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EXEMPT STATUS: Winner, 1996 British Open (through 2006)
FULL NAME: Thomas Edward Lehman
HEIGHT: 6' 2"
WEIGHT: 190
BIRTHDATE: March 7, 1959
BIRTHPLACE: Austin, MN
RESIDENCE: Scottsdale, AZ; plays out of Desert Mountain GC
FAMILY: Wife, Melissa; Rachael (5/30/90), Holly (8/13/92), Thomas Andrew (7/24/95)
COLLEGE: University of Minnesota
SPECIAL INTERESTS: Hunting, church activities
TURNED PROFESSIONAL: 1982
PGA TOUR VICTORIES: (5) 1994 Memorial Tournament. 1995 Colonial National Invitation. 1996 British Open Championship, THE TOUR Championship. 2000 Phoenix Open.
BUY.COM TOUR VICTORIES: (4) 1990 Reflection Ridge. 1991 Gulf Coast Classic, South Carolina, Santa Rosa Open.
INTERNATIONAL VICTORIES: 1993 Casio World Open (Jpn). 1997 Loch Lomond World Invitational (Eur)
BEST 1999 PGA TOUR FINISH: 2--Bay Hill Invitational, Greater Milwaukee Open; T2--FedEx St. Jude Classic, Buick Open; 5--Greater Greensboro Chrysler Classic.
1999 SEASON:Made successful return to form from off-season shoulder surgery...on Nov. 30, 1998, doctors smoothed end of collarbone and removed bone spurs...made return to TOUR at World Golf Championships-Andersen Consulting Match Play Championship where he lost to Scott Verplank 3&1 in the first round...in third start back, opened Bay Hill Invitational with rounds of 69-68-66 to stand one off Tim Herron and Davis Love III?s 54-hole lead...closing 71 produced tie with Herron, who birdied second extra hole to win their playoff...rounds of 69-68-69- 69 produced second top-10 of season, fifth-place finish at Greater Greensboro Chrysler Classic...held share of first-and third-round leads at FedEx St. Jude Classic following rounds of 63-68-68...third consecutive 68 produced T2, two strokes behind Ted Tryba...finish came despite fact flu-like symptoms hit him Friday...rounds of 68-67-65-66 led to third runner-up placing of season, two strokes behind Carlos Franco at Greater Milwaukee Open...rounds of 67- 69-64 produced four-stroke third-round lead at Buick Open...closing 71 left him in three-way tie for second, one stroke behind Tom Pernice, Jr. for his fourth runner-up finish of season...Captain?s Choice for Ryder Cup team...had record of 2-1-0 at Brookline...along with Payne Stewart and Mark O?Meara, represented United States in Dunhill Cup...finished in top-30 of money list for sixth consecutive year.
CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: PGA TOUR Player of the Year in 1996...leading money-winner with then-record $1,780,159...first victory that year came at British Open at Royal Lytham and St. Annes...after consecutive 67s, shared 36-hole lead with Paul McGinley...followed with a course-record 64 in third round to lead Nick Faldo by six strokes and his closing round 73 was enough for a two-stroke victory over Ernie Els and Mark McCumber...first American professional to win at that venue and the first since Bobby Jones in 1926...closed out year with dominant performance at TOUR Championship...after sharing first-round lead with Vijay Singh at 66, shot 67 to open a four-stroke margin after 36 holes...led by nine after bogey-free 64, eventually winning by six over Brad Faxon...540,000 first place check was largest of his career...failed to win in 1997 but came close twice...tied with Tiger Woods after 54 holes at the Mercedes Championship and after final round was cancelled, the two played off at the par-3 seventh hole...after hitting his tee shot in the water, Woods hit to inside of foot of hole and tapped in for victory...at U.S. Open, water at 71st hole kept him from chance at victory...finished third, two strokes behind Ernie Els...joined Bobby Jones as only player to lead U.S. Open after three rounds three straight years...with tie for fourth at 1997 MCI Classic, moved into first place on Official World Golf Ranking...only second player from U.S. to lead World Ranking at the time, following Fred Couples, who led for 15 weeks in 1992...relinquished spot the next week when Greg Norman was second at Spanish Open... best outing of 1998 came in March at THE PLAYERS Championship where rounds of 72- 70-70-68 produced a T2 and a check for $352,000...claimed a solo third place finish at the Buick Classic and was a T5 at the U.S. Open, his third straight top five finish in the event, despite roller coaster rounds of 68-75-68-75 at the Olympic Club...did not make the cut at the British Open after suffering a separated right shoulder just prior to the event while on a family outing in England...was attempting a handstand for his children when the mishap occurred and played with the injury the remainder of the year before undergoing surgery in November in the Los Angeles area...first served notice of things to come with breakthrough 1994 season that included his first TOUR victory at Memorial Tournament...four consecutive 67s produced tournament-record 268 and five-stroke victory over Greg Norman at the event...that win helped him secure first $1 million season on TOUR...earlier that year was runner-up to Jose Maria Olazabal at Masters...earned second win at 1995 Colonial National Invitation...trailed Craig Perry by two strokes after opening 67-68-68...caught Perry with birdie at 12th hole and secured win with birdies on 17 and 18...opened that season with second place at United Airlines Hawaiian Open...after MCI Classic, missed a month of the season due to colon surgery...third at U.S. Open after sharing 54-hole lead with Greg Norman...after three lukewarm seasons on TOUR from 1983-85, played in Asia, South Africa and elsewhere for the rest of the 1980s...used Ben Hogan Tour (now BUY.COM TOUR) as road back to PGA TOUR...won once on the Hogan Tour in 1990 and three times in 1991 when he was that Tour?s top money-winner and Player of the Year...In first year back on PGA TOUR in 1992 was 24th on money list with nine top 10 finishes, including T2 at Hardee?s Golf Classic...tied for third at 1993 Masters...teamed with Duffy Waldorf to win back-to-back Diners Club titles in 1995-96...teamed with Fred Couples and Phil Mickelson to win 1997 Wendy?s Three-Tour Challenge...member of the Ryder Cup teams in 1995, 1997 and 1999.
PERSONAL:Credits marriage with giving him focus to do well on TOUR...is host of Dayton?s Challenge, annual charity event in Minneapolis that raises money for Children?s Cancer Research Fund...brother, Jim Lehman, Jr., is his agent...Honorary Chairman for PGA of America?s National Golf Day in 1997...his wife, Melissa, was enlisted as his caddy at 1998 Nissan Open when regular caddy Andy Martinez suffered two broken ribs in a pickup basketball game the night before the start of the event...went to a lighter carry bag instead of the heavier TOUR version.
NATIONAL TEAMS: The Presidents Cup (2), 1994, 1996; Ryder Cup (3), 1995, 1997, 1999; World Cup, 1996; Dunhill Cup, 1999
MONEY AND POSITION: $843,650 (5)
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Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
(SOME BACKGROUND)
� ECHO opens up another new chapter for a group whose body of work spans three decades. Not many artists can match Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers' record of 23 years of commercial success along with a simultaneous period of creative growth and critical acclaim.
� Beyond the recent boxed set Playback, the band's previous recordings also continue to resonate with Greatest Hits, a quadruple-platinum album which hasn't left the Billboard charts once since its release in late 1993. One of the two newly recorded tracks for the album was the hit song and video "Mary Jane's Last Dance," which won Best Male Video at the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards. At the ceremony, Petty was also presented with the Video Vanguard Award, citing his longtime contributions to the field.
