Standing over a 20-foot putt to save par used to be a stressful situation for Jim Thorpe. Not anymore.
When you've had your liberty taken away for almost a year, bad lies and crooked numbers suddenly don't seem nearly as daunting.
As Thorpe approaches today's tee time for the opening round of the $1.7 million Outback Steakhouse Pro-Am at TPC Tampa Bay, the 62-year-old veteran of the Champions Tour is thankful for his freedom.
"A lot of things have changed since I left," said Thorpe, who recently spent 10 months in an Alabama prison camp for income tax violations. "We have put together a beautiful team called Team Thorpe that will make sure that things that happened in the past would not happen again. Sometimes in life we make mistakes and trust the wrong people."
Thorpe must trust a rusty swing this week as he joins a field of 76 golfers competing for the winner's share of $255,000.
In 2009, Thorpe pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of failing to pay income taxes. The 13-time winner on the Champions Tour was released from the Alabama facility in January and re-assigned to a halfway house in Orlando to complete the terms of his violation.
"I miss the excitement and the competition," Thorpe said Thursday. "I thought this week coming back to a golf course I played quite a bit would be nice to get my feet wet again. Tuesday morning, when I drove in, I've never been that nervous on the golf course in my whole life. I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know how the pros were going to receive me."
Those fears proved unfounded as Thorpe's peers greeted his return with encouraging handshakes and welcome smiles.
During his time in prison, Thorpe fell out of shape. He spent much of his time watching the Golf Channel and pining for his return to the fairways.
He also had a harsh message for his wife and daughter: stay away.
"I don't think you ever want your family to see you in a situation where you don't have control of your destiny," Thorpe said. "They understood it. They know the type of person that I am, and I told them just let me do what I need to do and this will all be gone in 10 months."
Meanwhile, the correspondence kept pouring in from Thorpe's contemporaries, offering support during his incarceration.
"I got a lot of letters from a lot of guys," Thorpe said. "The most unexpected letter was from Tom Watson, who gave me a putting tip. When I saw Tom yesterday, I said, 'You could have given me this putting tip 30 years ago.'"
Thorpe hasn't played particularly well at this TPC course, registering only three top-20 finishes in 10 appearances.
He acknowledged the probability of early jitters today as he resumes a professional career that has earned him more than $15 million.
"I'm playing with a good friend of mine, Dana Quigley, and I know he'll find a way to relax me out there," said Thorpe, who earned a football scholarship to Morgan State as a running back. "For some reason, I feel a little nervous … basically because I don't know what to expect when I hit the first tee shot. But it's like playing football – once you get the first hit, the game is on."
