Last week was a typically busy one for Mike Reid.
When he wasn't staying late at board of directors meetings for Riverside Country Club, he was making trips to Park City to watch his 17-year-old son Daniel play in a junior tournament, attending movies and going hiking with his daughters or spending a couple of days in the mountains on a father-and-son's outing with his younger son.
As much as he loves doing those things and enjoys spending time with his wife, Randolyn, and their six children, Reid is looking forward to a new phase of his life, which begins this week.
Reid turns 50 on Thursday, which makes him eligible for what has been called golf's ultimate mulligan — the PGA Champions Tour. It's an opportunity for professional golfers to play competitively for outrageously generous purses during a time when many folks their age are figuring out a way to retire.
The former BYU all-American and two-time PGA Tour winner has been preparing for this new adventure for the past couple of years and is rarin' to go.
"I feel like I did when I was a rookie on the PGA Tour," Reid said. "I'm curious to see how my game stacks up against these guys."
Reid feels he's ready to take on the guys he used to play against on a regular basis for most of the past 25 years. He knows he can't compete against Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson or even some of the "kids" who play on the Nationwide Tour. But he's ready to go against the players of his generation — people like Peter Jacobsen, Ben Crenshaw and Craig Stadler, not to mention the older guys such as Hale Irwin and Lee Trevino.
He had Lasik surgery on his eyes six months ago and said it's been great for his game and enabled him to discard his trademark glasses. He's been working hard on his game, playing often at Riverside when he's in town or against the young bucks on the Nationwide Tour to get warmed up.
He looks as rail thin as ever, but Reid confides that while he still only weighs about 160 pounds, his weight has redistributed and he's had to go to a 34 belt from his usual 32. Poor guy.
Reid has always been known as a soft-spoken, thoughtful man who lives a well-balanced life. His two oldest daughters are married, and his other four children are old enough that he has no qualms about going back out on tour on a regular basis.
"I still have a great love for tournament golf, and I've always loved the challenge," he said. "I feel like I still want to be competitive, and I want to win. I like the idea of teaching (at clinics), the fan interaction and rekindling a lot of old friendships. I like the whole package."
Reid is a little frustrated by the timing of his birthday in relation to the Champions Tour schedule. Unfortunately he won't be able to take advantage of his senior status and play an official event on the Champions Tour for more than a month.
He can't play this week at Long Island because his birthday doesn't fall "prior to his first tournament obligation," which includes pro-ams before the actual tournament. Nor can he play the following week at the Ford Seniors Players Championship, which has a select field of current seniors. The week after that, the Champions Tour takes a week off during the British Open, and the next two tournaments are non-PGA Tour events, the British Senior Open and the U.S. Senior Open.
Finally, the first week of August, Reid can play in an official Champions Tour event at the 3M Championship in Minnesota. Actually, Reid will play in a senior event before then as he plans to fly to Northern Ireland in mid-July to compete in the Senior British Open, which gained "major" status last year. He and his wife will be accompanied by his old college teammate John Fought, who recently turned 50.
Then if Reid can qualify this week at the Salt Lake Country Club, the day after he turns 50, Reid could play in the U.S. Senior Open in St. Louis the final week of July.
Before the end of the year, Reid plans to play in about eight senior events. Then starting next year he hopes to play in 20 to 25 senior events per year, the same number he did for most of his career on the PGA Tour.
Right now, Reid is right on the borderline of being an exempt player. He can get into most tournaments because he ranks in the top 70 of all-time money winners with more than $4.5 million earned on the PGA Tour. But since he ranks around No. 67 or 68, it's a tenuous standing, and he needs to add some winnings to stay exempt.
He's also No. 6 on the list for career wins, and four players get into tournaments based on that exemption. That category is open only to players between the ages of 50 and 52, so he'll move up next year when a couple of players are over 52, but he'll lose that exemption in a couple of years. If he doesn't stay in the top 70 on the all-time money list, he loses that exemption.
"My access looks good to play in about 20 to 25 tournaments next year," said Reid, who knows he needs to be fairly successful right out of the gate.
Reid's best years on the PGA Tour were in the late 1980s when he won two tournaments, including the World Series of Golf in 1988 and nearly won a major, at the PGA, before losing a late lead to Payne Stewart in 1989. He showed his tremendous consistency as early as 1980 when he made 27 of 28 cuts, ranked first in driving accuracy and greens in regulation and ranked No. 9 on the money list.
As late as 1999 when he earned just under a half million dollars, Reid was still playing well, but as he reached his late 40s, he gradually played less and less until he played in 13 events in 2002 and four in 2003, missing the cut in all four.
Last year he started playing on the Nationwide Tour, the "Triple-A" PGA Tour, which features up-and-coming professionals along with those past their prime. After missing the cut in his first four, he "started playing better" in the last two where he made the cut, in late May.
"I would have played more, but I don't want to go out there (on the Champions Tour) burned out," he said. "I want to be enthusiastic and well-prepared."
When he played the PGA Tour, Reid used to annually rank in the top 10 on the tour in fairways hit and greens in regulation, which is where he earned his nickname, "Radar." However his length was always a concern, and he would rank somewhere around No. 175 in the driving distance category.
But now that he's playing on courses that are set up shorter for the older fellows, he hopes length won't be an issue.
"I won't know until I get out there," he said, "but I hope that's what I find."
Reid said he tried some new equipment recently in an effort to better his game and perhaps increase his distance but abandoned the experiment.
"I bought into that temporarily," he said. "But I've gone back to everything I used to use."
No, he's not using persimmon driver, but he is using his driver from about eight years ago, a Titleist J, and fairway woods from 10 years ago. His irons and wedges are more recent, just 4 or 5 years old.
"You've got to dance with the one that brung you," he said.
As for how long he'll play on the Champions Tour, Reid said it will depend on his health. He doesn't plan to be a Dana Quigley, who will be playing in his 250th straight Champions Tour event this week. Nor will he just play occasionally like Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson have done.
"I don't want to play so much that I feel like the game owns me," he said. "I don't ever want to get like I feel like I have to play."
Reid says he'll try to play in no more than 25 events per year for the next five or six years and see where it takes him. If he's doing well, then he'll continue on until he turns 60.
"My youngest daughter will be 18 when I'm 60," he said. "I've always targeted that date to do something different with my life."
Reid joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when he was 19, soon after coming to BYU on a golf scholarship. Because he never had a chance to serve a mission, he'd like to do that with his wife a decade from now.
In the meantime, Reid will find out if he has the game to make headlines again on the Champions Tour.
"I've always been driven by curiosity to see if what I have is good enough to get to the top level," he said. "I'm really looking forward to it."
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