Martin Brings His Game, God

MARTIN BRINGS HIS GAME, GOD Nike Tour's cause celebre comes to town, serving as inspiration to many who share his pain. By CARL DUBOIS The Times Consider this before you approach Casey Martin: All he really wants to do right now is play golf and be a good witness for Jesus. Both are becoming more challenging every day. Martin's time management is based on this simple premise: His God is eternal, but his next tee shot could be his last. This is the thought which drives him from hole to hole, not the cart. The cart is the vehicle, not the fuel. But this is Martin's life at age 25 - press conferences, photo opportunities, questions, autographs, curiosity seekers, contractual obligations and, when time and space permit, 18 holes. Martin's next tee shot will come at Southern Trace Country Club, the site of this week's Nike Shreveport Open. In the two months since a federal court judge allowed him - under the Americans With Disabilities Act - to use a cart on the Nike Tour, Martin's life has been quite a ride. And it, like the game he loves, will never be the same. Martin suffers from Klippel-Trenaunay-Weber Syndrome, an incurable birth defect so uncommon its name is frequently misspelled in news reports. In his lower right leg, he's missing a vein critical to proper blood circulation. The undersized veins he does have wage a constant battle to carry blood back to the heart. Martin wears a tight support stocking to squeeze the blood along and keep his right leg from swelling two sizes larger than his left. His undernourished tibia is so fragile, it could snap at any time. If that happens, amputation of the right leg is almost a certainty. "Casey Martin has a window here," his surgeon, Shreveport native Dr. Don Jones, testified, "and the window gets smaller every day." At each of his stops on the Nike Tour, they have come to see Martin. Some have Klippel- Trenaunay-Weber. Some are missing limbs. Others are challenged in ways unseen. They find him. At the Greater Austin Open, a father carries his son, stricken with Klippel-Trenaunay- Weber, on his shoulders to meet Martin. Stop. Smile. Share. Next. A double-amputee, a volunteer at the Nike Louisiana Open in Broussard, asks to be photographed with Martin. Stop. Smile. Snap. Next. A casual golfer asks for an autograph on his scorecard. Stop. Smile. Sign. Next. Lafayette native Lane Wiley, 26, is missing the pinky finger on his right hand. His left arm ends just past the elbow. His right leg ends above the knee. Wiley won the first flight in the double-amputee division of the 1996 National Amputee Tournament, but he is no amputee. He was born like this. He has come to Le Triomphe Country Club in Broussard to watch Martin, to learn from him. Wiley, who has gone through four prosthetic legs since 1993 and is still searching for the right fit, thinks he might glean some insight by watching Martin, with a withered back leg, club the ball. "When he won (his first Nike event), I was so psyched I went out and shot an 82," says Wiley, who had been shooting in the low 90s in the weeks before Martin's debut. At Gator's Jaw, Le Triomphe's 13th hole, Martin uses a driver to launch a 282-yard tee shot into winds gusting from 15-20 mph. "Did you see that?" one of his amateur partners says. "Can you imagine hitting a shot like that with that wind in your face?" Wiley cannot. "I'm real surprised with how long he is off the tee," Wiley says. It's a reaction shared by many. Later, Wiley and Martin talk, away from anyone else. Neither one tells the media what they discussed. Consider Steve Burdick's view of the world. Two of his former Stanford teammates, Tiger Woods and Casey Martin, play golf professionally. Burdick works in real estate in California. At this time last year, Woods was a rookie on the PGA Tour, already anointed as one who would change golf forever. Less than a full year after Woods made the Masters his personal playground, Martin began his rookie season on the Nike Tour. He too, it has been argued, is changing golf forever - for better or worse. Burdick's friends are changing a centuries-old game. Most twentysomethings don't change anything more ancient than their hairstyles and long-distance carriers. A couple of months ago, Martin called Burdick and asked if Burdick would caddy for him for the first few stops on the Nike Tour. "It's helped tremendously to have a friend with me," Martin says. "He's a good Christian, and he's been good for me in a hectic time." Burdick saw the early wave of the media frenzy around Tiger Woods, who was a Stanford freshman in 1995, when Burdick and Martin were seniors. Burdick and Martin both wondered how one person could handle such constant scrutiny. Now it's Martin's turn to try to deal with the press. "Casey's handled it well," Burdick says. "The demands on his time are incredible. He's learning how to say no. It's hard for him. But he has to. Nobody can keep up that kind of pace forever. Everybody wants a piece of him." There were 176 members of the media a month ago at the Greater Austin Open. A year earlier, when almost nobody had heard of Casey Martin, 20 media credentials were issued for the same tournament. The requests for interviews have slowed but not stopped. Martin has made it a regular practice to hold a press conference before the start of each tournament so he won't have to deal one-on-one with a crush of reporters. Has all of the attention hurt his game? Maybe. Martin won his debut, the Nike Lakeland Classic, but failed to make the cut at the South Florida Classic, Monterrey Open and Louisiana Open. He finished 16th in Austin. The pace has made an impression upon Martin, making him more protective of his privacy. When one newspaper reporter wanted to ask him two quick questions after the Louisiana Open pro-am, Martin politely but firmly said no. Wiley, who spent two years at a golf academy in San Diego, recalls being the Flavor of the Month in that media market and community. "A TV station did a story on me," Wiley says. "After that, people came out of the woodwork. I spent time with disabled people, retarded - um, mentally challenged - and for about a month all my free time was spent as a role model. I had no time for myself. "That was one long month. I can't imagine how Casey Martin's going to deal with it for an entire year on the Nike Tour." Burdick says Martin will have to conserve his energy to fulfill his opportunity as a role model and witness for Jesus. "It's been a blessing, this chance he has," Burdick says. "He's touching a lot of lives." Through no fault of his own, Martin has touched lives of people who have never heard of him. Last month, the PGA Tour provided the media with an incorrect phone number for the Nike Louisiana Open headquarters. With interest in Martin still high, phone calls swamp the home of an increasingly impatient Cajun man who lives near Broussard. "No, this ain't the Nike Tour," the man tells a reporter calling for information. "Casey Martin ain't here. I don't know nothing about it. I don't know what it's going to take to get people to stop calling me here. This isn't even a Broussard number; this is a Youngsville number. You'd think people would know the difference." For different reasons, Martin has been just as impatient in the last few months. He says he's been misquoted by the media, and he's had to keep that in mind when he reads negative comments about himself. "It's been tough at times," Martin says. "I try to be a good witness for Jesus. It's something I think about a lot. I don't want to say the wrong things. I get frustrated sometimes and want to lash out, but I don't want to be a bad witness. I hope and pray I do a good job." He looks the part. At 6-foot-2, 170 pounds, he appears as fit as a Runner's World cover boy. With his short brown hair, smooth complexion and easy smile, he could model for L.L. Bean. His face resembles that of Chandler Bing on "Friends." In tan slacks, white golf shirt, green Nike cap and gentle manner, Martin moves through life as more check mark than swoosh. The difference is the pause at the pivot. On the golf course, Martin limps up the incline to the gold tees, a pause at every other step. Overlooking the fairway, he stands with all his weight on his straight left leg. The right leg crosses gingerly in front of the left, toe dragging, bearing no load. Based on 15-second highlight clips of Martin on sportscasts, it would be easy to assume he rides from shot to shot, standing only for the few brief seconds before each swing of the club. Wrong. Martin walks about 100 yards per hole, often up and down slopes, hills and through sand traps.

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