Kuchar top seed for event

Associated Press

ATLANTA

Matt Kuchar is the face of golf in Atlanta this week at the Tour Championship, just like he was 10 years ago.

There’s one difference.

Actually, there’s about 10 million differences.

Kuchar is the No. 1 seed in the FedEx Cup going into the final playoff event, which starts today at East Lake. That gives him a slight edge in the race for the $10 million bonus, the biggest payoff in golf.

It’s hard to believe that Kuchar, perhaps the most celebrated amateur golfer at Georgia Tech since Bobby Jones, wasn’t even sure he wanted to turn pro when he graduated a decade ago.

He had won the U.S. Amateur. He lit up Augusta National with his engaging smile and a game good enough to be the low amateur at the Masters in 1998. Then came the U.S. Open at Olympic Club, where he held his own against golf’s best and tied for 14th.

Not long after that, a businessman tossed out the idea of staying an amateur.

Kuchar went to work for Liberty Associates, a boutique investment banking firm in south Florida, a job that entailed plenty of golf with prospective clients, a chance to see how business gets done as efficiently on manicured fairways as in boardrooms.

Chasing the amateur dream, however, soon turned into a sprint.

Kuchar played the Texas Open on a sponsor’s exemption in the fall of 2000 and missed the cut by one shot. He was furious with himself and wanted to tee it up the next week to prove he was better than that.

“And it was then that I knew I needed to really go week in and week out to see how good I could be,” he said.