"IF YOU LIKE GOLF"
weekly online golf column
by
Chris Dortch

April 12, 2005

Luke List’s strong showing at The Masters surprised no one who has seen the former Baylor and current Vanderbilt star play. For those who hadn’t seen him play before last week, well, remember the name. You’ll hear from him again, and soon.

List’s tie for 33^rd at Augusta was his coming out party if you will, his declaration that he had the game and the guts to play on golf’s greatest stage. List’s scores of 77-69-78-70, shot amid the pressure of his first Masters and the hassle of rain delays the first two rounds, validated his game and perhaps trumpeted the arrival of another young star. It is precisely because of players like List that Tiger Woods keeps tinkering with his swing. All the better to hold off the young lions who would seek to wrest his stranglehold on the game away.

“What Luke did at Augusta shows that what a lot of people suspected about this kid was true,” said Vanderbilt golf coach Press McPhaul. “It’s confirmation that the secret you knew, and nobody else did, is out of the bag. Everybody knows it now. Luke List has a gift.”

King Oehmig, List’s coach at Baylor, knew all about his former player’s talent. What struck Oehmig as he watched List last week was a trait that only the great players have.

“As his father, Mark, said, ‘He played in peace,’ ” Oehmig said. “He looked like he belonged.”

One of List’s first- and second-round playing partners, PGA Tour veteran Tim Herron, echoed that sentiment to the media. And even List, never one to overstate his own accomplishments, was moved to agree.

''I believe I can make a living doing this and can win the green jacket one day,” List told the Tennessean.

No one who knows List and his game doubt that could happen. McPhaul thinks List has the tools for PGA Tour success. He just hopes that success is a couple more years away.

“I absolutely was not surprised by how Luke played in the Masters,” McPhaul said. “No. 1, there’s no underestimating the value of having already played in a major [List played in the 2003 U.S. Open]. That arena wasn’t completely new to him.

“No. 2, he can hit it nine miles like the rest of the field, but he’s also got tremendous hands around the greens. He’s got great feel. He can open up a wedge off a tight lie—hit a lob wedge off concrete. Those same hands are what enable him to draw a 3-wood or hit a low 9-iron. He can hit all the shots.

“He’s also got a lot of vision. He’s a self-professed golf junkie. If he’s not playing or practicing, he’s reading about golf or watching it on TV. He follows golf. He’s got tremendous energy for it. He also knows what he wants to accomplish. His parent both being college swimmers, they instilled in him the value of hard work and being competitive.”

How competitive was List at Augusta? His numbers tell the tale. Consider his scoring averages versus the rest of the field. List averaged 3.12 strokes on the par 3s (counting a bad-break first-round double bogey when his tee shot at No. 16 hit the pin and rolled into the water), the rest of the field 3.27. List played the par 4s in an average of 4.15 strokes, the field 4.27. List’s length served him well on the par 5s, which he played in 4.88. The field averaged 5.00.

Taking these statistical comparisons a step farther, List’s performance stacked up favorably against that of Woods, who won his fourth green jacket. Driving distance can be deceiving, because it’s measured on just two holes, so we can throw out the fact List averaged 305.88 yards off the tee to Woods’ 292.38. But List’s 365-yard tee shot at No. 14 (compared to Woods’ 315-yard shot on the same hole) clearly shows that List won’t be intimidated off the tee by anyone.

Driving accuracy was another strength of List’s last week. He hit 75 percent of his fairways, Woods just 57 percent. The difference in their scores can be summed up with one statistic: Woods hit 75 percent of greens in regulation, List just 57 percent.

That number makes List’s performance all the more impressive.

“I was taken by his poise, by the purity of his swing, his length, but most of all by his short game,” Oehmig said. “He hit five greens on Thursday—and had 77. It could easily have been 83. I was taken by his putting. What was he after 54 holes? Ranked No. 2 or No. 3 in putting for the whole tournament? Unreal!”

List will have another opportunity to showcase his skills to a wide audience in June, when he tees it up at the U.S. Open at Pinehurst. That will be his fourth major championship (counting the U.S. Amateur, which narrowly lost last year to Ryan Moore) before his junior year in college.

Few players get that sort of big-stage training so young. And fewer still take as much advantage as List did at Augusta, which hasn’t seen the last of him.

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