Big Time or Bust

By Alan Shipnuck

It's 6:30 a.m. in Stillwater, Okla. -- do you know where your golf prodigy is? In the case of Casey Wittenberg, that would be in the weight room beneath the Oklahoma State football stadium, where right now he is pushing heavy metal in the company of a handful of behemoth offensive linemen. On this March morning a thunderstorm is drenching Stillwater. It's the perfect weather to persuade a 19-year-old kid to sleep in, but Wittenberg arrived early for his workout, as he always does. A few nights ago he stayed up until 2:30 a.m., goofing around with his buddies, as a freshman is wont to do, but less than four hours later he was in the weight room.

Wittenberg says that he's learned a lot from his 2003 experiences. Keith Srakocic/AP

These mandatory early mornings are a foundation of the Oklahoma State golf factory, but while his teammates shuffle around in various states of glassy-eyed somnolence, Wittenberg radiates intensity. After he grunts through the weight work, it's time to run on an indoor oval, 10 hard minutes sprinting the straightaways and walking the turns. As his teammates scamper off, Wittenberg slouches against a wall for a few beats, giving them a head start. When the 10 minutes are up, he is well ahead of the pack, as usual, earning a knuckle-bump from Oklahoma State's strength and conditioning coach, John Stemm. "He wants to be in top shape because Augusta is a very tough course to walk," says Stemm.

Next week Wittenberg will be prowling the hills of Augusta National as the youngest player in the Masters field, just as last fall he was the youngest member of the U.S. Walker Cup team that played in North Yorkshire, England. He earned his ticket to Augusta -- and to the U.S. Open in June -- by reaching the final match of the 2003 U.S. Amateur, where, at 18 years and eight months, he had a chance to become the second-youngest champion in history, behind Tiger Woods. Many players have a Eureka! moment following their victory in the Amateur semifinals when they realize that, regardless of what happens in the final, they're going to Augusta. "I didn't even think about it," says Wittenberg, who is disarmingly frank. "All I was thinking about was taking care of business in the final match." (He lost in a taut playoff to Nick Flanagan.)

O.K., but you're thrilled to be going to Augusta, right?

"This one tournament is not going to make or break my career," he says. "I see it as a good chance to measure myself against the best players in the world, and to find out what I need to work on."

Clearly Wittenberg considers this Masters not a once-in-a-lifetime occasion but merely the first of many such appearances. Those close to him even raise the unthinkable possibility that he might earn a lifetime invitation while still a teen. "Casey's looking for something a lot bigger than making the cut," says his older brother, Witt, a senior at Ole Miss. "In his heart he believes he's good enough to win."

Says Casey, "Why set limits? My goal is to go down there and play the best golf I can. If I do that, you never know what can happen."

There hasn't been a collegian this earnest about succeeding at the next level since Justin Leonard was at Texas wearing slacks in tournaments to replicate PGA Tour conditions while his bemused teammates all cooled out in shorts. Leonard carried the nickname Pro; among his teammates, Wittenberg answers to Big Time. But while Leonard was celebrated for his singlemindedness, Wittenberg's grim determination and bulletproof confidence on the course have played to mixed reviews.

Though he is only 5'7", Wittenberg loomed large at the '03 Amateur. He arrived at storied Oakmont Country Club as the top-ranked amateur in the country and strode the fairways hiding behind mirrored sunglasses as if they were the tinted windows of a limousine. Wittenberg is a handsome kid, his most prominent feature the granite chin of an action-movie star. With his hat pulled low, glasses on and chin out, he presented an intimidating visage, and an easy target. After Wittenberg had a showy moment of youthful exuberance in a quarterfinal match against 50-year-old George Zahringer, the NBC announcing team spent the better part of three days commenting on what they perceived to be his cockiness and aloof manner.

All that chatter followed Wittenberg to North Yorkshire's Ganton Golf Club for the Walker Cup. There he found himself in the crosshairs of the Fleet Street rowdies who are always on watch for Ugly Americanism. At the end of a contentious U.S. loss, The Daily Telegraph opined that Wittenberg had "the disposition of someone with a terminal toothache" and that "his blank expression reminds you of a magistrate listening to some desperate excuse from a speeding motorist." These were among the kinder clippings, all of which Wittenberg saved for fuel.

