Comeback kid riding high

When Steve Stricker received his award this year as the PGA Tour’s comeback player of the year, he could only smile. “This looks very familiar,’’ Stricker said, tongue firmly in cheek.

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No kidding. For the second straight season, Stricker had been named the tour’s comeback player. Apparently some of his peers who voted for him in 2007 forgot that they also voted for him in 2006. Finally, a record that will never be broken by Tiger Woods.

“I try to be as polite as possible, and I do answer the questions, but it’s been three years and I’ve had two really solid years,’’ the 40-year-old Stricker said of the apparent confusion over being named the back-to-back comeback kid.

“I feel like that’s way on the back burner now, and I’ve been looking forward, and not looking so much at the past anymore. … It’s a nice little story, but it’s an old story.’’

But to fully understand the incredible story of how Stricker arrived at the No. 3 position in the world golf rankings coming into this week’s FBR Open, a trip back in time is in order.

And it’s a mixed bag of ups and downs, although Stricker was almost out of golf in 2005 before he made the huge turnaround that caused all the confusion.

A resident of Wisconsin who played college golf for the University of Illinois, Stricker is all-Midwest. Or, as Woods once said of his close friend: “You will never meet a nicer guy than ‘Stricks.’ ’’

Some might say talented, too. Or at least that was the tagline when Stricker first hit the PGA Tour back in 1994. After a couple of runner-up finishes, Stricker won the Kemper and Western opens in 1996, had a couple of more second places, and then won again in 2001 when he captured the WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship over little-known Pierre Fulke.

There had been other signs of greatness along the way, like in 1998 when Stricker lost a close encounter to Vijay Singh in the PGA Championship, and back-to-back fifth-place finishes in the 1998 and ’99 U.S. Opens.

But in 2003, Stricker’s game turned as cold as a Wisconsin winter. He finished 189th on the money list and the following year lost his three-year exemption from the Match Play by doing no better than No. 151 on the money list.

“There was a point, a few years ago, where I actually didn’t know whether I could do this anymore,’’ said Stricker, who had played his best golf with wife Nicki as his caddie before the Strickers had their first child in 1998.

“Then I realized it was what I do, and what I wanted to do.’’

Standing at the crossroads, Stricker revamped his game and hired a close friend, Tom Mitchell, to be his caddie. The results were not instantaneous, but by 2006 his game was starting to come around again, with a tie for sixth at the U.S. Open and a tie for seventh at the PGA Championship — the only two majors he was eligible for that season.

Even though he only played in 17 events that year due to his low priority rating, Stricker made the most of his opportunities by making 15 cuts and earning $1.8 million on the strength of seven top-10 finishes.

Then last season, Stricker broke through by winning the Barclays Championship and $4.6 million to go along with $3 million for a second place in the FedEx Cup chase. Unbelievably, he has risen from 337th in the world all the way to No. 3 after his runner-up finish to Daniel Chopra in this season’s Mercedes Championship. And it took him just a little more than two years.

“It was such a long time between wins,’’ Stricker said of his rise and fall and rise again. “That definitely was the highlight of my career (winning the Barclays), and my wife and I, we still can’t believe it.’’

Apparently his fellow players have had a hard time understanding it, too. Like Woods, who quipped after his buddy’s big season, “Stricks should win comeback (player) of the year again.’’

And darn if he didn’t.

Steve Stricker’s year-by-year earnings

2008 $838,688*

2007 $4,663,077

2006 $1,811,811

2005 $397,640

2004 $440,906

2003 $150,590

2002 $789,713

2001 $1,676,229

2000 $418,780

1999 $662,461

1998 $1,313,948

1997 $167,652

1996 $1,383,739

1995 $438,931

1994 $334,409

1993 $46,171

1992 $5,550

1991 $0

1990 $3,974

* Through 2 events