Twenty years ago Tom Lehman nearly was fed up with competitive golf and about to pack away the clubs for good into the trunk of the car he had driven across the country from mini-tour stop to mini-tour stop.
But in 1991, at age 32, he finally gained some balance as a professional golfer when he won the Hogan Tour title and was named player of the year on the circuit one step below the PGA Tour.
On Wednesday, the Austin, Minn., native's career came full circle.
The former University of Minnesota golfer collected the Jack Nicklaus Trophy as the PGA Champions Tour's 2011 player of the year. The award is voted on by his fellow tour players.
Lehman is the first golfer to win player-of-the-year honors on the Hogan (now Nationwide), PGA (1996) and 50-and-over Champions tours.
"It's every bit as significant simply because it's a goal I set," he said. "Any time you set a goal that's a lofty goal -- and this is a lofty one because no one had done it before -- it's the culmination of a journey. It's been a lot of fun. There were no guarantees, no promises I would achieve it. It took a lot of good fortune that went in my favor."
After posting three victories in the first seven events he entered on the Champions Tour this year, Lehman went on to finish in the top 23 in all but one of the final 14 events.
He was a virtual lock to win the award and unseat 2008-10 winner Bernhard Langer after Lehman led the Champions Tour money list ($2,081,526) and won the season-long Schwab Cup points race.
