Speaking in his role as Setanta Golf analyst during the Zurich Classic of New Orleans, Jay Townsend expressed little sympathy for the 48-year-old's choke at the final two holes of the US Masters in Augusta.
When he didn’t play the US Open, that was a decision that I understood. He was 47, it is a 36-hole one-day qualifying tournament, on a golf course that he did not have much history on. He also didn’t play the PGA because he scratched his eye.
By the time the Open championship came around, however, he had already qualified for it. I have a problem with that – he is disrespecting golf by not playing, If you don’t respect the game, it is difficult to pull for a man like that. The Open championship is the best tournament in the world. He didn’t play it, and I am not going to let him off the hook for that.
He is now concentrating on his target of winning 20 Tour events by the time he reaches the age of 50, which would give him a lifetime exempt status on the PGA Tour. It is a pretty lofty goal – he would have to win seven events in the next 18 months.
But it is possibly attainable, as he has won a lot of tournaments in the last two years. I think also that part of the reason he is playing so well so late in career is that he is setting himself those goals.
In Augusta, he really would have felt that he lost the Masters. And it was him losing it, as he bogeyed the last two holes and then failed in the play-off.
But it probably was important for him to come out and play immediately [Perry hit a three-under-par 69 in the opening round of the Zurich Classic of New Orleans.]
If he sat at home, he might have started thinking about what could have been, should have been, might have been. He said in his pre-tournament interview that he did not know what it would be like, to play again so soon after a tournament. He would have feared getting off to a bad start, and that the weight of the Masters loss would fall in on him.