Tough love made Kenny Perry a tough golfer

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Cigar
smoke is what Kenny Perry remembers. He was "probably seven," and his father,
intense but not abusive, and determined to make his boy a winner, would sit on a
towel, tee up ball after ball and all the while puff on a cigar.

"I would hit them as
fast as I could," said Perry, "and we did that hour after hour. I still smell
the cigar, the grass. Any time I catch a whiff of all that, my dad instantly
comes to me."

Kenny Perry is tied
for first place two rounds into this 2009 Masters. He shot a 5-under-par 67
Friday and, at 9-under-par 135, shares the lead with Chad Campbell.

His father, Ken Sr.,
85, is back in Kentucky, with two stents in his heart. And though Kenny, who's earned more
money playing golf, $28.1 million, than anyone who's never won a major, says he
would be satisfied if his career never went another day, his father continually
reminds him, "You need to win that green jacket."

Which of course is
what the Masters champion is awarded.

Kenny Perry is 48,
and in 1986 Jack Nicklaus, with his sixth Masters victory, became at age 46 the
oldest ever to win the tournament. Perry said he isn't thinking of making
history.

He is thinking of
finishing first.

After finishing a
year of redemption, countering criticism and playing so beautifully and
meaningfully in the 2008 Ryder Cup in his home state, at the very course,
Valhalla were Perry incurred his most wretched defeat, he and the family have
been named Grand Marshals of the Kentucky Derby parade.

"You know everything
is a bonus now," said Perry. "I'm going through each and every day enjoying
life a little bit. I think I can win. I'm still burning inside, wanting to kick
everybody's butt. I've got a will inside of me. My dad taught me. He beat on me
so bad as a kid in any kind of game or sport, I cried all the time. And then he
would laugh in my face as he was doing it.

"You know, he was a
smart man. And at the Ryder Cup when he came up to me and gave me that hug, I
told him it was the greatest gift I could never have given him. That was pretty
special for us as a father and son."

Ken Perry Sr. was an
insurance agent. His greatest talent, it turns out, was selling his son on how
to make it through life, to steel him for whatever might come, as the fictitious
father of song who named his boy Sue.

Kenny Perry Jr. is a
golfer who didn't have the luxury of a high-priced academy, a pro who has raised a
family – three children, the youngest of whom still is older than 19-year-old
Rory McIlvoy, the Irish golfing phenom – and raised huge sums for charity. Kenny Perry's outlook is different from
that of others.

"Where I came
from," said Perry, "the roots I had and my upbringing, to come from a nine-hole
course in the middle of nowhere ... I didn't have swing coaches. I didn't have
this entourage. I didn't have any money, begging, doing whatever I could,
scratching and clawing to get there."

It was 13 years ago
at Valhalla, the course outside Louisville, 130 miles from the Perry residence
in Franklin, where in the PGA Championship Kenny had his greatest opportunity to
take that major. He finished early the last day and, glib sort that he is, was
persuaded to climb into the TV booth while play continued.

He still was there
when Mark Brooks came in to tie Perry, who not having hit a ball in the
preceding hour, was not ready for the playoff won by Brooks.

"Yeah," he
conceded, "I think about it a lot."

So do others. Perry
was so obsessed with atoning for his failure when Valhalla hosted last
September's Ryder Cup, he didn't even attempt to qualify for the U.S. Open and
then, even though exempt, passed up a spot in the British Open. For that he was
ripped in the media. He didn't care.

"I laid all my cards
on the line that week," he said of the Ryder Cup experience. "I put it all on
the line, being in front of my home crowd. I mean I could have been a dog that
week and gone 0 for 4 or 5 and not won a point. I put all the pressure I could
on myself.

"People remember the
debacle at the PGA, how I screwed that up, and all of Kentucky remembered me for
that. I was going for broke, either was going to hit a home run or get thrown
out. And it went my way. Things went my way."

They haven't stopped
going his way. Having missed the cut five of the previous times he played here,
Perry gleefully declared, "At least I can tell everybody I led the Masters once
in my life."

Some stop to smell the flowers. For Kenny Perry, it's cigar smoke.