Over-50 tour may be ideal situation for Martin
EUGENE, ORE. Casey Martin has what in many ways qualifies as his dream job.
He coaches golf in his hometown, sharing an office suite with the coaches of his favorite sports teams.
His 2016 team won the NCAA men’s golf championship, and his current team includes arguably 2017’s top overall player and top freshman.
He not only does what he loves, he also does it in an environment that surrounds him in what he loves — Oregon Ducks athletics.
But five years in the future another opportunity looms, one that Martin might owe it to himself to consider — the PGA Tour Champions.
“I’m not pursuing golf passionately, although I’m 44, and that 50-year deal, it’s an interesting thought,” he said. “And carts are allowed.”
Martin last played in the U.S. Open in 2012 and last was a touring professional in 2006. As he has built Oregon’s depth and seen the Ducks become more competitive nationally, he has had less time to play competitive golf. But he and assistant coach John Ellis play with their golfers more than most college coaches do, and until this season Martin had never lost to any of his Ducks players.
“It’s still amazing how great of a player he is, and I still don’t know why he’s coaching,” said Oregon senior Wyndham Clark, the individual medalist in last month’s Pac-12 tournament and the conference’s player of the year. “I think he should still be playing. I know he has issues with his leg, but the first month or two that I was here in Eugene, I played with him almost every day, and he’d go out and shoot the easiest 68. It was so easy. And not many guys can just go out and not practice that much and do that.”
When Martin is playing well, the Ducks players drop suggestions that he has a future on the over-50 tour. “I wouldn’t hold it against him that he might try it,” Clark said.
Because of the attention Martin is focusing on what he calls “a special team,” this will be the first year he hasn’t gone to U.S. Open qualifying since he became the Ducks coach in 2006. He acknowledges the possibility of playing on the PGA Tour Champions crosses his mind. “I would be lying if I said it didn’t,” he said.
The question is whether one day he could do his dream job of coaching golf at Oregon while pursuing professional dreams of playing it.
“I think you could,” Martin said. “I don’t think you’d be the best at either one, though; that’s the problem. I think you’d need a really good assistant and a really understanding team and administration. We’ll see. I’m 44, almost 45, so I’ve got five years to think about it, and if I do have any inklings of that, I have to figure some stuff out. I gotta start plugging my own holes in my game.”