“I Call It My Puke Zone”

Manager Clint Hurdle and comparing the pressure of making the playoffs and making short putts

Lynn Debruin

For Rockies manager Clint Hurdle, the pressure of making putts might be greater than making the playoffs.

He may be in the final year of his contract, but don’t expect to see Clint Hurdle sweating it, even if his top pitcher is likely out for the season and his MVP candidate has been traded away.

No, when Hurdle talks about pressure, it’s in reference to a 20-inch putt, not managing a Major League Baseball team.

“I call it my puke zone,” the Colorado Rockies manager says of those short knee-knockers.

“I have no understanding of making 20-inch putts for money. I don’t get it. I’m not comfortable doing it.”

But in his eighth year as Rockies skipper, Hurdle is comfortable enough to crack a joke when a PR man urges reporters to “fire away” with questions.

“The pressure question‑it’s always a good question,” says Hurdle, who could be among the unemployed if the Rockies don’t bounce back from their slow April start. “But pressure still comes down to being in a position where you don’t know what you’re doing. I believe I know what I’m doing.”

With that self-confidence, Hurdle, 51, approaches every day as a new day, and every round of golf as a chance to escape from reality.

Can’t-miss Kid

Growing up in Florida because his dad worked at the Kennedy Space Center, Hurdle picked up the game when he was 6 years old. But like so many natural athletes, he never has taken a lesson.

“I just watched golf on TV and played,” Hurdle says.

And that’s enough for him. He doesn’t need to be a Hank Haney reconstruction project. “It’s always just been about an escape. Just go out and enjoy the day and take my mind off the things my mind has been upon,” he says. “Even these days, when I go out, it’s four hours—and I don’t make too many decisions on the golf course. I get the yardage; I grab a club. I see my lie; I look at where I gotta go. It’s not real thought-provoking, not a lot of depth to it.”

The same can’t be said for Hurdle, who has grown over the years from challenges both on and off the field.

He was a can’t-miss cover boy for Sports Illustrated at age 20, and starting first baseman for the Kansas City Royals at age 21. But after the former first-round pick fizzled as a star and had only a serviceable 10-year career with five different clubs, he began working his way up the coaching ladder, where he would be knocked down and fired before climbing to the top rung and leading the Rockies to the 2007 World Series.

On the personal side, there were the two divorces and a battle with alcoholism, then new trials with third wife, Karla, when their daughter Madison was born in 2002 with Prader-Willi syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that affects appetite, behavior and motor skills.

“You know, if you want to make God laugh, try telling him what you plan to do tomorrow,” Hurdle told reporters earlier this year. “We need to have a good day today.” And he does, even if he can’t tee it up as often as he’d like. “I played a lot before my two children,” Hurdle says. Now, with Madison, 6, and his son, Christian, 4, he saves his playing time mostly for the road. Still, that typically means twice a week, enough to get his handicap down into single- digit territory. “There are days I’m quite the golfer,” he says. “There’s days I actually score. I can go both ways with it.”

COURSE MANAGER

“He can generally find the ball after he hits it,” quips Bill Geivett, Rockies vice president for baseball operations Yet don’t expect to find Geivett in Hurdle’s foursome any time soon. “It’s just not worth it,” says Geivett, who played his one-and-only round with Hurdle fi ve or six years ago at Starr Pass Golf Club in Tucson. “He’s so loud and boisterous, he never lets you hear the end of it.”

While Geivett and then-Florida Marlins manager Jack McKeon would lose that day in a high-low game with Hurdle and Hall of Fame pitcher Goose Gossage, Geivett still can needle Hurdle about one hole in particular.

“It was astounding to him that he was not out-driving me,” Geivett says of Hurdle, who stands 6-3 and weighs 235 pounds but was coming up about 15 yards short of Geivett’s 300-yard drives. “So he kept going up to my ball and thinking it was his drive.”

Finally, Geivett let Hurdle have at it, only to DQ him from the hole for hitting the wrong ball. “He wouldn’t talk to me the rest of the day,” Geivett says. “But I never told him I let him hit my ball on purpose.” Good thing. It’s not like Hurdle needs to get any more fired up.

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Colorado AvidGolfer is the state’s leading resource for golf and the lifestyle that surrounds it. It publishes eight issues annually and proudly delivers daily content via www.coloradoavidgolfer.com.