The following shares with you where Casey Martin is today!

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A new challenge

The former pro golfer has battled a degenerative leg disease and the PGA Tour. Now Casey Martin is trying to build a program the University of Oregon

By Zack Hall / The Bulletin Published: December 26. 2007 5:00AM PST

EUGENE - Casey Martin still walks with the familiar limp that led him to become a household name.

But more than six years after winning a Supreme Court decision against the PGA Tour that allowed him to use a golf cart during competition, Martin's professional life bears little resemblance to his playing days.

The Eugene native hasn't played in a professional golf tournament since 2006, a season when he missed the cut in four of the five Nationwide Tour tournaments he played.

In fact, Martin rarely plays 18 holes anymore because the severe pain in his right leg caused by Klippel-Trenaunay-Weber syndrome, a circulatory disorder Martin was born with that has left his leg atrophied and weak.

Today, PGA Tour officials are no longer claiming that Martin's use of a golf cart provides him with an unfair advantage, despite his degenerative leg ailment.

And the hoards of media waiting to speak to Martin are long gone, something that is just fine to the unassuming and likeable Eugene native.

Now, Martin isn't trying to build his career as much as he is trying to build a program as the head coach of the University of Oregon men's golf team.

Though Martin doesn't completely rule out another run at the tour, the 35-year-old says he is exactly where he wants to be.

"Physically, how I feel, I'm in no position to (play competitive golf)," Martin says. "Right now, I am really committed to doing this and want to make it great. If there was time down the road to play a little bit, and three, four or five years down the road, potentially (I could try for the tour again). But right now, it is not really a thought of mine."

A future Pac-10 power?

Martin's ho-hum exterior hides the intensity.

But Martin's competitiveness has driven him to win a collegiate national championship, earn a Stanford University degree, make the PGA Tour and sue for his right to use a cart in competition - a necessity for Martin to play a full round of golf.

But with his playing days behind him, Martin has found an outlet for his competitiveness at U of O after being named the program's head coach in May 2006.

"There's a lot of things going on inside (Martin) that don't pop out," says Steve Nosler, the former head coach of U of O who handpicked Martin as his successor. "He is maybe as competitive a young man as I've ever known. He wants to make this a fun experience, he wants these kids to have a good time doing it. We watch over their academics and the rest of it. But he wants to win."

And the winning has come early.

On the floor of Martin's windowless Casanova Center office rests the first-place trophy from the April 2007 Thunderbird Invitational - Arizona State's annual tournament in Tempe.

To earn it, the Ducks had to beat traditional college golf powers such as ASU, the University of Southern California and the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.

That trophy is a reminder of all that is possible for Martin's program.

"(The Thunderbird win) was really significant, because that was one of the biggest wins in Oregon golf history," Martin says. "I think that gave a lot of the kids on the team some confidence."

But the 2006-07 season, Martin's first as head coach, showed both the program's potential and its weaknesses.

The Ducks won two tournaments, including Oregon State's Northwest Collegiate Classic, and reached the NCAA West Regional, where they finished 19th.

But the school finished eighth in the Pac-10 Championships at Eugene Country Club and finished outside the top 10 in two tournaments.

Martin says that last year was just the first step in resuscitating a program that has struggled in the Pac-10 Conference in recent years.

The program has usually been competitive, but the program hasn't won an outright tile in the conference since 1959 and hasn't had a share of a title since winning the conference's South Division in 1977.

In Nosler's 15th and final season as head coach in 2006, the Ducks finished 10th in the 10-team conference.

Martin says he can build the Ducks into a consistent power.

"It wasn't so much that there was a total void of talent, it's just for whatever reason, (the program) hadn't got serious enough about it," Martin says. "Last year, I cracked the whip and made practices and made everything, I guess, more accountable."

Nosler, who has known Martin his entire life and is now working as Martin's assistant, is confident that the days of last-place finishes are behind the program because of Martin's intensity.

"It's just a natural fit for (Martin)," says Nosler, who handpicked Martin as his successor. "I was hoping that something like this would come about, and that I could be involved in helping coordinate my replacement when the time came. I am very pleased that we have him and I am very pleased with what he is doing."

What's in a name?

Martin knows that if his tenure as Oregon coach is to be successful he will have to capitalize on his name that was made both on and off the golf course.

Martin never reached the heights he had hoped as a professional, something he considers a disappointment.

The 2000 season was Martin's only year as a fully exempt professional on the PGA Tour, and he never won a tournament at the highest level.

His best season came in 1998 when he won the Nike Tour's (now known as the Nationwide Tour) Lakeland Classic and finished in a tie for 23rd at the U.S. Open.

But Martin never finished better than 33rd in a PGA Tournament for the remainder of his career.

