Whicker: Harold Varner III brings enthusiasm to the PGA Tour and a different demogrpahic as well

An embryo star, in plain sight, walked the fairways at Riviera last week.

Harold Vaer III shot 6-under and was 26th at the Northe Trust Open. He ranks 18th in driving distance. He has four Top 30 finishes as a rookie and was fifth at Mayakoba.

A tough adjustment, from Web.com to these big-league courses?

“Not really,” Vaer said. “180 (yards) there is still 180 here.”

Which is why Vaer won’t be just a spreadsheet of dollar signs and stats, once he starts wiing. He doesn’t make the game look easy. Just happy.

“Harold is not constricted,” said Press McPhaul, Vaer’s coach at East Carolina, “by the fear of failure.”

Vaer’s smiles and gestures and occasional curses -- “I’ve got to quit dropping F-bombs, but I’ll figure it out,” he said Sunday -- add up to heretical behavior on Tour.

• PHOTOS: Bubba Watson wins at Riviera

Remember, you have to focus. Stay in the moment. And root yourself so deeply to the practice tee that it takes an Auto Club tow truck to remove you.

“We didn’t have a range on the course where I grew up,” Vaer said. “You had to shag your own balls. I’m not into shagging. It wasn’t my thing. You might as well play.”

Vaer played at Gastonia Municipal, about 30 miles west of Charlotte, N.C. When he got good enough he could work and play at the country club in town. “If you got in good with the members you could play with them on the weekends,” he said.

The pro at Gastonia Muny was Bruce Suddreth. He taught Vaer the basics. And he made sure kids had unlimited play, for $100.

Per year.

“I don’t think they do that anymore,” Vaer said. “I was fortunate to have it.”

Which leads to the other, singular thing about Harold Vaer III.

Twenty years after Tiger Woods was paraded into the PGA Tour like a Mercury astronaut, Vaer is the only African-American there, and the first to ea a Tour card from Web.com.

What happened? Or what didn’t happen?

Woods was preceded by Charlie Sifford, Pete Brown, Jim Dent, Calvin Peete, Chuck Thorpe, Jim Thorpe and others. Now there’s one guy. The minority wave that was supposed to accompany Tiger not only didn’t land. It evaporated.

“I obviously don’t know the answer,” he said. “I know the game is very expensive.”

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A PGA tour veteran once told McNaull, “The difference between playing golf and playing touament golf is the difference between walking and ice skating.”

To execute that triple-flip into pro golf, youths need touament experience.

“First Tee programs and municipal programs have been helpful,” McNaull said. “But you have to have the money to travel and play these touaments. It’s a hurdle. I don’t know what the Spieths paid for Jordan, but I imagine it was a lot. When I go to big junior touaments, I see more minority players than I once did, but it’s still single digits.”

But how many opportunities are forfeited because college golf programs are restricted to four-and-a-half scholarships?

“If you’re good enough that’s not a problem,” Vaer said, emphatically. “I don’t buy it. No one is going to hand it to you. People disagree but I’m sticking with my guns. If you play well you’ll end up where you want to go. There’s no special treatment. It can’t be that way and it shouldn’t be that way. That wouldn’t be very American. People probably need to get into a better mindset and attitude, understanding what’s going on.”

McPhaul knew Vaer from high school. “He was a little guy who always had a nose for the hole,” he said. “And it was clear that he was having more fun out there than anybody else.”

But he also was looking at higher-ranked players. When they signed elsewhere, he signed Vaer.

“Man, within 18 months he was so far in front of all those other guys,” McPhaul said. “He got the opportunity, got access and ran wild with it.”

At the party-hearty 16th hole in Phoenix, Vaer wore a Carolina Panthers jersey on Sunday a few hours before they lost the Super Bowl. “Brutal,” he said.

On Sunday he playfully elbowed Justin Thomas on the 13th green, then plaintively stared at a nearby ravine after he 3-putted. That was his last bogey.

“I’m going to hit bad golf shots until the day I die,” he said, shrugging. “I’m going to let it all hang out. I just want to make sure I don’t have too much fun.”

Watching Vaer test the limits of that will be fun, too. He will be a star. Then we’ll see who follows.

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