Associated Press
Wednesday, May 17

FORT WORTH, Texas -- Winning at Colonial Country Club provided personal validation for Olin Browne, considering he didn't start playing golf until he was in college and never really imagined what his professional career would be like.

	Browne

On the same weekend that he turned 40 last May, Browne won on the PGA Tour for the second year in a row. He made up three strokes in the final round to win the MasterCard Colonial, after winning at Hartford in 1998.

"It validated what had happened before. There are so many people who have won a tour event and then dropped off," Browne said. "I started playing golf so late, I truly never really envisioned what my career would be like."

Browne returned to Colonial this week as defending champion. His name is engraved on the Wall of Champions, right next to Tom Watson's and among the likes of Ben Hogan, Arnold Palmer, Lee Trevino and Jack Nicklaus.

That's pretty exclusive company for someone who went to Occidental College in Los Angeles in the early 1980s intending to become a marine biologist. The biochemistry classes changed his mind, and he was becoming hooked on golf.

"Some guys know early on, 'I'm going to end up in the Hall of Fame. That's my destiny.' ... guys like Tiger Woods and Phil Mickleson who were weaned on the game," said Browne, who turned pro in 1984 but is in only his seventh full season on the PGA Tour. "I was escaping reality by wanting to be a golf pro.

"By being able to come out and sustain myself out here and develop my career, it validates a lot of things I've been working on."

Browne tries this week to do what only Hogan has done: defend a title at Colonial, where at the entrance there is a statue of the man who won the event in 1946-47, 1952-53 and in 1959. There are six other two-time Colonial winners, none in consecutive years.

After another late charge last week at the Byron Nelson Classic, Woods bypassed the Colonial, about 25 miles away, to go to Germany to defend his title at the Deutsche Bank-SAP Open. That is also where Byron Nelson champion Jesper Parnevik is playing this week.

Even without the PGA's top three money winners -- Woods, Hal Sutton and Parnevik _ the 111-player Colonial field includes half of the top 10 on the money list and 16 of the top 25.

Jim Furyk, with four top-10 finishes this season, is 12th on the money list and has now made the cut in 33 consecutive tournaments. That is second only to the 48 in a row by Woods.

Since last year, all 18 greens at Colonial Country Club have been replaced and all 82 bunkers reconstructed -- some of them made deeper. But it doesn't appear much different.

"This is probably the best redesign of a classic golf course that I've ever seen, because to the uneducated eye you might not notice many changes," said Tom Kite.

Kite, who turned 50 in December and is now a full-time member on the Senior Tour, is playing only his third PGA Tour event of 2000.

"I have to direct my energy and focus to the Senior Tour, but this event has been very special to me. They gave me a sponsor's exemption when I was an amateur," said Kite, who has 19 PGA victories and more than $10.5 million.