Shain: 'Late bloomer' Jeff Maggert eyes more hardware

A quarter-century of knocking balls around the PGA Tour brought Jeff Maggert a total of three victories.

Now on the Champions Tour, he has four in the past 3 1/2 months.

“I tell people I’m a late bloomer,” Maggert quipped while spending some down time at his Sea Pines home. “Maybe if I get a chance in some regular Tour events these next couple of years ...”

Hey, it worked for Davis Love III, the five-time Heritage champion whose feel-good win last month in Greensboro, N.C., earned a spot in the record book as the PGA Tour’s third-oldest winner. Love is 51, same as Maggert.

“It kind of justifies what we’ve been saying on our tour,” Maggert said. “The guys in that age bracket still can be really competitive.”

Maggert has his own hardware in sight as the 'Champions Tour enters its stretch drive. He leads a battle with two Hall of Famers for the Charles Schwab Cup points title, with five events to go starting at next weekend’s First Tee Pebble Beach Open.

Maggert has 2,992 points from 16 starts, 119 ahead of Colin Montgomerie after capturing the Dick’s Sporting Goods Open in the final stop before the tour’s current break. Bernhard Langer remains in striking distance with 2,604 points, followed by a 1,272-point drop to fourth place.

“The three of us have kind of pulled ourselves away,” Maggert said. “There’s not a lot separating us. Colin and Bernhard play well every week, so I can’t coast to the finish. I’d like to have the chance to win a couple more before the end of the year.”

No matter what transpires, Maggert’s year ranks among his best. Certainly it’s his most lucrative, surpassing the $2 million mark in season earnings for just the second time. Two of his victories came in senior majors — the Regions Tradition in May, followed by the U.S. Senior Open a month later.

The Schwab Cup, worth a $1 million bonus to the winner, would take it to another tier.

“That was definitely a goal,” he said. “And to win a senior major was a goal. To be lucky enough to win two majors and a couple of others — I didn’t expect that. But it’s fun to have a chance to achieve them all, especially in one year.”

Perhaps Maggert’s success shouldn’t come as a surprise. Those 25 years of maintaining a full PGA Tour card say something about his consistency. Only once did he come close to losing status, when shoulder woes sent him back to Q-school in 2009. He finished second, retaining full status.

Just 2<00BD> years ago he finished second at The Players Championship, two shots behind Tiger Woods. It was the 31st top-3 finish of his career, his 16th as a runner-up.

Just three, though, ended up with Maggert holding the hardware.

One did earn him a footnote in the PGA Tour book, as the first winner of a World Golf Championships event when he captured the 1999 WGC Match Play. That was sandwiched between the 1993 Walt Disney World Classic and 2006 FedEx St. Jude Classic.

“I would have thought I’d win 10 or 15 times on tour,” he said. “I played well for a number of years but for whatever reason, I only managed to win three times. A lot of seconds, played in majors. So I felt like I had a lot of good golf still in me when I turned 50.”

Maggert served notice last year when he won the Mississippi Gulf Coast Classic in his Champions debut, becoming just the 17th player to win his first start. But he never really found his stride, likely because he was still trying to take on the young guns.

Maggert made 32 starts last year between the two tours, more than he’d ever played. “I was trying to still live the dream on the other tour,” he admits.

“It’s hard for us guys to give up the regular tour,” he continued. “I’m sure Davis is having a hard time transitioning over, and winning kind of gives him a boost. And Vijay (Singh) still plays pretty good every week. For me, this year the plan was to focus on the Champions Tour.”

Solid but unspectacular in the early season, Maggert sizzled in the summer. He won the Regions Tradition in a playoff, captured the U.S. Senior Open with a closing 65, then added the Shaw’s Charity Classic and Dick’s Sporting Goods Open in quick succession.

Maggert cruised into the break with wins in three of his last six starts.

“It kind of becomes a habit, playing well,” he said, adding that there’s been no one segment of his game that’s made a big improvement. “When your golf game is cooperating, you get a lot of confidence.”

One can only hope he didn’t cool off too much through the break. If that becomes an issue, 11-year-old son Jake is there to offer a nudge. They play nine together most days, either at Sea Pines or their primary residence outside Houston.

The Maggerts have made Hilton Head their summer home since 2011, selecting Sea Pines over the Florida Panhandle and Kiawah Island.

Last spring, Jeff signed an agreement to represent Sea Pines on tour.

“It’s not so much a resort-looking area,” he said. “It’s more like a hometown.”

That’ll score points in the sponsor-exemption category.

Nor does it hurt to have a potential Schwab Cup titleholder living on site.

This story was originally published September 21, 2015 at 9:54 AM with the headline "Shain: 'Late bloomer' Jeff Maggert eyes more hardware."