Fred Couples: Ageless, Nearly Flawless

By Art Spander

PACIFIC PALISADES, Calif. – The back is bad, as always. The swing is beautiful, as always. Another year at Riviera. Another memorable round for Fred Couples.
   
We measure Couples' time not in years but in strokes, 68 of them Thursday, three below par.
    
Was that W.C. Fields winking approval from one of pictures lining the hallway in the clubhouse? Or simply our imagination?
    
Fred Couples, timeless, nearly flawless. At a course where nostalgia perches upon the oaks and crouches in the bunkers.
  
A course where a statue of Ben Hogan is next to the practice green and the membership rolls once included Humphrey Bogart, Dean Martin and Gregory Peck.
    
Couples is a perfect fit.
   
The place nicknamed Hogan’s Alley and Corey Pavin’s Haven by all rights is just as much Freddie’s Fixture. If ever a man, site and event were inextricably linked it is Couples, Riviera Country Club and the Northern Trust/Los Angeles Open.
   
“It’s probably my favorite tournament to play in,” said Couples. “This is my 31st year, and Northern Trust has been awfully gracious the past three years to give me a sponsor’s exemption.”
   
Gracious and realistic. A Northern Trust without Couples would be like a day without sunshine – and there was a great deal of that for the opening round. The temperature reached the mid-60s while the best scores – Matt Kuchar leading at 64 – were at about the same level.
    
Thirty-one years for Couples at Riviera. Bill Haas, who won the Northern Trust in 2012, is 30 years old. Keegan Bradley, who lost in the playoff in 2012, is 26.
   
Fred Couples, 53, has been entering the tournament, when it was the Los Angeles Open, the Nissan Open and now the Northern Trust, longer than Haas or Bradley have been around.
  
“I love the course,” said Couples. He won in 1990 and again in 1992, the year he also won the Masters. “I feel like I’m a very good iron player. It’s a good second-shot course.”
   
For Couples, a good second-chance course. A course to wake up the echoes.
  
Three years ago, he was a shot behind coming down the stretch, and for a 50-year-old against Phil Mickelson and Steve Stricker the very thought seemed a stretch. Fred would tie for third, two shots back of Mickelson.
 
“There are some tournaments,” Couples said Wednesday, “where I feel like people deserve to play, and I feel like I deserve to be in this field.”
   
Even though competing is as much stress as satisfaction. He is a senior, a regular on the Champions Tour, where the courses are shorter and the daily rounds begin later. You’re not going to ask a lot of 50-year-olds to be on the tee at 7 in the morning, are you?
   
But in the Northern Trust, where 46 of the golfers, nearly a third of the field, were born after Couples first entered the tournament in 1981, play on Thursday and Friday begins at 6:40 a.m. Couples, along with Lee Westwood and Bubba Watson, went off the 10th tee Thursday at 7:11 a.m.
   
“You don’t get that kind of tee time,” said Couples, referring to the Champions Tour. “Here, I got up at 5 a.m. and walked the treadmill for about 35 minutes (to loosen up his back). I worked up a good sweat, but when I got to the range, it was very cold down there. It’s tough enough to do when you’re 30 years old. I’m not even 45.”
  
Couples parred 10 but bogied 11, a par-5. But he recovered to start making pars, closed the nine with birdies on 17 and 18 and began the front with a birdie on a 505-yard par-5 that for virtually everyone plays like a 4.
   
“I putted well,” said Couples, “and I drove it well. I only played Hualalai in January on the Champions tour, so this is just the second time I played all year. It’s irrelevant what everyone else is shooting. I just want to play well and keep staying under par.”
   
Couples said he was outdriven by one of his amateur partners in Wednesday’s pro-am, although that’s difficult to verify since the ams  tee off far in front of the pro. On Friday, the rhythm returned, and so did the distance.
   
“I have not really practiced much,’’ Couples explained. “I used a putter from off the green a couple times because if you don’t feel comfortable with a wedge it can get caught in the Kikuyu grass.
   
“So this is surprising, but again I can figure my way our around this course.”
   
As he should after playing it for more than 30 years.