Hardly a Household Name in Golf, Fresno’s Springer Sets His Goals

FRESNO — Fifteen-month-old Haylee Springer toddles over to the glass table and grabs the computer printout of her father’s PGA earnings, glances at it for a second, then tosses it on the floor.

And that’s about as much respect as her dad, Mike Springer, gets from most golf fans. Even though he’s the only American with two wins on the PGA Tour this year, he’s hardly a household name.

Along with Nick Price and Jose Maria Olazabal, Springer is the only golfer with more than one victory on the tour in 1994. He won the Greater Greensboro Open in April and the Greater Milwaukee Open earlier this month.

Sure, he gets asked for an autograph now and then. And plenty of folks recognize him in Fresno. And, he says, sometimes “there are people trying to mob little ol’ Mike Springer” as he completes a round of golf.

But, despite winning $710,717 on the tour this year, he still can only dream of being a superstar like Greg Norman, who has an entourage of fans and a private jet. Springer often has to wait a day for a convenient flight home.

“I go back to my room (after a tournament) and I can’t get out because I live in Fresno,” he says. “I want to have my airplane to fly around like Norman.”

Springer has already surpassed many of his goals for this season, his fourth on the tour. He got his first tour victory in Greensboro, a win that boosted him over $1 million in career earnings.

He also has made the cut in almost all of the tournaments he’s played this year, not bad for a guy whose inconsistency and mental exhaustion left him hoping to miss the cut at earlier times of his career.

When asked exactly how many cuts he’s missed this year in 22 tournaments, though, Springer is temporarily at a loss.

“Three,” his wife, Crystol, says from the kitchen of their new house on the outskirts of Fresno.

Their new home is almost triple the size of their previous one. Springer has it all planned out--they’ll have a second child while living in this house, then move to a still bigger home before having a third child.

As usual, he’s setting goals for himself.

“I always said I wanted to be No. 1 in the world by the time I was 30,” says Springer, who turns 29 in November. “Obviously, I’ve got to get moving because I have less than two years left.”

The University of Arizona product still has to learn how to play well even when he’s tired of being on the tour. He usually starts the year strong and then succumbs to mental exhaustion by the fall, and this season he even struggled early in the year.

He missed the cut at the Bob Hope Crysler Classic in mid-February and withdrew after one poor round the following week in San Diego. Even though Crystol and Haylee accompany him on most trips, he gets tired of living in hotels and restaurants and often can’t wait to get home.

After a three-week break, he came back refreshed and won the Greensboro event a few weeks later.

“People say, ‘How can you be burned out at the age of 28?’ But I’ve been working at this since 1988, and working hard,” he says.

He’s currently in the midst of a five-week vaction. Other than a round with country singer Vince Gill and hitting a few buckets of balls just to avoid stiffness, he has not picked up a club on this vacation--which ends in mid-October at the Texas Open.

The goals are to arrange his schedule to avoid burnout, and to better understand his game so he can become a consistent winner like Price and Olazabal.