Quiros making name for himself

March 19, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

PALM HARBOR, Fla. (AP) — A waist-high net stretches across the back of the driving range at Innisbrook, some 300 yards away, mainly to keep golf balls of some of the biggest hitters from disappearing into a lake that most people don’t even know is there.

Will MacKenzie was asked how far it was to the water.

“I don’t know,” he said Wednesday. “But some dude with a straw hat was just out here flying it over the water.”

Over the water or over the net?

“Over the water,” he said, enunciating each word. “It was sick. I said to myself, ’Think I’ll just work on the ol’ wedge game today.’ If he has a short game, we’re all in trouble. Because it was pure.”

The dude in the straw hat is Alvaro Quiros.

He was on his way to the beach in Spain when he and his girlfriend stopped in a market. She tried on a straw Panama hat, playfully put it on his head, and Quiros liked the hat so much he has been wearing one ever since. It has become his trademark — that and his prodigious tee shots, skinny sideburns and a contagious smile.

The flamboyant Spaniard is wrapping up his first tour of America at the Transitions Championship, where he is making a name for himself.

After a first-round loss in the Accenture Match Play Championship, the 26-year-old Quiros was a fixture on the leaderboard during the CA Championship until he struggled on the back nine with his putting and tied for 13th.

Most of the European Tour members took a week off before returning for Bay Hill or the Shell Houston Open as a tune up for the Masters. Quiros is the only one who stayed behind to play at Innisbrook.

“Rookie mistake,” Quiros said.

He was not aware that top 50 in the world ranking — Quiros is No. 25 — made him exempt for the Arnold Palmer Invitational. He took an exemption to the Transitions Championship, instead, with no regrets. He loves the looks of the Copperhead Course, among the best in Florida.

As for those monster tee shots on the range?

“I was just trying to hit it straight,” he said.

For those unfamiliar with Quiros — or wondering how he got to No. 25 in the world — he qualified for World Golf Championships at Dove Mountain and at Doral by winning the Portugal Masters last fall and picking up his third career victory in January at the Qatar Masters, the strongest field on the European Tour this year.