� As a songwriter, Tom Petty was acknowledged in May 1996 with the prestigious Golden Note Award from ASCAP. Writing in the New York Times in 1995, Jon Pareles noted about Petty's songs: "They are tales of characters whose hopes are shrinking and who don't know what went wrong. Although he has been a rock hit-maker since the 1970s, Mr. Petty hasn't lost touch with the small-time life; his characters are sullen and bewildered, stubborn as well as restless. He gives them anthems like 'I Won't Back Down'; he also captures their doggedness in the face of set-backs. 'I'm learning to fly, but I ain't got wings/Coming down is the hardest thing.' And he knows that his narrators are not always nice guys; they can be selfish and oblivious, proclaiming, 'You don't know how it feels to be me.'"
� In April 1996, Petty received UCLA's George And Ira Gershwin Award For Lifetime Musical Achievement. Previous recipients of the university's award include Ray Charles and Ella Fitzgerald. Petty was the first artist of the rock era to earn this distinction. "I may not own any George and Ira Gershwin records," said Petty at the ceremony, "but I'm honored to be here and I want to thank my fans for showing up at my concerts from time to time."
� In 1999, Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers received their own star on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood, an honor that acknowledges both their musical achievements and their humanitarian involvement with such organizations as Greenpeace, the National Veteran's Foundation, USA Harvest, Rock And Wrap It Up, and AmFAR (the American Foundation for AIDS Research).
� Petty released his first album for Warner Bros. Records in late 1994. Titled Wildflowers, it went on to sell over three million copies and produced the hits "You Don't Know How It Feels," "You Wreck Me" and "It's Good To Be King." In 1996, Wildflowers earned two Grammy Awards: Best Male Rock Vocal Performance ("You Don't Know How It Feels") and Best Engineered Album (Non-Classical). The album also garnered a Grammy nomination for Best Rock Album. Other Wildflowers achievements included Tom's Best Male Video award for "You Don't Know How It Feels" at the 1995 MTV Video Music Awards.
� The tour for Wildflowers marked the biggest and most successful concert trek in the history of Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers. As part of the tour, the group performed two sold-out shows at the Hollywood Bowl, producing a record gross figure for a multi-night engagement by a single artist at the venue. According to Pollstar, the group's trek was one of the Top Ten biggest grossing tours of 1995. The group set a precedent in January 1995 when VH-1 made a limited number of the group's concert tickets available to its viewing audience before going on sale to the general public. It marked the first time concert tickets were ever made available by television, and the response was overwhelming, as viewers responded with an unprecedented 500,000 phone calls in the first fifteen minutes alone to Ticketmaster's phone lines. The headline on Tom Petty's most recent Rolling Stone cover story in 1995 noted: "Tom Petty, King Of The Road."
� Significant critical acclaim greeted the release of Wildflowers. From Newsweek's Karen Schoemer: "Wildflowers contains some of his strongest songwriting ever." Rolling Stone's Elysa Gardner: "Petty offers 15 songs that focus on the conflicting emotions of adulthood, from rueful nostalgia to cynical self-doubt to hope and yearning. (It's) evidence that this American boy is moving through middle age with all the gusto and poise that his admirers have come to expect." New York Daily News' Jim Farber: "Wildflowers finds Petty sharing more tender intimacies, and arriving at more mature conclusions, than in any work of his career." Mojo (UK)'s Bill Flanagan: "The record is the purest work Petty has ever done." USA Today's Edna Gundersen: "Wildflowers, Tom Petty's second solo album, brims with relaxed rock 'n' roll, warm humor and the wise insights of a superb songwriter who has escaped pop's teen trappings without losing his youthful zest."
� Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers-hailing from Gainesville, Florida before officially forming in Los Angeles-kicked the musical doldrums of the mid-'70s in the face with their 1976 self-titled debut album. It featured a stripped-down-but-accomplished brand of rock that blended jumpy rhythm & blues rhythms, ringing guitars and keyboards, over which Petty grabbed listeners by their throats with his disarmingly blunt lyrics and extremely direct vocal style. Still, it took America a full year to catch up to the album. "Breakdown" was re-released to radio and became a Top 40 hit in 1977 after word filtered back the band was creating a firestorm over in England. By the end of the pivotal UK trek, Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers were headlining the very same venues they played as an opening act weeks earlier.