"If somebody told me when I was 18 that I would play professional golf for 11 years, one year on tour, and play at least two or three events on tour for a number of years, I would have been excited about that," Martin says. "I was so close that, yeah, it feels like I didn't ever really maximize my potential. But I was also dealing with a lot in my life."

Martin certainly was.

His much-heralded court case against the PGA Tour made Martin a reluctant national figure.

The case eventually was decided in 2001 by the Supreme Court, that by a 7-2 vote said that under the Americans with Disabilities Act the PGA Tour must allow Martin to use a golf cart to accommodate his disability.

Time magazine named Martin its Person of the Week in 2001 because of the case, and that year Nike created the Casey Martin Award to be given to a disabled athlete each year.

"In a perfect world you'd like to be known for all the major championships (you've won)," Martin says. "But I don't identify myself with my disability. So it's not like my identity is wrapped up in what I've done with that."

But because of his case, Martin admits, his name is more familiar than most professional golfers with similar achievements on the course.

And that can only help with recruiting at Oregon.

"(Recruits) were young enough that they might not have followed everything, but the parents certainly knew what was going on," Martin says. "It certainly doesn't get kids here, but it probably gets me in the door and lends some credibility."

Nosler agrees.

"It's an advantage anytime you have name familiarity with an individual," Nosler says. "It doesn't mean it is a slam dunk, but it does mean some returned phone calls."

A piece of Stanford to Eugene

Perhaps Martin's greatest achievements in the game came at national power Stanford, where he was a three-time all Pac-10 player.

As a junior in 1994, Martin won the team national championship and lost to Oklahoma State in a playoff for the championship in 1995.

Among his teammates at Stanford were eventual four-time PGA Tour winner Notah Begay III, who is still close with Martin, and Tiger Woods - who played with Martin on the '95 team.

"I had a great experience at Stanford," Martin says. "We had a lot of fun in college. We took it seriously ourselves, we practiced hard, but it wasn't drudgery. We looked forward to going to the golf course and practicing. So I am trying to do that, too. I don't want to make it a boot camp."

Expertise in the college game as well as Martin's professional exploits are beginning to attract some of this state's best high school players.

Close friends Andrew Vijarro of Bend High School and Robbie Ziegler from Canby - two of the highest rated players in the state - both signed this fall to play with Oregon.

The Oregon duo will join highly rated Canadian Eugene Wong and Daniel Miernicki from the San Diego area as freshmen next season at Oregon.

Vijarro says that he was attracted to the program in large part because of Martin's accomplishments as a player.

"The reason that I chose Oregon is mainly because of Casey and the facilities that they offer at Oregon," Vijarro says. "I feel out of all the coaches that I visited, Casey is going to be the one that can teach me the most, and he's going to be the one that is going to take me to the next level. He knows how to get there, he's been there, he's gone through it."

Early returns

The Ducks played well during the fall portion of this season, finishing in the top four in all five of their tournaments.

Along with seniors Joey Benedetti and Derek Sipe, U of O has started three freshmen this year: Jack Dukeminier of Eugene, Isaiah Telles from Tualatin and Sean Maekawa of Hawaii.

The three have combined to make Oregon's freshman class the highest rated in the country, according to Golfstat.com, and have one of the lowest scoring averages for freshmen in the nation.

"The fact is (the freshmen) did absolutely awesome," Martin says. "Those three guys are playing and doing great, so there is a lot of reason for optimism. And recruiting is going well, so you know, I'm excited."

Recruiting has also taken on a decidedly Oregon flair with Telles, Dukeminier, Vijarro and Ziegler.

Martin says bringing in the top talent in the state will be crucial to the program's future.

And recruiting Central Oregonian golfers will be an increasing part of that mix, he says, offering Vijarro as an example.

"This was a big class for me," Martin says. "I won't recruit as much in the next couple of years. But I'm excited because they are really good kids, they really wanted to be here and they're good at golf."

In the end, Martin says he will choose the players that will give the Ducks the best chance to win, whether they are from Oregon or elsewhere, he says.

With the rocky road of his professional career now in his past, Martin appears to have the confidence of a man who feels he is in the right place at the right time.

He's at home in Eugene, where his parents, grandparents and brother Cameron all still live.

"I wouldn't have gone and coached (the University of) Texas," Martin says. "It's nothing against Texas, don't get me wrong. After I retired, I wasn't just going to get into coaching and go wherever that led. I had an opportunity to come here, and this is my home, my family is here, so this is where I wanted to be."

And Martin is optimistic about his future as shepherd of the U of O golf program.

"I'm excited for the future, I'm excited for this year and I'm excited for what happens down the line," Martin says. "Hopefully, it keeps coming together."