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

May 2, 2006

Luke List is going to be on the other side of the fairway this summer.

Coming off a first-team All-SEC season during which he won three times and piled up seven top-10 finishes, List is one tournament away—the NCAA Championships—from finishing off his junior season at Vanderbilt. And once he’s taken care of business on the course, he’ll get a crash course (sorry, couldn’t resist) on golf from a different perspective. List, who plans on graduating from Vanderbilt in May 2007, will intern this summer with the Tennessee Golf Association. His duties will run the gamut, from working junior clinics to running The Honors Course/Council Fire Pro-Am in Chattanooga.

List is also assisting in Vanderbilt’s search for a golf coach to replace Press McPhaul, who couldn’t resist an offer to return to his native North Carolina and take over the East Carolina program. List has sat in on interviews of the four candidates seeking to replace McPhaul. Vanderbilt administrators would do well to listen to List’s input.

Could List be setting himself up for a fallback gig just in case the pro golf thing doesn’t work out? Maybe, but no one who knows List thinks for a second he’s not destined for a career on the PGA Tour.

He’ll get another taste of what his future could be like next month, when he takes advantage of a generous sponsor’s exemption and plays in the Nationwide Tour’s Chattanooga Classic for the second time. Though he’s played in two U.S. Opens and a Masters, List brings the proper reverence to the Nationwide Tour, which has become a proving ground for young pros and a midway stopover for veterans biding their time until the Champions Tour.

The guys out there can play, as List knows only too well.

“When I played in [the Chattanooga Classic] two years ago, I shot one under and still missed the cut by four,” List said. “There are some great players out there, and I just want to watch them do their jobs, learn from them as much as I can. I want to do this for a living. So any time I can feel what it’s like being inside the ropes, that’s got to help me.”

Not that List has forsaken amateur golf. Far from it, though his TGA internship will eat into his tournament schedule a bit this summer.

List has his eye on a prize that eluded him last summer. Despite a solid resume, List wasn’t asked to play for the U.S. Walker Cup team. Though he was chosen first alternate, List couldn’t have been farther removed from the action—“somebody would have had to have died,” he said—or more disappointed.

Though the Walker Cup team is largely chosen on the strength of a player’s accomplishments in the year the event is played, List is nevertheless using 2006 as a springboard to ’07, when the matches will be played again, in Ireland.

Next month, List and his family will head to Scotland, where List will join seven other American college stars against their European counterparts in the Palmer Cup. The matches are set for historic Prestwick Golf Club in Prestwick, Scotland.

“That’s going to be a great time,” List said. “My parents are going over and we’re trying to get my grandfather to come. We’re hoping to stay over three or four extra days so we can get to St. Andrews and play. I’m really looking forward to it.”

List’s play in the Palmer Cup will prove he’s capable of playing in high-level team competition. And the USGA will see plenty more of him this summer when he plays in the U.S. Amateur and the U.S. Public Links. List will also try to qualify for the U.S. Open. If he makes it, that would be his second straight trip to the national championship. He played at Pinehurst last year, acquitting himself well despite a poor first round.

In between playing golf and his internship, List will also continue to work on his game. If the shots he hit at the Chattanooga Classic’s media day earlier this week were any indications, his work with Atlanta teaching professional Danny Elkins is starting to pay dividends. List, whose stock in trade has been a draw, has put in a lot of time learning to move the ball the other way. He’s also worked on trajectory, in particular a knockdown shot with all his clubs. His 310-yard, low-boring drive into the teeth of a two-club wind at Black Creek’s fourth hole would have made Elkins proud.

“It’s a process,” List said. “You’ve got to be prepared for anything out there. I want to be able to hit all the shots. The best players in the world can hit any shot under any situation.”

If things go the way List wants them, he’ll earn All-American honors after the NCAAs, enjoy another good summer in USGA competition, learn a little bit about the business side of the game and then settle in for his senior year at Vanderbilt. Then comes a final year of college golf, followed by one last summer of amateur competition.

“Next year is the year,” he said. “I’m going to try and do everything I can to get named to the Walker Cup team. That would really cap [his amateur career] off. To go over there and win the cup for the United States, that would be a great way to end it for me.”

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