A mid-morning toast to PGA Tour rookie James Nitties, wishing him good luck at the Colonial.

Last night, George Riba did a story on the Australian. The guy is an open book, just a pleasure to listen to, and Australian to boot. He was 3-under after his first round, and tees off at 1:43 today.

A week ago, at the HP Byron Nelson Championship, Nitties was the co-leader after the first round. Photojournalist Arnold Payne and I made our way into the interview room to get some sound from the guy, whom neither of us had heard of. It was about 5:15 in the afternoon, and the producers already had the 6:00 sportscast lined up, which was not going to include a sound bite from Nitties.

As we listened to him talk, Nitties would finish an answer, and AP and I would look at each other with the "this guy is GOLD" look. When we're shooting video, if we get something that we consider great, we flip a switch to put color bars on the tape -- that makes it easier to find the good stuff when we are spinning through a tape. I think AP "color-barred" the guy four times. Between him talking about the hobbies he has listed in the PGA media guide (clubbing, girls, movies) and about his "executive decision" to cut out drinking during this 5-week span on tour, he was open and honest, understated and funny.

Maybe the most interesting thing about Nitties is the fact that he has no sponsor on his hat -- take a look at his black cap when you watch George's story. Last week it was a blank white hat he wore to the interview room. Nitties said he liked the idea of winning a tournament while wearing a hat with no sponsor (which might as well read "space for rent here" if and when he does win), but he didn't want to get a sponsor like Jim's BBQ Shop just to have one.

So here's hoping the guy continues to do well; he was ranked 56th on the money list after last week's 12th place finish at the Nelson, so he's having a pretty good rookie season so far. Every golfer who's a somebody, started as a nobody at some point.

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