Former Georgia State golfer Jonathan Fricke battled his way to a third place finish at the Xerox Classic in Rochester, New York on the Nationwide Tour. Brendon De Jonge of Zimbabwe ran away with the title, beating the field by four strokes. Fricke's third-place finish netted him a check for $31,200 and moved him up to No. 87 on the Nationwide season tour earnings.
Fricke's weekend was highlighted by a blistering 3rd round of 63. The outstanding round included eight birdies and warranted the attention of PGATour.com writer Dave Lagarde. Lagarde wrote a feature detailing Fricke's preparation and progress, which can read here:
Rookie Fricke has his game and attitude just as he wants
Aug. 16, 2008
By Dave Lagarde, PGATOUR.COM Contributor
ROCHESTER, N.Y. -- The minute he walked off the 18th green at Irondequoit Country Club on Saturday, Jonathan Fricke was scribbling a mental note to himself.
It read: "Don't you ever change.''
To expand, Fricke will tell himself not to alter a single thing he thought or did during the third round of the Xerox Classic. That would include his mental approach to Sunday's fourth round, his pre-shot routine, course management, decisive target and club selection and, last but not least, his silky smooth putting stroke, the sous chef of the delectable 7-under-par 63 Fricke cooked Saturday.
Whether Fricke, a Nationwide Tour rookie, receives the message Sunday remains to be seen. Who knows how well-intentioned mind games will play out when you're walking into unknown territory, as Fricke certainly will Sunday when he goes head-to-head in the final twosome with Brendon de Jonge, the man he is chasing.
Fricke, 26, put himself in position to challenge for his first Nationwide Tour victory by closing with a three-birdie rush that will send him to bed Saturday night with thoughts of a trophy presentation dancing in his head. It completed the best round of the week.
"I'm living the dream,'' said Fricke, who is tied for second with Greg Owen, three shots behind de Jonge, who posted a 3-under 67 Saturday for a 54-hole total of 12-under 198.
That's quite an understatement for Fricke, who came into the Xerox Classic having missed seven consecutive cuts; for someone who had made 20 starts and earned a little more than $20,000 this season, and for someone getting ready to write a check for entry into the PGA TOUR's 2009 Qualifying Tournament unless he catches lightning in a bottle soon.
Despite the obvious struggles, Fricke, who hails from a Georgia family immersed in golf, has maintained a sunny outlook because he had a feeling good results were just around the corner.
"I was extremely frustrated early in the season,'' he said. "But I started doing so many things well over the last few weeks -- hitting it good, chipping it good and putting it good -- that I couldn't get frustrated. If you do, you can lose it all. So I decided to stay patient.''
That's a remarkable trait that can serve a rookie very well as he searches for his comfort zone on a new tour with new travel demands and new courses to learn each week. Golf Club of Georgia Director of Golf Jeff Paton, Fricke's instructor, said it is a part of his student's make-up that is "stunning.''
"I've taught a lot of pros, including some who have won tournaments on the PGA TOUR,'' Paton said Saturday afternoon. "It seems like each one of them invariably will fall into a black hole (with their game) at some time or another. So far Jonathan has yet to slip through that kind of crack.
"He's the most positive person I know. Everybody around this club loves him. I just walked through the men's grill and all seven of our plasma TVs were on GOLF CHANNEL. When the members saw me, they started chanting, 'Fricke, Fricke, Fricke.' His attitude always has been: I know I can do it.''
Fricke and Paton had a 90-minute telephone conversation last week when Paton offered to come up to Rochester to assess his swing and develop a game plan.
"I figured Jonathan was making some bad decisions out there so I wanted to walk the course with him and see if I could get him going the right way,'' Paton said.
Fricke discouraged his coach.
"There's no need to come up here for you to tell me, 'Good swing,'" Fricke told Paton. "There nothing wrong with it. Then he said, 'I feel like I'm going to pull out some good finishes before the end of the year.'"
That prospect looms large Sunday, especially if Fricke can continue to roll his ball the way he did Saturday. Among the eight birdies on card, six came from outside 20. He almost had one more, but a 35-footer for birdie on the sixth hole horseshoed out of the cup.
"I made just about everything I looked at,'' he said.
Fricke said he began putting better after switching to a Rife putter four weeks ago. That coincided with the time he began to feel more at ease with himself and his state in life. He stopped staring as some of the Nationwide Tour veterans who have won on the PGA TOUR hit shots on the range. He accepted the fact that others were highly decorated collegiate players.
"At first I found that a little unnerving,'' he said.
But Fricke finally figured out the process that works for him. Now he knows how long to practice, how to get from point A to point B and all the other minutia that rookies face each week. But the most important thing was holding on to the belief that he belonged.
"It takes time to realize you have to have trust,'' said Fricke, who remembers having a golf club in his hand -- a cut-down 3-iron -- ever since he could walk.
A career as a professional started as a dream, became a goal when he was 16 and a reality after he graduated from Georgia State University. He beat the mini-tour bushes for a while until he finally made it through the three stages of Qualifying School in 2007. The biggest birdie he ever made came on the final hole of second stage when he rolled in a downhill left-to-right eight footer to make it through on the number.
"If I hadn't made that one, I'd still be on the Tar Heel Tour,'' he said.
Now Fricke faces 18 holes that could end an idyllic week and make 2008 a memorable season. Stranger things have happened on the Nationwide Tour, where anything is possible.
