Caution Is One Word He’s Not Familiar With

If J. Lanston Wadkins, the golfer, had been born 100 years ago, he would have been wearing a beaver hat, a pinch-backed suit and a $20 gold piece in his watch chain. He would have been working the riverboats with his own deck and a bag of dollars. He would bet on anything. His nickname on the levees would be “Bat.”

Lanny Wadkins never said “I’ll play these” in his life. Lanny says “Hit me!” Lanny goes for the bomb. Lanny throws long. Lanny fades the shooter. Bets the longshot.

Lanny wouldn’t stand pat with four aces. He’d break up a pair to fill a four-card flush, go for it if he had queen-nine in blackjack.

He’d order the stew in a waterfront diner, cut for deal with a guy named “Slick.” If he won a million at roulette, he’d push it out and say “Let it ride.” Lanny wants to run the table, break the house. He’d take a shower in a Rangoon bathhouse, drink the water out of a border trough, buy a house in Kabul.

Lanny takes chances. Lanny doesn’t play for a draw. Lanny doesn’t consolidate losses. Breaking even bores him. Like Nick the Greek, Lanny thinks the only thing as good as gambling and winning is gambling and losing.

Lanny never expects to turn over a hole card and find a deuce. He wouldn’t fold the hand if he did. Lanny deals in optimism. He comes from the there must be a pony underneath this horse stuff somewhere school.

The great actor, Anthony Quinn, once observed: “You are only as good as you dare to be bad.” Lanny Wadkins dares to be bad. His game would have to be toned down to be considered merely daring. It’s more dangerous than that. If Lanny is faced with a shot that might bring him a “2” if perfectly executed or a “12” if not, Lanny would go for the 2. “Lanny is a guy who will always take the points,” his caddies say.

“Is there any other way to play?” he asks.

There are a lot of other ways to play. Other guys try to make money. Lanny Wadkins tries to make history.

“Lanny’s the kind of guy who would walk up to the Grand Canyon and yearn to birdie it,” a playing partner at Palm Springs observed.

“When Lanny Wadkins is on his game, it’s like having a cobra in the basket with the lid off,” Tom Watson observed.

“Lanny hits everything at the flag,” Jack Nicklaus assents. “If it misses, he shrugs, chases it down and hits it again. He’s as aggressive a player as we have out here. He thinks the course owes him something.”

Arnold Palmer used to play a course as if he caught it rummaging through his glove compartment. He tried to drag it into the clubhouse by the hair. Arnold bulldozed it. Mugged it. He threw crazy rights at it. Arnold tried to knock the course out in the first round.

Wadkins is subtly different. He makes a birdie every three holes. But he does it without his shirt coming out or his hair hanging in his eyes. He hauls the wood out even if the par 5 is over water and surrounded by quicksand. But he tries to get it close.

Lanny doesn’t rely on the cross-country putts; the chips he has fly out of creeks of rocks, cans, tree leaves and twigs. Lanny jabs it to death. Like Palmer, he carries the fight to his opponent, the course. Then, like Fritzie Zivic, he goes for the eyes. Palmer was more apt to go for the kidneys.

Neither one of them ever hit a “safe” shot. Palmer was about 51 years old before he left a putt short. Lanny has 15 years yet. Until then, he also gives the hole every chance to get in the way of the ball.

Most veteran golfers, when they open a tournament with a 63, tend to put the thing in second gear and try to smuggle the championship into the clubhouse. Fighters who build up a big lead, clinch.

Lanny wouldn’t clinch with a polar bear. Wadkins plays every hole as if he was two shots behind and it looked like rain. He hasn’t been on the fat part of the green in years.

Prudence dictates you guard a lead at Riviera, not pad it. Prudence is just a girl’s name to Lanny Wadkins. Prudence is for old ladies crossing streets. Prudence is lagging putts, laying up on par 5’s, playing irons off the tees with trees on the right. Prudence is playing for par. Lanny Wadkins would rather read meters.

Lanny doesn’t stand pat. Conventional golf lore folklore also contends that an incandescent round like Wadkins’ course record-tying 63 is almost always followed by a round so frigid you could hang meat in it.

Wadkins ignores axioms. Wadkins’ theory is, if you can shoot one 63, why not four of them? Wadkins came out not to protect 63, but to improve it.

Wadkins came out like the sheriff down the middle of Main Street at high noon. Looking for trouble, daring it to draw on him.

His Friday round was shock theater. Like watching two guys fighting on a 50th-story ledge. A Lon Chaney movie where you didn’t know whether to cheer or scream.

He went for the throat. He eagled No. 1 Friday. If the course wanted him, it knew where to find him. Lanny wasn’t hiding under the bed. After his eagle, he bogeyed 2. After he birdied 7, he bogeyed 12. After he bogeyed 12, he birdied 13 and 14. Then, he bogeyed 15 and 16. It was vintage Wadkins. Perils of Pauline stuff.

The Saturday matinee was more of the same. Lanny was just beating the train to the crossing, or just crossing the thin ice in front of the bloodhounds.

The field was after him in a cluster of eagles, birdies, holes-in-one, chip-ins, but, as usual, Wadkins wasn’t saying, “I’ll pass” or cussing the cards. Lanny never even says, “I’ll call.” Lanny says, “I’ll see yours and raise you two.” Lanny never deals in white chips. I mean, think how a fellow would feel if the next hand was all aces, the dice were 7, the putt was eagle--and he hadn’t even bumped the raise?

Lanny doesn’t let that happen. His 13-under was not only the best going into the final round of the L.A. Open, it was the most exciting. With Lanny, it usually is.