After his turbulent summer Wittenberg knows that his game isn't the only thing that will be scrutinized at the Masters. "I know I'm watched, I know I'm judged," he says. "I'm a 19-year-old kid, and I'm not supposed to have accomplished some of the things that I have. So people are paying attention to what I do, but I'm comfortable with that."

Wittenberg is clearly ready for stardom. The question remains, Is the golf world ready for him?

Wittenberg grew up in Memphis surrounded by the game. The family's home course was the TPC of Southwind, site of the Tour's annual FedEx-St. Jude Classic. Casey's father, Jimmy, was a graduate of the Tour's Q school in 1974, part of a class that included Fuzzy Zoeller, Bill Rogers, Roger Maltbie and Bobby Wadkins. Jimmy knocked around the Tour for three years but gave it up for a more stable life as a homebuilder. (He now owns his own company.)

Casey and Witt grew up competing against their father, the kids teaming together as a best-ball twosome. "The matches were always the talk of the dinner table," says Jimmy.

Casey's competitive drive, and his toughness, were also shaped by having a brother four years his senior. "He always insisted on playing sports with me and my friends," says Witt. "And we didn't take it easy on him."

As Casey grew more serious about golf, he took on another role model -- David Gossett, the 1999 U.S. Amateur champ who is now in his fourth year on Tour. The Gossetts lived only a couple of miles from the Wittenbergs, and David also played out of Southwind. "I remember him always wanting to have putting contests on the practice green," says Gossett. "He was a feisty kid. I like him -- I always have. He's got fight."

Casey took note when Gossett moved to Bradenton, Fla., to enroll at the ultraexclusive David Leadbetter Academy, a boarding school-boot camp for golf prodigies. Wittenberg visited the Academy while in junior high and enrolled there as an eighth-grader. "I thrived on the competitiveness of the environment, the competitiveness of the other athletes," says Wittenberg. His game was further refined by Leadbetter and his disciples. His textbook form now produces ball striking that's straighter than six o'clock, but Wittenberg is not just a driving-range automaton. "He has all the shots," says Zahringer, a Walker Cup teammate. "He's very creative, and his short game is out of sight."

Wittenberg's Oklahoma State roommate and best friend, Tyler Leon, says, "He always pulls off the shot or makes the putt when he absolutely has to. His mental toughness is pretty incredible."

Wittenberg showed no fear as a 17-year-old when he received a sponsor's exemption into the 2002 FedEx and missed the cut by just a stroke. Last summer he went to another level, winning the Southern Amateur with a final-round 64 that included an eagle-birdie-par finish. The following week he won the prestigious Porter Cup, becoming the event's youngest champion since 1978, when he shot a tournament-record 14-under 266 (64-67-69-66).

Just as striking as Wittenberg's scores was his clinical approach to the game, including an on-course manner that some see as aloof but NBC's Gary Koch called "robotic." Says Jimmy Wittenberg, who doubles as his son's caddie, "Since Casey started playing, I've talked a lot about not showing emotion, especially negative emotion. If the other guy is banging his driver on the ground, good, that means he's beat."

The squawking about Casey's 'tude began at last year's U.S. Amateur during his quarterfinal match against Zahringer, a fixture on the amateur circuit. The match was all square on the par-3 13th. Wittenberg was facing a frighteningly fast downhill 20-footer with six feet of break for birdie. With his ball halfway to the cup, Wittenberg began backpedaling in excitement. At six feet from the hole he was so sure the ball was going in that he turned and began walking off the green toward the next tee. He never saw the putt drop. (Jimmy retrieved the ball from the cup.) This act of hubris was replayed repeatedly on the telecast. As it unfolded live, NBC's Dan Hicks said, "That's an example of that confidence. That went over the line."

"That's cocky," said Koch.

Wittenberg was in the 14th fairway when Koch revisited the postbirdie strut. "Guys don't like that, I'm going to tell you," he said. "It's one thing if a guy makes a nice putt and beats you on a hole, but don't give me the showmanship as well." (Koch parroted the criticism the following day, when the replay of the putt was shown yet again.)

Wittenberg remains baffled about all the hoopla created by that one spontaneous reaction. "My dad's been on me about my attitude and on-course demeanor ever since I started playing," he says. "He's my harshest critic, and he didn't say anything [about what happened at 13]. George didn't say anything. We're good friends and still write each other all the time. Obviously he wasn't upset. It really wasn't a big deal. One person blew it into something really big. I guess he had to have something to talk about. But I saw Gary Koch shoot 62 the other day [on the Champions tour], and he didn't smile once. Should I go on TV and rip him for it?"

