After a season on the PGA Tour marked more by an outsized Twitter persona than on-course stardom, the rookie has come home.
Andres Gonzales knows where his next competitive round of golf will be. After that, it’s a little up in the air.
He knows he won’t be playing on the PGA Tour in 2012, at least not without qualifying on Mondays.
Gonzales, 28, who splits time between Olympia and Las Vegas, will team with University of Washington standout Chris Williams in the Plantation Winter Classic, a tournament pairing pros with top amateurs, Dec. 16-17 at the Plantation Golf Club in Indio, Calif.
“We’re going to go down and try to show everybody we’re good up in Washington,” Gonzales said during an interview Friday in Olympia, where he’s taking a season-ending break while he awaits a clearer picture of where he’ll play professional golf next season.
A year ago at this time, the former Capital High and UNLV player was flush from a successful journey through PGA Qualifying School, where he earned official status on the PGA Tour.
He finished his first season with earnings of $186,847, which put him at No. 192 on the PGA Tour money list, outside the top 125 he needed to keep his tour privileges. Then, last month, he failed to make it out of the second stage of this year’s Q-school.
Gonzales shot 74-76-70-69 to tie for 41st in second-stage play at Redstone Golf Club in Humble, Texas. He needed a top-20 finish to move on.
He knows he’ll have conditional status on the Nationwide Tour next year, but he expects to know more specifics after Monday’s final Q-school rounds in LaQuinta, Calif.
“I’m a little disappointed with how the year ended,” Gonzales said, “but I’m excited to keep playing no matter what level it’s on. Ideally, it would be on the PGA Tour level, but if the Nationwide is part of the road to get back there, then I’ll do that. I’m still playing golf and having a good time.”
Having fun was not an issue during Gonzales’ rookie year on the PGA Tour. He earned a substantial following for his Twitter wit, augmented by what most observers agreed was the most distinctive facial hair on tour. He earned national attention for his Twitter tweaks of Tiger Woods, many of them centered on whether Tiger would invite Gonzales to Woods’ tournament, the AT&T National.
Woods never responded, by Twitter or in person.
On the course, Gonzales made the cut in nine of the 21 PGA events he played. He notched a tie for 16th at the Children’s Hospital Miracle Network Classic and had another top-25 finish at the John Deere Classic. He forced a playoff before finishing second in the Nationwide Tour’s Soboba Golf Classic in late September.
In June, he played in his first U.S. Open at Congressional in Bethesda, Md.
“I’ve never been as nervous as I was on the first hole in my entire life – I was literally shaking,” he said. “It was a phenomenal experience – the size of the galleries, the amount of fans there.
“I really enjoy playing in front of people, and when you’re playing your national open in front of that many people, it really makes the day electric. I really had a ton of fun.”
By the end of the season, Gonzales said, he was feeling more comfortable, and “that’s when I really have fun, when I’m playing good golf.”
Earning his PGA Tour card last year was the realization of a lifelong goal.
“Now it’s another lifelong goal to figure out what it’s going to take to get back there and stay there,” he said. “I know that I’m good enough to be out there. I’ll be back out there.”
To regain his tour card, and excel on golf’s biggest stage, Gonzales needs to limit mistakes, he said.
“I know my talent level is there. I make enough birdies when I’m playing with some of the top guys,” he said. “There’s really nobody out there at this point that wows me anymore, like when I was younger.
“They just don’t make as many mistakes that lead to bogeys. Their mistakes are going to be pars more often than not.”
In the first half of the year, he said, he was maybe trying to make too much happen with every single shot, “rather than just playing golf and adding it up at the end.
“It’s just knowing when you can be aggressive and knowing when you need to play a little bit more conservative; knowing that certain holes are more difficult and par is a good score. There’s no reason to go pin-hunting on every hole.”
Gonzales and wife Kristin are currently house-hunting in Lakewood, which is near family in Olympia and convenient to what has become his home golf course – the Tacoma Country & Golf Club.
Gonzales expects to try Monday qualifying for early-season PGA Tour events in Los Angeles, San Diego and Phoenix, which are easy to reach from his second home in Las Vegas. The desert city is where he finds a fraternity of former UNLV golf buddies, including PGA Tour regular and Puyallup native Ryan Moore, who recently bought a home in Vegas.
And while Gonzales expects to keep his ties to Las Vegas, “up here” will likely always be home, he said. Here is where he enjoys the support of his mother, who watched him play in the U.S. Open and a few other tournaments, and his wife.
“My family loves me,” he said. “They don’t care if I play golf at all.
“I’m fortunate enough to get to play a game that I really love and enjoy, and fortunate to be good enough at it to make a living doing it.”
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