation in November and indicated last week that he likely won’t be competing until at least mid-year.
Though Jones, who grew up in Yuma, Colo., and now lives near Phoenix, didn’t want to do any media interviews, he relayed through CU sports information director Dave Plati that his playing status hasn’t changed and to check back in six months.
Such has been Jones’ life for much of the last 17 years, but especially more recently. He’s sat out four entire seasons for a variety of reasons related to his physical well-being: 1992, ’93, 2004 and 2008. And 1994 was a close call, with him participating in only two official PGA Tour events.
The last six years have been especially problematic. The Colorado Golf Hall of Famer competed in more than 20 events in a Tour season 14 times through 2002, but only once since. In those last six calendar years combined, he’s played in just 67 tournaments on Tour.
“It should make you tougher and wiser, but over the years it’s very difficult” to come back, Jones said in a May interview. “When you’re 20 and 30 it’s easier to come back. “¦ But when you get older, physically you get torn down.”
In Jones’ case, it’s particularly bad timing — not that there’s ever ideal times to suffer injuries or ailments. Given the effects of age, the period immediately after turning 50 is often one of the best for recording victories on the Champions Tour. Denver’s own Mark Wiebe, who won twice in his first seven months on the Champions circuit, is but one recent example of this.
Jones certainly has the credentials to expect that he might succeed on the over-50 tour. The former Colorado state amateur and Colorado Open champion won eight times on the PGA Tour — all from 1988 through ’98. His big breakthrough came at the ’96 U.S. Open in Michigan, where he captured the only major championship victory of his career.
But after following that up with two wins in 1997 and one in ’98, the going got rougher and rougher for Jones. Since his Quad City Classic victory in ’98, he hasn’t posted a top-three finish on Tour. His last top-10 showing was a fifth at the BellSouth Classic in April 2000.
Jones’ competitive woes over the last decade are largely the result of his many physical problems. Most have been related to an irregular heartbeat and injuries to elbows and shoulders. He’s undergone surgeries for all three — sometimes more than once — with the latest being his November shoulder operation. And that doesn’t even take into account the 1991 dirt-bike accident that resulted in Jones hurting a shoulder, ankle and his left ring finger, causing him to miss almost three seasons. He also underwent thumb surgery as a Tour rookie in 1982.
All told, Jones hasn’t competed on Tour since the Reno-Tahoe Open in August 2007.
Last May, when elbow problems made it painful simply to pick up a glass of water, Jones noted that he had seen six different surgeons and three physical therapists — for that problem alone. At time, he admits thinking, “Why me?”
“Enjoy the ride to the fullest, because you don’t know how long it will last,” Jones said philosophically back then. “It’s what (former CU golf coach Mark Simpson) and my dad told me: Just press on and don’t ever quit. You don’t know when your last swing might be.”
