It’s no mystery why Mark Calcavecchia has been a stranger to the top of the PGA Tour Champions leaderboard in recent years.
The reasons are scattered all over his back, which he recites like the setup for a sick joke or the topic for a medical journal puzzler.
“I’ve got a bulging disk pinching a nerve. My whole spine is caked with arthritis. I’ve got a cyst pinching a nerve. I’ve got bone spurs flying around in there pinching nerves. I’ve got a bad back.”
Consequently, there have been a lot of bad results on the golf course the past five years for the popular former Florida Gator who grew up in West Palm Beach and won 13 times on the PGA Tour, including the British Open.
Calcavecchia summoned some of that vintage form Friday as he shot 8-under-par 64 to lead after the first round of the Boca Raton Championship. Rocco Mediate and Jeff Maggert were one stroke back on a breezy afternoon on the Old Course at Broken Sound.
It was a glimpse of what Calcavecchia hopes is the beginning of “Senior Tour 2.0,” thanks to a recent surgical procedure that has him playing relatively pain free for the first time in five years. The outpatient procedure, known as rhizotomy, which he had two months ago in Naples, involves severing nerve roots in the spinal cord to relieve chronic back pain and muscle spasms.
Consequently, Calcavecchia was able to concentrate fully on shot-making rather than the pain that has dogged him for so long.
“You can’t compete out here in pain,” he said. “It sure helps to feel good. I just felt like laying down every fairway and not getting up.”
Friday he was getting up-and-down efficiently through a bogey-free round that included eight birdies. He made six of those during the first half of the round, which began on the back nine.
“It was for 10 holes a spectacular putting exhibition,” he said. “I didn’t miss, literally. Then I lipped one out on 2, which was my 11th hole, and then really never made another one.”
Calcavecchia had company at 8-under after Rocco Mediate, who also started on No. 10, eagled the par-4 seventh hole. But Mediate, who won here in 2013, finished with a bogey on No. 9 when he came up short on a 4-foot putt after a nice recovery from a bunker.
“Yeah, I ruined it," Mediate said, shrugging off three-putting on the final green. “I could care less about [leading]. The only thing that matters is Sunday. You've got to get yourself sort in position on this tour on the first day or else you're toast."
It was crowded atop the leaderboard on a birdie-filled day, with 14 players within three shots of the lead. There was a hole-in-one recorded by Scott Parel on the par-3, 169-yard No. 8.
Boca Raton resident Bernhard Langer, the reigning player of the year on the Tour Champions, was at 6-under along with Fred Funk and Jesper Parnevik.
John Daly was one of eight players at 5-under. The irrepressible Daly played in a group with Langer and colorful Miguel Angel Jimenez, which attracted the biggest following of the day.
Pairing Daly with the serious and steady Langer made for a bit of an odd-couple romp around the course. But Langer said, “We’re not that different, we had a similar score, it’s amazing. No, he played very well and so did I, and we had fun together and it was a great time.”
Nobody was having a better time than Calcavecchia, who hadn’t led a Tour Champions event since the 2015 Principal Charity Classic, his most recent of three wins on the 50-and-older circuit.
“I’m not really going to think of it as leading, I’m just going to think of it as a really good start and a long way to go,” Calcavecchia said. “I’ve just got to keep the hammer down.
“I knew I was putting well. So it’s a confidence builder, and that’s what I need. I feel good about this year.”
That is significant, considering that before the rhizotomy procedure he told his wife (and caddie) Brenda that he wasn’t sure how much longer he wanted to continue playing, “if I keep finishing 60th every week in these tournaments and finishing 66th on the money list.”
Now at 57 – three years younger than Langer – he’s hopeful of a career renaissance. Still, it remains a cautionary tale.
Calcavecchia was in fifth place after two rounds of the Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai, Hawaii last month before some back issues resurfaced, and he struggled to an 80 in the final round.
“Just literally fell apart,” he said. “Let’s hope that doesn’t happen again, but at least it’s moving in the right direction.”
Parel zeroes in
Parel’s hole-in-one continued a notable run that saw him win the pro division in the Diamond Resorts Invitational last month at Orlando, where he bested Scott Dunlap in a sudden-death playoff.
Parel used a 7-iron to record what he said was about his 16th hole-in-one. He finished the day at 2-under in a round that included three bogeys.
“Never left the flag. Looked like it hit 10, 12 feet short of the hole and rolled in,” Parel said of the hole-in-one. “It was great. I was happy my wife [Mary] was here, and she doesn’t come to too many tournaments. She was up by the green, so I was glad she got to see it.”
Parel, 52, is one of the most intriguing stories on the tour, as he didn’t play golf in college at Georgia and didn’t turn pro until age 31 after working for 10 years as a computer programmer. He then notched one victory in nearly two decades on the Web.com Tour before earning full status last year after he was co-medalist at PGA Tour Champions Q-School.
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