By JUSTIN JARRETT
jjarrett@beaufortgazette.com
jjarrett@islandpacket.com
843-706-8120
Bold and brash, with a red-hot golf game and a temper to match, Spencer Levin first captivated the golf world as a cigarette-smoking 20-year-old at the 2004 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills, where he turned in the best finish by an amateur at the Open in 33 years.
After a couple of days hanging around the practice green and the range at Harbour Town Golf Links, Levin caught his break when Bart Bryant became the second player to withdraw from the field this week, allowing Levin to slip into the last spot in the 132-player field.
"I didn't really expect to get in, so it was kind of a bonus," Levin says. "This is a pretty sweet place to be. This is pretty hard to beat around here. I guess if you're going to wait around to get in a tournament, this is the place to do it."
Oh, how things have changed in the five years since Levin was the second-ranked amateur, the latest can't-miss kid in a sport where the talent to make it big often shows itself early but sometimes slips away just as quickly.
Levin already was an accomplished amateur when he stole the show at Shinnecock Hills,
hitting his first career ace in the opening round and swaggering to a tie for 13th, cigarette smoke billowing from beneath his visor all the way. He went back to the University of New Mexico for one more year, played his way to first-team all-America honors, then turned pro just before the 2005 U.S. Open, where he missed the cut.
"I want to play that good -- that would be nice," Levin says when asked if he is the same player he was five years ago. "I don't think I've changed much. I'm pretty much the same dude."
A smoke still hangs from his lips as he works on his putting stroke, and he's still the confident kid who once outplayed Tiger Woods on Sunday at the U.S. Open, but he appears infinitely more mature having been humbled by the journey that brought him here.
As difficult as it is to hang around for two or three days, waiting to find out whether you'll have a chance to play for a paycheck that week, it's a good bit easier than the predicament Levin found himself in as recently as two years ago, when the PGA Tour career that once seemed like a sure bet was suddenly a distant goal.
Aside from playing on a sponsor's exemption here or there, he kicked around on the mini-tours until finally making it through PGA Tour Qualifying School in 2007 and earning a spot on the Nationwide Tour, where he finished 22nd on the money list last year to graduate to the PGA Tour.
"It's just kind of a learning process," Levin says. "It takes some people a certain amount of time to get out here. I'm happy to be out here. With my amateur career and everything, I probably expected to be out here earlier, but I've learned a lot in the last few years, and hopefully I can take what I've learned and make some money out here."
At 24, he still has plenty of time to carve out the professional career he always dreamed about, but he realizes now it won't come as easily as he once thought. The three-year endorsement deal he signed with MacGregor after turning pro in 2005 has run out, and though other endorsements have allowed him some financial cushion to go along with the $157,360 he has earned so far this season, he continues to be careful with his money. He bought a car shortly after turning pro, then sat on most of his nest egg until buying a house in Arizona last week.
Not quite the life that confident kid from Shinnecock Hills envisioned, but better than most of the alternatives.
"It hasn't been perfect, but it could always be worse," Levin says. "I've got to just look at this week now and just keep moving forward."
There will always be those who want to look back, to analyze what went wrong and turned the next big thing into just another guy grinding out a living on the golf course. But Levin still has the skills that commanded all that attention five years ago, and now he seems to be harnessing the untangible qualities necessary to succeed on golf's biggest stage. If he keeps going in the direction he's headed, his opportunity to realize the potential he once showed will come.
And Levin will be waiting, perhaps more patiently than ever.
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