GARRETT WAIT
Sports Editor
Jason Gore is a hot name on the PGA Tour. The Pepperdine alumnus made himself famous with a brilliant showing at the U.S. Open earlier this year. He continued his hot streak on the Nationwide Tour and became a PGA Tour player full time earlier this month.
This past week, Gore won his first event on the PGA Tour. He has become a fan favorite on the tour because of his ever-present smile and everyman look. This week, his college coach, John Geiberger, who is the Pepperdine men’s golf team head coach, is the guest in “10 Minutes With …” to discuss Gore and other golf team-related topics.
What kind of impact has the success of Jason Gore had on you as his former coach?
Having Jason create the story he’s created this year is great. It’s nice for us that we can add to the tradition and the history of our program. We have a good story to tell with Jason. He’s brought a lot of notoriety to our school. Everybody that calls me or talks to me always asks about Jason now so it’s kind of fun.
Did he ever talk to you about the struggles in the early days? What did you tell him?
Jason’s always had the physical ability, and I always told him in college, ‘You could be a player that dominates the tour.’ It’s just mentally he kind of wasn’t as tough as he looks on the outside, and I think that now that he’s starting to mature as a person, everything’s falling into place.
Do you think Jason Allred or Michael Putnam can have equal success or even more success than Jason Gore?
Well Jason (Gore) is definitely a unique individual. He’s the type of kid who, from a charisma side, when he walks in a room, everybody will turn their head and look at him. He just has that from a marketing standpoint. That’s why at the U.S. Open everybody loved him. Jason (Allred) doesn’t necessarily have that and Michael doesn’t necessarily have that. But physical ability, Jason (Allred) has a lot of. He can get real hot. He’s a little streakier but he’s a little bit like Jason Gore where he can get real hot at times so it wouldn’t surprise me if this week he shot some great scores. Putnam, on the other hand, is more of a consistent player. He kind of goes up the levels. Michael’s the type of kid that once he gets on tour, he could be up there for a long time and be a top player.
Have you seen recruiting become a little easier because of all the publicity that all this has given you guys?
Not so much this year but I think maybe next year it might help us in the sense that we’ll hopefully have Putnam on the tour or the Nationwide and the Jason Gore story will be complete for this year. I think it will help us in the future. It’s a little bit early right now because the kids we’re recruiting are maybe ones that we started evaluating the last couple of years. A lot of the kids we recruit don’t even know we won the national championship in 1997 because they’re only 17 or 18.
How was this team chosen to go to Japan?
The team that was chosen to go to Japan was basically based on last year’s results. I had to pick the team in July and so we basically went off who played the best that was returning from last year.
What kind of year are you guys looking at this year?
I’m excited about this year. I think we have probably the deepest team we’ve ever had. I think our core unit is really very solid. No one’s really established as a 1-2-3 player yet, but I think we’re actually going to have a good team by the definition of a team, which is nice.
09-22-2005
