One would think after an opening-round 70 changes wouldn't need to be made.
Not so with Buddy Allin."I thought up a new golf swing in my room last night," he said, recounting how he shot a 6 under par 66 Saturday to get near the top of the leaderboard at the Franklin Quest Championship with a two-round total of 136, 8 under par.
"I may change it again tonight."
Guess that means he'll shoot a 62 today.
Allin, who is a low-ball hitter, wanted to get the ball higher so he did "a little grip change and swing plane change."
It worked. He missed only two greens in regulation - No. 2 and No. 18 - and those were the two holes where he recorded his only bogeys of the day.
What Johnny Miller, a teammate of Allin's at BYU in the mid '60s, wouldn't give for Allin's putting touch.
Allin was a master on the greens, knocking in eight birdie putts, ranging from a 3-inch tap-in to a pair of 20-footers.
He started his birdie brigade by knocking his approach shot to 4 feet on No. 3, then draining the putt. He converted another 4-footer on No. 5, then made an 18-footer at No. 6. He closed out his birdie binge on the front nine with the 3-inch tap-in at No. 8.
He made the turn at 33 and had the same score on the back nine, the key putts being 20-foot birdies on Nos. 12 and 14.
And he had an excellent chance to come in at 64 but missed opportunities on 16 and 17 and hit an horrendous tee shot on 18 that led to his second bogey.
On 16, he hit a gorgeous approach to 7 feet but couldn't get the putt to drop.
On the par 5 17th, his second shot took a terrible kick off a ridge surrounding the bunker on the right side of the green, putting him in a lousy position to get up and down out of the sand. He knocked the ball 20 feet past the pin, two-putting for par.
And then on 18, he hit a snap hook that put him in deep rough with no chance to reach the green in two. Still, his chip shot got him to about 6 feet from the flag but his par putt slid past the hole.
Allin and Miller were an unlikely pairing at BYU and as such weren't paired during tournaments.
"Going to school here wasn't the best time in my life, to be honest with you. I had more fun in the Army.
"Johnny and I didn't get along together (at school)." As such while they were the top two players on the team, "when Johnny was one (seeded first) I was three and when I was one Johnny was three." That's because, Allin said, the top two seeds played together. Mike Taylor, a talented player from Mississippi, was seeded No. 2, since he got along with everybody.
"I drink and smoke and Johnny doesn't do that," Allin said.
Both were complimentary of the other Saturday. Miller said Allin is an outstanding putter, maybe the best on tour. "He has the softest putting stroke," which Miller referred to as a "butter stroke."
Miller also said pressure won't bother Allin because of his military experience.
If you think golf is a tough game, it's nothing compared to war, Miller said.
The Senior Tour needs players like Miller, Allin explained, to keep strong. People come to see the name players like Palmer, Trevino and Chi Chi Rodriquez. Miller, and when they become eligible in a few years, Tom Watson and Tom Kite, are the kind of players needed to keep the interest up, he added.
Allin stayed at BYU for two and a quarter years and then "in November of '66, I went to downtown Provo and enlisted in the Army."
He spent 18 months in Vietnam as an artillery officer and earned four decorations, including the Bronze Star and Air Medal.
He was a five-time winner on the PGA Tour, winning two events in 1974 - the Doral-Eastern Open Invitational and the Byron Nelson Golf Classic.
He joined the Senior Tour in 1994 and won his first tournament this year, the American Express Invitational, where he shot 68-68-69 to defeat Jim Colbert by a stroke.
Today, he'd like to win his second tournament in Utah - he won the Utah Open in 1970.