How do I hold this thing?

Too often winners of PGA Tour events that take place the week before a major are forgotten as soon as they sink their final putt.

The practice of looking forward to the bigger event the following week is only natural. Four times a year, the best players in the world are (almost) guaranteed to be playing in the same place for a chance of golf immortality. Becoming a major champion is the dream of practically everyone who has ever picked up a club.

Enter Harrison Frazar. A 39 year-old PGA Tour journeyman who in his first 354 starts has sniffed the winners circle a handful of times only to come up short.

Recently in a Golf.com piece (ghost written by Alan Shipnuck) Frazar talked about the struggles of being a tour professional while also attempting to balance a family life as he spends a the majority of his professional life on the road.

He talked openly and honestly about the thoughts that creep into his head about trying to find a more stable and grounded profession that would allow him to spend the time he wants with his family. Most importantly, he wrote, was what’s the point of putting himself through the grind of week in, week out play if he has no wins to show for it?

The final question was put to rest on Sunday as Frazar defeated Robert Karlsson in sudden death to win the FedEx St. Jude Classic.

Sunday was a two-horse race with Karlsson and Frazar battling in the final group as the rest of the field played for third place. Karlsson entered the final round with a one-stroke lead, but Frazar pulled even after a birdie on the 11th hole.

Deadlocked at 14-under for the next five holes, Karlsson blinked first bogeying No. 17 giving Frazar the lead heading into the 72nd hole. However, just like a year prior, the 18th hole at TPC Southwind proved to make for great theatre.

Frazar pulled his approach shot into the left water hazard and got up-and-down for a bogey. Karlsson, needing a par to force a playoff, did not make it easy on himself. After seeing Frazar’s pull into the hazard left of the green, the Swede missed the green to the right. Choosing to putt from off the green, Karlsson rolled his birdie attempt 10 feet past the hole. He calmly sank the putt and the pair headed back to 18 for the playoff.

Exchanging pars on the 18th and 11th holes, Frazar and Karlsson came to the 12th, a 406-yard par-4. Frazar found the green on the 12th, putting himself 25 feet above the hole. He lagged his birdie putt to kick in range to put the pressure squarely on the European Tour-playing Karlsson. After he had missed the green, Karlsson had seven feet for his par, but played too much break and for the second time in two years fell finished second in Memphis.

Finally breaking through in his 355th start on Tour, Frazar didn’t quite know how to handle the festivities following the win.

“It was a whirlwind there. This was the first time… I don’t know if I’m supposed to keep the seersucker jacket. I don’t know if I’m supposed to carry the trophy. You don’t know who you’re supposed to talk to. I felt bad. I didn’t thank the sponsors. I didn’t thank FedEx. I didn’t thank the volunteers. I was not quite sure really what was happening right then.

“The only tournament that I won in Q-school, you walked in, signed your card in the scoring trailer, and they gave you a pat on the back, ‘Good job.’ You walked out the door. There was nobody there.”

Frazar was the talk of the golf world for an hour or so following his win with players and media-types alike showering support and it’s-about-time praise, but after the initial aura wore off, everyone moved onto US Open chatter.

And thus continues one of the biggest screw jobs in professional golf. Three times a year, winners of the tournaments preceding the Masters, US Open and British Open are congratulated and promptly forgotten.

That is, of course, unless it is someone who is a perennial favorite going into a major such as Lee Westwood, who won the St. Jude last year or Phil Mickelson who won the Shell Houston Open prior to the Masters this year. For them, it’s seen as a building block and more reason why they will play well the following week.

However, in the two days following Frazar’s win, he has hardly been mentioned by pundits and experts on the Golf Channel or ESPN. In a year when there have been so many first time winners on Tour and with “parity” being the hot button word for the post-Tiger scandal era on tour, why couldn’t a guy like Frazar put together two good weeks?

Of course, the lack of notoriety isn’t something that is causing Frazar to lose sleep at night. Frazar has accrued nearly $10.5 million in his career, including just under 1/10th of that this past week. Frazar will gain entry into the Masters in 2012 as well as the Tournament of Champions that kicks off the PGA Tour season.

More importantly for Frazar, though, is the fact that with the win, he gains a two-year exemption on the PGA Tour meaning that story he wrote about walking away from golf might have become a more difficult decision.

Frazar will be teeing up this week at the US Open, kicking off the tournament in the opening group at 7 a.m. along with Chad Campbell and Marc Turnesa.