� 1978's follow up, You're Gonna Get It!, proved the debut album's intensity was no fluke. Marking the band's first gold album, it featured the singles "Listen To Her Heart" and "I Need To Know."
� Next, in 1979, came the triple-platinum Damn The Torpedoes album-which brought Petty And The Heartbreakers superstardom and arena headlining status. This was followed by the successful and critically acclaimed Hard Promises (1981), Long After Dark (1982), Southern Accents (1985), Pack Up The Plantation-Live! (a 1985 double live set, which had a companion long form video) and 1987's Let Me Up (I've Had Enough), featuring "Jammin' Me," co-written by Bob Dylan, with whom they teamed up for a historical world tour in 1986 and 1987.
� Throughout this period of success, there were unusual twists and turns, among them disputes with MCA, his former record company. The first of these occurred as Petty tried to re-negotiate his contract when MCA purchased ABC Records (for which Petty recorded). He refused to be simply transferred to another record label without his consent. At the same time he was in litigation with MCA Records, Petty fought with his publishing company as he believed artists should own their own songwriting copyrights. Petty held fast to his principles for a long nine months and it drove him to bankruptcy; he ultimately triumphed, calling his next album Damn The Torpedoes. Petty's struggle with his publishing company earned much attention, helping other artists in their own battles to hold onto their copyrights. Next came the dispute with MCA when Petty And The Heartbreakers resisted having their Hard Promises album released at a higher "superstar product" price for customers. After threatening to withhold the LP, MCA released the album at the lower price the band wanted. A few years later another roadblock surfaced: Petty injured himself during the making of Southern Accents. Frustrated during the mixing process, he broke his left hand after punching it through a wall. In 1987, Petty tussled with a tire company which ultimately withdrew a Petty soundalike song from a TV commercial. In 1989, he threatened not to play at a concert in New Jersey when authorities refused to allow Greenpeace to set up information booths in the lobby. Petty didn't back down, but the authorities did, and the gig went on.
� In 1989, Tom Petty released his debut solo album, Full Moon Fever, produced by Jeff Lynne (his partner in the Traveling Wilburys with Bob Dylan, George Harrison and Roy Orbison) with Petty and Mike Campbell. It was in the Billboard Top Ten chart for over 34 weeks and earned triple-platinum status, along the way spawning such hits as "I Won't Back Down," "Free Fallin'" and "Runnin' Down A Dream."
� The Traveling Wilburys released two platinum albums, The Traveling Wilburys (1988) and Volume Three (1990).
� Platinum success returned in 1991 when Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers released Into The Great Wide Open (again with the Lynne/Petty/Campbell production team), from which came the singles "Learning To Fly" (some of whose bleak imagery was inspired by the Persian Gulf War) and "Into The Great Wide Open," a song that looked at the hollow core of the music biz' star-making machinery.
� 1991 also saw the release of the long-form home video Take The Highway, shot at the Oakland Coliseum in Oakland, CA and the Lawlor Events Center in Reno, NV.
� A Greatest Hits album followed in 1993, featuring the successful track "Mary Jane's Last Dance"-followed by an hour-long documentary, Tom Petty: Going Home, which aired in late 1994 on the Disney Channel.
� Tom Petty also earned a Grammy Award in 1989 for Best Rock Performance By A Duo or Group With Vocal for his work with the Traveling Wilburys. He also has been honored with 10 nominations since 1981 when he received his first nomination for his song "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" in the category of Best Rock Performance By A Duo or Group With Vocal.
