It was late in the day Thursday when Gary Finau’s phone rang at his home in Salt Lake City. It was his 25-year-old son, Tony, who had just shot a 5-under 65 in the opening round of The Barclays at Plainfield Country Club.
“Man, I can’t believe this has worked, Dad,’’ the son said.
Tony Finau, a heavy favorite to win Rookie of the Year on the PGA Tour, is living the kind of improbable sporting existence that movie producers box one another out like NBA power forwards in the paint trying to land.
He enters Saturday’s third round at 6-under, one shot off of Bubba Watson’s lead, in the first of the four-tournament FedExCup playoff series that pays out $10 million to the winner. Finau already has won nearly $2 million this year.
It was with those things in mind that Gary Finau felt compelled to say this to Tony over the phone: “Son, you should be grateful to your mom.”
To properly understand the improbability of Finau’s remarkable journey is to know his mother, Vena. But Vena was killed at age 47 in a car crash late in 2011 when his sister, Nola, lost control of the family’s vehicle and rolled it while returning to Utah from a wedding in Reno, Nev. Nola and the eldest son of the seven Finau children, Kinga, survived the crash.
It was Vena Finau’s prescient vision that propelled her son Tony on this journey. It was Vena who nudged Tony and his brother Gipper into golf as a way to deter them from joining the street gangs that were infesting their Salt Lake City neighborhood.
“I think God and his mom are there with him and probably rewarding him for listening,’’ Gary Finau told The Post over the phone Friday.
After Vena Finau’s death, Gary said: “Tony and Gipper felt like that was pretty much it for them, and they didn’t want to do it anymore.
“I tried to encourage them to stick with what their mother wanted them to do.”
He told the boys that not doing so “would be worse than having your mom pass.’’
“I told them, ‘The only thing we can do is have her live again by you guys fulfilling what she wanted you kids to do.’ ’’
And so they have. Tony has flourished, becoming one of the brightest young up-and-comers on the PGA Tour. And Gipper, who is 11 months younger than Tony, is in the process of trying to qualify for the PGA Tour.
When Tony was 8, Vena urged her husband to teach the boys how to play golf.
“I hated the game,’’ Gary Finau recalled. “We were from the other side of the street. I knew nothing about golf. I didn’t know what a clubhouse was. I didn’t know what a driving range looked like.’’
There was a par-3 course called Jordan River Park near the Finau home (which since has been converted to a Frisbee golf venue), which is where Tony and Gipper learned to play. It took three years before they played an 18-hole course and were able to hit drivers, which is ironic, because Tony Finau now is one of the longest bombers off the tee on the Tour.
“My dad taught us how to play, and when I look back now, I didn’t even know he doesn’t even know how to play,’’ Tony said Friday. “It’s pretty humbling to look back and see that he was able to do that for us.’’
Finau finished tied for 14th at the U.S. Open and tied for 10th at the PGA Championship, netting him $399,935. That’s about 11 years of salary for his dad, who made $35,000 a year working in the cargo department at Delta Airlines while raising his seven children.
Gary Finau views golf a lot differently now than he did then.
“You look at Tony and see he learned the value of life playing golf,’’ he said. “Golf is such a powerful game, it makes you grow and be better. Golf now, for me, is an institution. It opened my eyes, like when you open a book and the world become so much brighter.’’
The father was at Whistling Straits to see his son play the PGA Championship three weeks ago, and that is when the magnitude of his son’s incredible story hit him. He said he was “in shock’’ seeing his son’s calm demeanor in the cauldron of major championship pressure.
“I really don’t know what to feel,’’ Gary Finau said, “because it’s so unreal.’’
That’s precisely what makes his son’s story so beautiful.