Woosnam Is Short, but Game Is Long

Ian Woosnam is one of those celebrities who is smaller than life.

Of all the golfers you will be watching on television this weekend, Woosnam is the only one appearing on your screen actual-size. After he tees up the ball, the announcer needs to say: “Ian’s the one on the left.” He is a foot shorter than Nick Faldo and a few inches larger than Rocco Mediate’s putter. He’s got a good short game and a short good game.

Queen Elizabeth invited him over one day for a private lunch at Buckingham Palace. She probably had to resist the temptation to cut up his meat for him. Wee Woosie may be 32, but he looks as though he ought to be playing miniature golf. Come to think of it, he does play miniature golf.

Woosnam was asked Friday what size green coat he wears, in case he wins the Masters.

“A 40,” he said.

Which probably puts him in the boys’ department when he shops at Sears, assuming Oswestry, Wales, has a Sears. Yet the fact that Ian Woosnam stands 5 feet 4--”and a half,” he stressed--and resembles Michael J. Fox far more than he does Michael Jordan, has not deterred him from becoming an athlete of considerable stature, at times even the top-ranked player in golf.

He’s no wimp. A farm boy, he baled hay and plowed a 75-acre field. When his parents sent him off to holiday camp, a boxing competition was staged to reward the winner with a free return stay the following summer. Woosnam won it three years in a row.

Woosie doesn’t mess around. He belts the ball farther than a lot of the larger guys, dragging on cigarettes as he goes. (No cracks about stunting his growth.) One day at the Ryder Cup, when he stepped up and tagged one 50 yards beyond Faldo’s ball, a spectator gasped loudly and said: “Why, he’s just a boy!”

Woosnam overheard, turned, grinned and said: “Wait’ll I grow up.”

Height has never mattered much. A recent Golf Digest study showed that the five leading PGA money-winners from each decade dating to the 1930s have always averaged between 5-10 and 5-11, with nobody taller than 6-3 (Horton Smith, 1930s) and nobody smaller than 5-7 (Lee Trevino, 1970s). At least, the little guys don’t need to bend so far to remove the ball from the cup.

Once he turned 16, Woosnam stopped growing. Soon he was being looked upon as a runt.

“I think that’s why I took up boxing,” he said.

But he could always hit a golf ball a far piece. And Wales had plenty of places where he could whale. It was there that he also adopted his hurry-up style of play, because at his club the kids were permitted to go off first in the morning, and the members always wanted to play through. Ever since, Woosnam has played rapid-fire golf. Compared to him, Julius Boros is a slowpoke.

The policeman who pulled him over doing 122 m.p.h. in his Porsche a couple of years ago never accused Woosnam of being slow. Neither did the judge who suspended his license for a few months. Sometimes, little boys aren’t careful with their toys.

That goes for rich boys, too. Woosnam was the winner of the most lucrative golf event ever, the million-dollar Sun City tournament in Bophuthatswana, South Africa, which appealed to some golfers’ greed while repelling others who opposed apartheid and therefore refused to compete. Most of Woosnam’s successes have come on foreign shores; he holds no PGA membership card because he doesn’t enter the required 15 tour events each year.

Although he wins frequently--12 European tournaments--to enhance his ranking, Woosnam has never won a major event, has led one only once--the British Open after the first round--and has never finished higher than 14th in the Masters.

“Some people here don’t even know my name,” he said. “They keep saying: ‘Woosman.”’

But they do like to watch the little man swing.

“When you’re little and you hit the ball a long way, they love it,” Woosnam said. “There’s always some big guy around if you’re looking for one. There’s not too many of us littles.”

Should he win the Masters, it would be the fourth time in five years that a United Kingdom player has done so. As compatriots, England’s Faldo, Scotland’s Sandy Lyle and the Welshman Woosnam also have given the Americans fits in recent Ryder Cup play.

The winner’s green jacket does come in a 40.

“Is that 40 long or 40 regular?” Woosnam was asked.

“Short,” he replied.

“Right, 40 short.”

“Although I do like the sound of that ‘regular,’ ” Woosnam said.