Support pours in for Stanley following difficult loss

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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. -- Kyle Stanley has never met Mark Few, who coaches the Gonzaga men's basketball team.

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But Stanley, who grew up in Gig Harbor, Wash., says he has been a Bulldogs fan since he was 3 feet tall. Even now, after he went to college at Clemson, "I live and die with every game they play," he admitted. "I try not to miss any of them."

That's why the text he received from Few on Sunday night meant so much. The words were simple: "He just told me to keep my head up and that I played tough, and that down the road I'm going to be stronger for it," Stanley recalled.

Few's sentiment was indicative of the outpouring of support Stanley has received since he squandered a three-stroke advantage on the 72nd hole and lost the Farmers Insurance Open in a playoff with Brandt Snedeker.

"It's all across the board, just words of encouragement, keep your head up, don't forget how well you played," Stanley said, smiling and shaking his head in wonder. "I know I may not have believed it on Sunday night or even Monday morning, but everybody just kept telling me I'll be a lot stronger for it, and I agree with that, that I will.

The words of encouragement have come from players like Zach Johnson, who called Stanley on Sunday night, and Steve Stricker, who reached him by text on Monday. Ditto for the players and caddies waiting to tee off on Tuesday morning at TPC Scottsdale who patted Stanley on the back or reached out to shake his hand as he walked into the basement of the clubhouse for a media interview.

Others were quick to hop on Twitter Sunday night to congratulate Snedeker but at the same time assure Stanley he will get another chance at his first PGA TOUR victory. Even Suzy Whaley, who became the first woman in 58 years to qualify for a PGA TOUR event when she played in the 2003 Travelers Championship, weighed in, tweeting what many fans were feeling.

@suzywhaley: Omg dying for Kyle....just want to cry for him. #suckstolose

Actually, Stanley was the one who was reduced to tears in his post-round press conference. But the raw display of emotion Stanley said "just kind of came out" has won the 24-year-old a ton of new fans. Stanley now has just over 5,500 Twitter followers, most of that total gained in the last 48 hours. Not bad for a man who has only tweeted 38 times since his first post on Dec. 21.

"Almost every single (follower) has sent me a message or done this or that," Stanley said. "It's just like I was saying earlier; I'm surprised by it. I'm overwhelmed by it, by the support I've gotten, and it's certainly been nice to feel like I had people behind me."

Stanley, who learned the hard way that golf, as he puts it, "can love you; it can hate you," has wasted no time getting back in the saddle, either. He's making his debut this week at the Waste Management Phoenix Open and he'll tee off No. 10 at 7:48 a.m. on Thursday with Fred Couples and rookie Bud Cauley. Four days after the bitter disappointment, Stanley has the opportunity to move on.

"That's the beauty of (the game)," Stanley said. "I think we've got to remember the year has just started, so I have probably 27 or 28 events ahead of me, and the process doesn't change, the mindset doesn't change. I'm playing great golf right now. I have a great team of people around me. Like I said, we're just going to continue to work hard and keep trying to put ourselves in position."

Toward that end, Stanley played a practice round on Tuesday with Joe Ogilvie. The TOUR veteran said Stanley was playing just as well as he was last week at Torrey Pines when he led the field in putts per green in regulation, was second in driving distance and third in greens in regulation. Stanley also tied Tiger Woods' 54-hole scoring record, for goodness sakes, and led by five entering the final round.

"It wouldn't surprise me if he won this week," Ogilvie said, grinning as he added, "Of course, he's got to beat me. He's striking it good. He works hard. ... The way he thinks about certain things, he's a hell of a lot more mature than a lot of guys out here. He's an extremely stable future star."

Ogilvy said he thinks Stanley is coping with the disappointment well. Besides, he explained, what happened at Torrey Pines isn't going to define Stanley's career.

"I think Kyle is focused on being in the top 20 in the world and then getting into the top 10 and then challenging for No. 1," Ogilvy said. "When you have that mentality, it changes the picture. Probably 60 percent of the guys out here, myself included, if we had let one slip away like that we'd wonder if we'd ever have that chance again. But he's going to have that chance seven or eight times a year."

Stanley admits he replayed his sand wedge on the 72nd hole at Torrey Pines, the offending one that spun back into the water, more than once on Sunday night as he had dinner with his parents, his sister, his agent and one of his best friends and then tried to grab a few hours of fitful sleep. His folks had left Gig Harbor in the middle of the night to get to Torrey Pines for what everyone had hoped would be his breakthrough victory.

"Yeah, there were tears, there was disappointment," Stanley recalled. "But I think there was a little bit of shock, too. I don't think you can really prepare somebody to maybe digest or handle what happened. It was just nice to have my family and some people around close to me, close to me there."

Stanley refused to second-guess the decision to lay up on the par 5 in regulation, saying he was "at peace" with it. If he had a mulligan, perhaps he would have gone with a lob wedge instead of the sand wedge he ended up using on the third shot, a club Stanley and his caddy Brett Waldman chose particularly to keep the spin off. As everyone knows, it didn't but he has to move on.

"You can either let it get you down, I think, or you can focus on the positive," Stanley said. "I did way too many good things last week to dwell on one shot or one hole or one putt. ... I played a lot of really good golf last week. There's no doubt about that. I'm happy with it. Nothing changes, and I'm still very confident in my game right now, how I'm hitting it, how I'm putting it, chipping it. It's a pretty good combination.

"I'm just going to continue to work hard and do what I can do each day to get better -- and as long as I continue to do that, I'll be back."

So, does Stanley feel like the golfing gods owe him?

"We'll see," he said. "We'll see."