Wed, Jul 19, 2006 page19

• `Vagabond' Bladon seeks an Open high

  JOURNEYMAN Golfer Warren Bladon has had a checkered career both on and off the course; now he's looking to the British Open for a taste of the limelight

  • NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE
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  There are crow's feet forming near the eyes of Warren Bladon, eyes that have guided him through odd jobs and dark pubs.

  There was a stint laying tiles for a friend's plumbing company and another tending bar and totaling up receipts. There was a marriage, the birth of a daughter and a divorce. There has been golf, sometimes at a high level, and there has been drifting.

  "I'm a professional golfer in the loosest term," Bladon, who is from Coventry, England, said on Monday at Royal Liverpool Golf Club, where he will compete in the British Open, which begins tomorrow. "I've had loads of highs and loads of lows. It's not been very steady."

  

  English golfer Warren Bladon hits a shot out of the rough during practice at the Royal Liverpool Golf Club before the British Open at Hoylake, England, on Monday.

  PHOTO: AP

  At age 40, Bladon is getting another chance on one of golf's largest stages after living a vagabond existence. Among the wealthy and the suntanned here, Bladon brings well-worn hands to this championship, hands that have failed to bring him sustained success in golf.

  Since winning the British Amateur championship in 1996 at Turnberry, Bladon has played golf around the world, only to put down his clubs at times because of financial burdens or a loss of interest. During his 20s, he quit the game for five years.

  At the 1997 Masters, during a practice round with Jack Nicklaus, Bladon walked off the course after nine holes because he said he was tired. Nicklaus, 57 at the time, wound up tying for 39th. Bladon, who was roughly half Nicklaus' age, missed the cut.

  Last year, Bladon appeared on the Golf Channel reality series The Big Break IV, where he fell short of winning a batch of 2006 European Tour exemptions. He found a new job working at a picture-framing company; the pay was US$11.50 an hour. With the bills coming nonstop, Bladon said he could not even afford to pay the ?110 entry fee, or US$196, into the British Open regional qualifier earlier this month. His companion used a credit card and offered some tough love.

  "She said, `On one condition, that you practice a little bit, so at least you give yourself a good chance of getting through the first stage,'" Bladon said. "One-hundred-and-ten pounds for a round of golf is a lot of money."

  Bladon advanced to the local final qualifier in Conwy, North Wales, shot rounds of 70 and 72 and gained one of 12 spots into the British Open out of more than 300 finalists.

  "I was a little surprised because they are decent players," Bladon said. "You always think your score is never low enough, but it was."

  Bill Nicolson, one of Bladon's friends, said that Bladon should have been playing in the British Open every year and not making his third appearance after missing the cut in 1996 and 1997.

  Instead, Bladon has traveled the world and put away his share of beers while keeping an on-again, off-again relationship with the concept of practice, Nicolson said in a telephone interview. When the 1.87m Bladon steps on a scale, the dial reads about 260 pounds (118kg).

  "He's a natural talent who probably never performed to his full ability," said Nicolson, who captained and played with Bladon in Warwickshire County tournaments.

  "He enjoys life. He's like a lot of people who enjoy a drink. He could sometimes be on the wrong thing of something at the end of the night, but he doesn't go looking for trouble," he said.

  David Howell of England, who is this season's leading money winner on the European Tour, also recalled Bladon as a gifted player who has struggled to stay on top of his game.

  "As you see him is how he is," Howell said Monday. "At the end of the day, he's a normal guy who likes a beer and is trying to make a living."

  Bladon is beginning to gray at the temples, his opportunities for building a life through golf beginning to fade. He calls the game his passion and his dream, but he has also turned his back on it.

  At Royal Liverpool, Bladon said he would grip it and rip it, echoing the words of John Daly, another rotund golfer who has seen hard times.

  Bladon said it was not too late to make a life out of golf, to grasp an opportunity after the pubs and the picture frames and the plumbing on call.

  "I want to come off the course knowing that I haven't been overcome by it and just control myself and hit the right shot at the right time," he said. "And if I do that, then I'll be happy."
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