U.S. Amateur: Doc Redman wins a stirring West Side story

PACIFIC PALISADES >> Doc Redman is the U.S. Amateur champion.

Just like Bobby Jones, Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Phil Mickelson, Mark O’Meara, Matt Kuchar, Craig Stadler and Lanny Wadkins.

And just like David Gossett, Bill Sander, John Fought, John Harris, Bubba Dickerson, and Chris Patton.

The guys on the first list are known for what they did after they won the Amateur. The guys on the second list are not. At Riviera on Sunday, Redman proved he might belong on the first list, not the second, even though it took him 37 holes on a scheduled 36-hole day to do it.

Redman, from Clemson and Raleigh, N.C., shot 5-under on the back nine in the morning round, on the half of the course that really has no birdie holes. Yet he led Doug Ghim by only one hole at the lunch break.

“It was like a chess match, a blinking contest,” Ghim said later.

Redman had putted like a laser gun all week. He rolled in a 50-footer on No. 2 to go 2-up. He also struck a tree with his second shot on No. 8 and somehow halved that hole.

But Ghim, with his dad Jeff wearing a bucket hat with the Cubs’ logo as he caddied for him, unbreakable. He led 1-up after the 13th hole.

Jordan Byrd, the assistant coach at Clemson who was Redman’s caddie, went to the 14th tee and heard a guy say, “He’s in trouble.”

“We’re not in trouble,” Byrd replied. “A lot of golf left.”

Then Ghim led 2-up after the 16th, with two to play.

“Now we were in trouble,” Byrd said.

Redman never let on. “The dude’s got a heart rate of 70,” said John Redman, his dad.

He reached the par-5 17th in two, took a look at a 60-foot eagle putt breaking left, and rolled it in.

On the 18th, which has drained the dreams of so many PGA tourists who try to win the February tournament there, Redman stepped up and drilled a 10-footer for birdie.

The playoff began at No. 10, that little slice of genius. Maybe Ghim looked too directly into the glare of that eagle-birdie finish. He finally blinked.

He snapped his drive into the left rough. When he approached where he thought the ball was, he heard a marshal say, “Show him where it is.” He interpreted that as a bad sign.

Barely able to see a dimple, Ghim gouged the shot into the bunker. On 10, that normally means you find the next bunker, and he did.

So Redman didn’t have to putt at all to become the first Clemson alum to win the Amateur since Patton in 1989.

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“He’s not a good putter, he’s a great putter,” Byrd said. “When he came on his visit, his dad left halfway through. He said Doc had been raised right and he trusted Doc to make whatever decision he wanted. Doc committed right then, as a rising junior. So it’s a special family.”

Doc is Redman’s given name. He has a sister named Karma.

No karma was involved in Doc’s putting development.  It was a three-year process, orchestrated by John, executed on N.C. State’s golf course. That was nice of the State people, John said, since Doc had no intention of going there.

“The first year we worked on hitting 1,000 putts every day in the middle of the putter face,” John said. “Didn’t matter where it went. The second year it was direction. Just hit it where you’re aiming, and do it time after time. The third year it was figuring out the stroke,. Amateurs have three strokes depending on how the putt breaks. By the end of it he was ready.

“But so much of it is attitude. He’ll call me and say he’s not putting good, not hitting it good. He understands it’s just golf. Other guys have a bad round, go to the range, call their swing coach. He just lets it go. You aren’t always going to play good.”

Doc has only confessed to nerves once. The Clemson team played Augusta National and Doc got jittery on the first tee and especially on the 16th, when he was 3-under. But he parred the final three to break 70. He and Ghim qualified to play Augusta next spring, for real.

The real priority was the U.S. Walker Cup team, which plays Great Britain and Ireland at L.A. Country Club on Sept. 9-10. Winning the Western Amateur, where Redman was four down with nine to play in the final, led to this week, and a place on the team.

But for the rest of his life Doc Redman will be the U.S. Amateur champ. That’s a fine distinction. It probably won’t be his definition.