Martin Gets Ticket to Ride

Let’s see, San Francisco has its cable cars and now it has its . . . golf cart?

Casey Martin rode his cart straight into U.S. Open history Monday, all the way from Ohio, when he birdied the second extra hole in a five-way playoff and qualified for the upcoming Open at the Olympic Club, just a short drive, either car or cart, from San Francisco.

“I’m stunned,” said Martin, who double-bogeyed the 36th hole to fall into a playoff. “I kind of wrote the whole thing off when I finished. I’m just so grateful.

“I’m going to fly around the Open. I won’t need a cart.”

The first disabled golfer to ride a cart and qualify for the U.S. Open, Martin was one of five from a field of 69 that made it in sectional qualifying at Clovernook Country Club.

It took him 38 holes and about 11 hours to get in, and that didn’t happen until his 25-foot birdie putt on the second extra hole fell in, probably trying to get out of the rain.

Martin came up with rounds of 67-71, or two under par, that got him into a playoff with Eric Johnson, Chris Riley, Perry Moss and Ryan Howison, but it probably shouldn’t have come to that, not after Martin double-bogeyed No. 10, his 28th hole, when he four-putted.

“I can’t remember the last time I four-putted,” he said. “To do it today wasn’t very good timing.”

Then when he double-bogeyed the last hole of regulation, he was sure he was done. But he was wrong.

Actually, there were a lot of wrong things happening Monday.

There was a distraction caused by a golf cart, all right, but it wasn’t Martin’s. Martin waited in the middle of the third fairway for the drivers of two carts to stop on the cart path behind the green while he was ready to hit, but when he motioned for the drivers to stay put, they zoomed off instead.

Martin’s cart was a forest green one-seat model with the pedal centered on the floorboard and he seemed to enjoy driving it, judging from his motoring style. He left black tread marks once when he skidded it down a cart path. Martin also ran over a couple of curbs, brushed against gallery ropes and leaned into turns.

As for media, there was plenty, including six television cameras and two dozen reporters, but that’s way down on the Martin scale from the hordes that caught him at the Nike tournament in Austin, Texas, after he won his lawsuit to ride. That event became noteworthy for its media excess when about a dozen photographers with mini-cams tried to follow Martin into a portable toilet.

Besides a light rain, the only other distraction was caused when a television news helicopter made about six passes over Martin’s group on the back nine in the afternoon.

“That did absolutely no good,” Martin said.

Jay Williamson, who was in Martin’s threesome, said the cart was not a distraction, even if he had trouble resolving the issue himself.

“Casey’s a good guy, but I have to admit, I had mixed emotions about the cart issue,” Williamson said. “I’m pretty tired right now after 36 holes. I was born with a club foot. I’ve got a disability too. Everyone has got some kind of situation. His is just more serious than most. He couldn’t be out here playing if he had to walk. They had to make a solution that would make everything equitable and this is the best they could come up with. So I accept that.”

Sam Randolph led everyone with a 135 and three tied for second at 137: Patrick Lee, Rocky Walcher and former Pepperdine star Jason Gore, who birdied six of his last seven holes.

Clovernook didn’t exactly let everyone off the hook. For many of the 69 players in the field, it played about as hard as one of its cart paths. There are streams that affect 11 of the holes and there are enough trees lining the fairways to make a forest jealous. Martin didn’t have any trouble with the water, but he did clunk his second shot off a tree branch on the par-five 17th hole in the morning round that probably cost him a shot.

Martin managed to par the 527-yard hole, but his bark-seeking second shot kept him from making birdie.

But when he rolled in a short birdie putt on the 18th, Martin finished the first 18 holes with a three-under 67, which meant two things: He was tied for fourth, trailing Howison’s 65, and he could eat a quick sandwich in the players’ lounge knowing he was in pretty good shape.

“He controls his own destiny now,” said Chris Murray, Martin’s agent.

At least Martin climbed into his green cart, the one provided by the USGA, with his game on a roll.

He tied for eighth Sunday in the Nike Miami Valley Open at Springboro, Ohio, with weekend rounds of 64-69 and came up with his first top-10 finish since he won the season-opening Nike Lakeland Classic.

If he was the least bit nervous about his task under Monday’s gray, drippy skies, Martin hid it pretty well. He stopped his cart several times in the morning round to chat with his friends in the gallery, talked about moving back to Eugene, Ore., from Foster City, Calif., and demonstrated how the cart handled by swerving from side to side.

But Martin wasn’t in such a jovial mood when he finished up in the afternoon, not after his double bogey on No. 10, his 28th hole, and another one on No. 18, his 36th hole.

“I thought I was done,” he said.

Instead, Martin is in the U.S. Open, June 18-21 at the Olympic. After four failed attempts at qualifying, he has done something he has dreamed about.

“It is the kind of deal growing up, hitting Wiffle balls in the backyard, you think about . . . and now it’s reality.”

U.S. OPEN AT A GLANCE

* WHEN: June 18-21

* WHERE: Olympic Club, San Francisco.

* PAR: 70

* YARDS: 6,797

* DEFENDING CHAMPION: Ernie Els