Maybe Mid-Amateur title was in the stars for Floyd

By Richard Skinner, Post assistant sports editor

Looking back, Jeff Floyd says it was probably a premonition that he play golf, but he didn't realize it would be about 20 years before he heeded that premonition.

Floyd, 33, won the Northern Kentucky Mid-Amateur in a one-hole playoff over Rob Clarke on Sunday at Highland Country Club.

Floyd didn't even begin playing the game until his senior year in college at age 22, even though he grew up in a family of golfers. ''My mom went into labor with me on the practice range,'' Floyd said.

A near drowning accident as a child in North Carolina made his parents decide to get him swimming lessons, and as a result, Floyd turned to that sport growning up, eventually landing a scholarship to Indian River Community College in Ft. Pierce, Fla., and then to Ohio University, where he graduated. It was in his senior year at Ohio that Floyd turned to golf.

''I just wanted to play something after my swimming career was over for the competitiveness of it,'' Floyd said.

''My father saw I took a real interest in it and he got me five good lessons that really helped me take off. I had a little success and just got addicted to it.''

He's had a pretty impressive resume over the last years. He finished third in the Kentucky Tournament of Champions in Louisville in late May, behind only winner Jim Volpenhein and former U.S. Mid-Amateur champion Spider Miller. Floyd, who has lived in Northern Kentucky for 5 1/2 years and plays out of Triple Crown, reached the championship flight of the Northern Kentucky Amateur in 1997, losing to Barry Wehrman, and advanced to the final round in 1996, finishing eighth.

Floyd's quest for the Mid-Amateur title began well with a course-record 6-under-par 64 in Saturday's first round.

He began to struggle though on the back nine in Sunday's second and final round and saw his lead shrink to one stroke with one hole left when Clarke made back-to-back birdies and Nos. 16 and 17, while Floyd made bogey-par.

Then on No. 18, a par-4, Floyd put his second shot about 25 feet from the hole and Clarke put his about 20 feet from the hole. Thinking a two-putt would be good enough to hold on for victory, Floyd lagged his putt about four feet from the hole, but Clarke proceeded to make his birdie putt.

''I couldn't believe all of a sudden I had to make that putt to force a playoff,'' Floyd said.

Floyd then parred the playoff hole, while Clarke made bogey.