Zahringer, a soft-spoken investment banker, is supportive of Wittenberg -- to a point. "In the course of the match, it was a nonevent," he says. "It didn't bother me at all. As a competitor I understood the emotion of the moment. But Casey has to realize the public interprets things differently."

Wittenberg was again cast as the heavy in the Amateur's championship match against Flanagan, an unknown 19-year-old Australian. In what seems like a Hollywood embellishment, Flanagan's dad is a coal miner who was following his son's progress at home on the Internet. NBC shamelessly milked the storyline, repeatedly reminding viewers of Wittenberg's Leadbetter Academy background, adding a class-war twist to David vs. Goliath.

"That was a bunch of hooey," says Jimmy Wittenberg. "They played up the the coal-mining angle, but Nick Flanagan has been groomed by the Australian Golf Federation. They pay his expenses, and he doesn't go to school at all. Yet Casey's the spoiled one with all these advantages? Come on."

Wittenberg was in the spotlight again two weeks later at the Walker Cup. Tired from his whirlwind summer, he was not at the top of his game, particularly in a crucial singles loss to crafty 42-year-old Gary Wolstenholme, who birdied four holes in a row on the back nine to roar to a 3-and-2 win. "On the 10th hole Casey didn't hit his best shot and he swished his club" -- that is, banged it on the turf -- "and it was not construed as a proper thing to do," says Wolstenholme, who famously defeated Tiger Woods in singles at the 1995 Walker Cup. "A few holes later he walked off the green and headed toward the next tee while I was still putting. A comment was made by a member of the gallery and Casey came back to watch the putt. It was simply frustration on his part, and it was understandable given the situation. It certainly had no effect on me or the match, but it was not greeted favorably by the spectators or by Peter Alliss on the BBC.

"Casey's a good kid, but he gives off an air of being implacable. People like to see someone like that knocked down a peg or two, whether that's fair or not."

Thus a transatlantic reputation was born. Looking back, Wittenberg says, "I have nothing to apologize for. I played my heart out last summer." But he also admits, "I didn't like how I came off." He is not worried about how he will be perceived at the Masters, or beyond. "I've grown up," he says. "I'm different than I was last summer."

This broader perspective comes from having left the cloistered world of the Leadbetter Academy for life at a large university. Wittenberg is studying everything from Beethoven's sonatas for a classical music course to the reproductive cycle of fruit flies for Entomology 101. His girlfriend of nearly a year, Austin Varner, also helps him stay grounded. It is a reminder of Wittenberg's youth that she is still in high school back in Memphis. (An honor student and standout cross-country runner, Varner will attend Southern Methodist or Texas in the fall.)

"On the course Casey is so serious, but there's a whole different side to him," says Varner. "He has a big personality and a great sense of humor." According to Varner, "We talk all the time, and never about golf. He's not obsessed with the game."

Of course, in a brown paper bag next to the TV in his messy dorm room are a pile of videotapes of Masters past, going as far back as 1960. Wittenberg has been doing his homework. It is a measure of Wittenberg's sophistication that he is hoping to play with David Toms, a friend of the family whose brand of ball control Wittenberg can relate to. But Toms is eager to instruct him on more than simply the quirks of Amen Corner. Of Wittenberg's walk-off birdie at the Amateur, Toms says, "I would never even think to do something like that, but I guess that's the new generation. It's a different attitude. There are other things. I'd take the sunglasses off once in a while, but maybe I'm old school."

Wittenberg is not. He's part of a golfing generation raised on Woods's fist-pumps and celebrating Ryder Cup teams that dance across opponents' putting lines, with a competitive edge sharpened at hypercompetitive junior tournaments and exclusive golf factories. Don't expect Wittenberg to be awed by the Masters' hoary traditions, or to play with anything less than his usual intensity.

"I'm a confident kid, definitely," he says. "I think you need that confidence to succeed, and my goals are very high. I want to be the Number 1 player in the world. All of this" -- Koch's zingers, the Walker Cup brouhaha, predawn workouts, a first Masters -- "is part of the learning curve."

Issue date: April 6, 2004