� In the liner notes to Playback, Petty observed that those who know the Heartbreakers only from their hit singles may not be familiar with the range of styles they have covered, from the Beach Boys influences of tracks like "You Can Still Change Your Mind" to the Nirvana-inspired hard rock of "Come On Down To My House" to various side trips into country, blues, psychedelic and surf music. "People had a mental picture of what we should sound like and if you played them something that didn't sound like 'Refugee' or 'American Girl' or 'Even The Losers' they were puzzled," Petty reflected in the album notes. "I still go through that."
� In tandem with the release of Playback was a long-form home video of the same name that contains all of the videos by Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers. There are 17 videos here, from "Refugee" and "Here Comes My Girl" in 1979 (both created before there was MTV or any regular outlet for them) to the award-winning favorites "Don't Come Around Here No More," "Free Fallin'," "Into The Great Wide Open" (with Faye Dunaway and Johnny Depp) and "Mary Jane's Last Dance" (with Kim Basinger).
� In the Playback liner notes, Bill Flanagan noted: "Yet for all the respect and affection that comes his way, Petty has never been granted a free pass, he has never seemed to quite reach the place where his eccentricities will be automatically indulged. He has had to work very hard to stay on top. Along the way, he has built a body of work that seems more impressive with each new addition to it. He is the tortoise who finally wins the race while the hares are all relaxing and reading their press clippings."
The Heartbreakers
Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers are recognized as one of rock's premiere bands, a world-class outfit whose members are able to blend an array of musical styles and create their own distinctive sound in the process. The heartbreakers are:
MIKE CAMPBELL belongs to an elite group of musicians. As Guitar World noted, "There are only a handful of guitarists who can claim to have never wasted a note. Mike Campbell is certainly one of them." Beyond his role as the Heartbreakers' guitarist, Campbell co-produced the Echo album with Tom Petty and Rick Rubin. He also co-produced the Heartbreakers' albums Southern Accents, Pack Up The Plantation Live!, Let Me Up (I've Had Enough), Into The Great Wide Open and She's The One, as well as the Petty solo albums Full Moon Fever and Wildflowers. Outside the Heartbreakers, Campbell has co-written an array of songs including "The Boys of Summer" and "Heart of the Matter" (both with Don Henley). Other songwriting credits include songs for Roger McGuinn and Stevie Nicks. He also produced four songs on Roy Orbison's Mystery Girl album.
BENMONT TENCH is recognized as one of rock's most accomplished keyboardists. According to Keyboard magazine, "He illuminates Petty's songs with a softer lighting, revealing yet never intrusive," adding that Tench "has made himself invaluable by making himself inconspicuous. Not that nobody noticed: the Rolling Stone Record Guide described his work as "the ultimate extension of Al Kooper's playing with Bob Dylan in the mid '60s. Dylan himself, and dozens of other artists, have recruited him for sessions." Other artists whose songs he's played on include Mary Chapin Carpenter, Carlene Carter, Elvis Costello, Sheryl Crow, Bob Dylan, Don Henley, Waylon Jennings, Alanis Morissette, Roy Orbison, John Prine, Bonnie Raitt, The Ramones, The Rolling Stones, U2, Paul Westerberg and X. Benmont has also written songs for other artists, including Roseanne Cash (her #1 hit "Never Be You," co-written with Petty), Carlene Carter, Hal Ketchum and Delbert McClinton.
HOWIE EPSTEIN, one of rock's most noted bassists, joined Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers in 1982. Beyond his role in the group as a musician and a backing vocalist, his harmonies with Tom are a Heartbreakers trademark. The born-and-bred Milwaukee musician has also earned acclaim as a songwriter and a producer. He produced two albums for John Prine, including 1991's The Missing Years, which won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Recording, as well as Eric Anderson's Memory Of The Future. Epstein also produced two albums for Carlene Carter: Little Love Letters and I Fell In Love, the latter featuring his co-written title cut, nominated for "Best Female Country Vocal Performance." As a player, Epstein has been featured on songs by such artists as Bob Dylan, John Hiatt, Stevie Nicks, Roy Orbison and Del Shannon.
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