Posted on: Tuesday, August 21, 2001

Veriato no longer an unknown

By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

For the better part of the past 25 years, it had been an inside joke on professional golf tours around the world.

From Bangkok to Boston; Taipei to Toronto, Steve Veriato would go to register at a tournament and, upon hearing the name, the registrar would invariably ask, "Mr. Who?"

"At first it kind of irritated me," said Veriato, who had been a household name only in his native Hilo. "But then it became a joke."

So much so that Veriato, comfortable with having an identity in his anonymity and secure in who he was, had come to introduce and even refer to himself as "Mr. Who?"

Right up until the time he blew his cover Sunday.

In winning the Senior PGA Tour's Novell Utah Showdown in Park City, Utah, the self-described "low key guy" stepped out of the shadows and into the headlines.

Drinking champagne from the crystal championship trophy on television will do that. So will picking up a $225,000 first-place check that is 10 times your previous best take.

The walk to the winner's platform has been both a rare and circuitous one for Veriato, who was without a win on the PGA, Senior PGA, Canadian or Asian Tours, some 240 events in all over a quarter century of professional golf. Only in the Hawai'i State Open (1976 and '77) and Southern Texas Championship (1987, '88 and '94) did he walk off with the hardware.

Yet, if his resume didn't stamp Veriato as someone special, then his perseverance and courage against long odds surely have. He borrowed money and scrimped on expenses. He picked his spots and even had his wife, Karen, caddy for him. But never did he consider not following his golfing dreams.

The man who said he took his inspiration from Jimmy Ukauka, Ted Makalena, Jackie Pung and many of the institutions he grew up following in Hawai'i golf, said, "never in my heart did I want to give up."

When he failed to finish high enough in the National Qualifying School for an exempted position on the Senior Tour, he became a regular through the rigors of weekly qualifiers. The "King of the Monday Qualifiers" they called him in 1998 when he made good on eight of 13 tries.

So it was a telling scene when he saved par from the front bunker on the 18th Sunday to clinch the long-sought victory. Several other competitors and their wives came around to shake his hand, applaud his determination and toast his well-earned victory.

Long admired by his contemporaries, the man known as "Mr. Who?" is now as much a winner in performance as he has been in spirit.