Hlas column, with photos: Good-guy Goydos did everything at the John Deere Classic but win

SILVIS, Ill. - In my perfect world, golf's biggest star would be Paul Goydos, not Tiger Woods.

In my perfect world, the PGA Tour record-tying 59 Goydos shot in the first round of the John Deere Classic would have been the lead story in the national sports news, not the absurd LeBron-a-thon on ESPN that night.

In my perfect world, Goydos could somehow have found a few more birdies to have won the Deere Sunday. Although, repeat-champion Steve Stricker deserved his win and seems like a pretty good egg himself.

Give us more guys like Goydos, and we'll never have any trouble telling each other why sports are good. In his four days here, the 46-year-old displayed grace, sportsmanship, humility, humor, and peformance that ranged from very good to phenomenal.

Though he put his approach shot on his final hole in the pond alongside the 18th green, Goydos didn't choke this tourney away. He shot 24-under-par over four days. He made Stricker win the tourney which the pride of Wisconsin did thanks to four superb rounds of golf.

"Someone said I broke the (old 72-hole) tournament record by two shots," Goydos said.

"If you'd have told me on Thursday that I was going to have a 59 and I'm going to finish 24-under-par, I might not have even played all week. I might have just sat in the room and watched, and would have been shocked that I didn't win."

Sometimes you don't lose, you just get outscored. That was Goydos vs. Stricker. Goydos began the day six shots out of the lead, and was seven behind after Stricker birdied the first hole.

"Stricks was hard to catch," Goydos said. "I kept pushing at him, chipping at him, grinding away, biting down on him."

He closed the gap to two shots at No. 13 with the sixth of his seven birdies Sunday, but could get no closer. At the end of the day, it was Goydos' 446th career Tour event, and he still had just two wins.

His uphill walk from the 18th green to the scorer's trailer on Thursday was lined with people trading high-fives with him for his 59. The fans lined both sides of the ropes for that same walk on Sunday, but Goydos didn't have any hand-slapping left in him. He didn't win despite his fine try, and he was down about it.

These chances come along sparingly, and they always hurt when they get away.

"Part of the difficulty in dealing with that is that I thought I played pretty good," Goydos said. "I thought I competed well. I thought I did all the things I needed to do and didn't win.

"At some point in time, you've just got to tip your hat to Steve and say job well done."

Which he did. Several times, in fact.

Here's what Goydos has been best-known for in the last few years:

In 2008, he lost a playoff to Sergio Garcia at the Players Championship. In 2009, he bogeyed his last two holes and missed a playoff with eventual-winner Zach Johnson and James Driscoll at the Texas Open. This year, he had a quadruple-bogey 9 on the 14th hole on Sunday at the AT&T in Pebble Beach, falling out of the lead.

He has won twice, in 1996 in Orlando and 2007 in Honolulu. Oh, for a third. This game is hard.

But things have changed. Goydos is now known as one of the four players in Tour history to shoot a 59. That, and not the fact Stricker won, is what people will remember most about this tourney.

"Before," Goydos said, "they didn't actually look at the wins. They looked at my playoff loss against Sergio. Now they've got something else to look at."

Goydos was still doing phone interviews about his 59 on Thursday two hours before his Friday afternoon tee time.

"I did NPR," he said. "They asked me a question about politics, too, like I'm smarter now."

Sunday night, Goydos was on the Deere' chartered jet to Scotland. He became the last man in this week's British Open field by virtue of being the highest finisher here who wasn't already qualified for the British.

Playing St. Andrews for the first time, he said, "is about as cool a thing as you can do."

Shooting a 59, shooting 24-under for 72 holes, qualifying for the British Open ... "It's definitely one of the best weeks I've ever had out here without question," Goydos said.

But, in true form for someone who has missed 80 cuts for every title he has won, he added this:

"I just need to find a way to get a little better."