These are the things that happen when, in a span of four weeks, you elevate from career grinder to the hottest player on the PGA Tour.
Your fellow competitors grin and ask, “Could you take a week off to give the rest of us a chance?”
At the end of a 10-minute phone interview you graciously say: “I can answer one more question, but then I better run. ESPN’s on the other line.”
Legendary golf writer Dan Jenkins tweets: “Memo to myself: If Mark Wilson is going to be the next Ben Hogan, I guess I’d better get to know him.”
Well, Mr. Jenkins, here are a few things worth knowing:
*Wilson woke up Tuesday in a house that overlooks the 16th tee at Pebble Beach, site of this week’s AT&T National Pro-Am. But don’t get the wrong idea. The house is a rental and at 6 a.m. Wilson was up changing the diaper of his 10-month-old son, Cole.
*Wilson got a rise out of fans at the 16th hole of TPC Scottsdale on Super Bowl Sunday by wearing a green Packers shirt and giant cheesehead.
“I hope Chicago can still embrace me, though,” he said. “I’ve lived in Chicago for eight years but have the Packers in my blood.”
*The Milwaukee-area native lives in west suburban Elmhurst with wife Amy, a Bears fan, and practices at Cog Hill and Butler National.
“I don’t put up a Packers flag up when we win because I don’t want to rub it in everyone’s face … or get my house egged. My Wisconsin friends would hate me for saying this, but I’m neutral on the Bears. If the Packers were out of the playoffs, I’d root for the Bears.”
*Wilson originally dreamed about a basketball career. Then he hit 5 foot 8 and stopped growing.
*Wilson’s PGA Tour bio appears one page before that of Tiger Woods, who has yet to break 74 in a weekend round this season. (OK, once.) Wilson, meanwhile, leads the tour’s FedEx Cup points list after thumping the fields at both the Sony Open and Waste Management Phoenix Open.
He has risen 186 spots to 51st in the Official World Golf Ranking and earned berths to the Accenture Match Play Championship, the U.S. Open and his first Masters (for winning Sony).
“After I got a ticket to the Masters, I didn’t think it could get any better,” he said. “It has been a wild ride, and I’m almost as shocked as anybody.”
Wilson, 36, won the 2007 Honda Classic and 2009 Mayakoba Golf Classic. But he scraped out just two top-10s last year.
Winning on tour, he said, takes some luck — good bounces and no competitors going super low. He triumphed at the frost-delayed Phoenix Open by holing a 9-footer for birdie on the second playoff hole against Jason Dufner.
What went through his mind as he lined it up?
“My same routine,” Wilson replied. “I didn’t place any extra emphasis on the putt, which is probably why I made it. I knew it had a little break to the right, and I had the right speed.”
Wilson said he has learned from “great minds” such as Cog Hill instructors Kevin Weeks and Dr. Jim Suttie but now has “no specific teacher … I just pick people’s brains when I need it.”
His brain is telling him to ride out his streak, so he plans to keep playing through Arnold Palmer’s March 24-27 event at Bay Hill. That would mean another seven consecutive weeks on tour.
Memo to Wilson’s competitors: Sorry, guys.
“With all the snow up in Chicago,” he said, “that’s my plan.”
