List Puts The Nail In Nallen

By Ken Klavon, USGA

Mamaroneck, N.Y. - Luke List sat in the Winged Foot clubhouse staring out at the terrific rain imprinting the course in rhythmic fashion. There was nothing tremendous about this moment to him, so he went and took a 20-minute nap in the locker room.

Just as the 19-year-old Vanderbilt University sophomore had gotten his act together, Mother Nature clogged his momentum the way a shelter-building beaver constricts a slender river. Now he had to wait to rekindle his thrust toward an exemption into next year's Masters.

Lightning in the area was the official word for the delay. But didn't anyone notice that it already struck in the form of List's putter on the 15^th hole? He carefully orchestrated the conversion of a 15-footer to Chris Nallen's chagrin and grabbed a commanding 2-up lead.

Luke List hits out of a bunker near the 12th green. He eventually carded a double bogey, losing the hole. (John Mummert/USGA)

Nallen and his caddie were carted away to the safe confines of the clubhouse pondering why the horn couldn't have been blared before List's avalanche of a putt.

When they returned to the grand stage, three-and-a-half hours later, muscles taut, they put on a show. For good measure, they even played to an encore that was the 19^th hole.

On the 16^th, amid a drizzling rain, Nallen crept back by slicing the deficit in half with a par.

"I think winning 16 was big, to get that, to get him thinking," said Nallen, a recent University of Arizona grad.

That it did.

"It kind of opened the door for him," said List, who has only trailed for three holes in five matches.

Nallen nearly took the door off its hinges on the 17^th until he lipped a 3-footer that would have evened the match. Arizona golf coach Rick LaRose, watching from afar, grimaced and turned away.

The vice had been constructed, but Nallen forgot to crank it.

"I had a chance on 17 and I hit a good putt," said Nallen, who never led. "I just hit it a little too hard."

Not to fear, Nallen saved the melodrama for No. 18. Shades of Tiger Woods on the 35^th hole at the 1996 U.S. Amateur to square that match against Steve Scott, Nallen nailed a left-to-right 40-footer that essentially guaranteed extra holes.

He crouched down swaying with energy while waiting to see if List would make his 18-footer to end the match. He didn't and they moved on to the 17^th hole.

"Obviously 18 was crazy," said Nallen. "I don't think I've ever made a putt that big in my career. . I kind of knew it three quarters of the way there. I kind of said, 'Wow, this is going in.'"

Said List: "I just told myself, 'Let's just put yourself in perspective; that you made the putt and you had the momentum. And I just tried to realize that I had come back from being behind, just anything to tell myself that I had not given it away."

The 19^th came down to this: List stuck hit a smooth 8-iron from 163 yards out to 3 feet of the flagstick. Nallen angled his approach shot that stopped 7 feet short and right of the green. A valiant chip to 5 feet wouldn't be enough.

List had persevered, getting tabbed with hugs and kisses from mother Bonny and sister Bekah as he strolled off the green awestruck.

"It just kind of happened so fast," said List. "Next thing you know, I'm walking off and I've won."

The fourth hole gave List the lead that he'd never yield. He earned it, too. Off a bad lie in the deep left fairway rough 150 yards out, List hit a tight pitching wedge. The balled arced, hopping twice on the green before disappearing into the hole. He said he was only trying to run the ball up without any notion that the ball would go in.

Nallen, unfettered, had about 140 to the hole from the center of the fairway. He deadpanned, "Can you take that out [of the hole] so I can make mine?"

Nallen went through a four-hole stretch between No. 2 and 6 where he didn't hit the green. It proved costly on the 321-yard, par-4 sixth because List flew the green and needed relief from substantial mud. That led to a drop into more forgiving silly-putty-like substance. Nallen had smashed his drive 300 yards, the ball nearly kissing the green. A lazy chip would have bounded the ball close, but Nallen instead hurried his swing and the sphere rolled to the back fringe rough. A 3-foot putt to win the hole awaited. However, Nallen lipped the cylinder and List held onto a 2-up lead.

An incredulous Nallen closed his eyes. Perhaps he knew then it would foreshadow his day.

"I just didn't execute as well as I have been," said Nallen, who hadn't trailed after the 12^th hole in any match until Saturday. "I missed it in some spots I shouldn't have missed it in."

List started leaking oil on the par-3 10^th. Both found greenside bunkers - List to the left, Nallen to the right. List flubbed his out, wide-eyed that the ball barely made it to the thick rough buffering the green. Three shots later List lost the hole with a double bogey.

On the 64-yard, par-5 12^th, with List holding a 2-up lead, the oil was gushing. List agonized through a brutal sequence where he flew the green, flew it aqain coming back and then three-putted for another double bogey. Nallen capitalized, parring, to position himself within striking distance.

After trading pars on the 13^th and 14^th, List created more cushion. Before knocking in a left-to-right 15-footer for birdie on the 15^th, List pulled off the ball. He walked 10 feet away and regrouped.

"I was really confident over it, and when I got over it, it just didn't feel right," said List. "I got back over it and knocked it right in."

Then the delay. Then the psychological warfare, at least that's what Nallen hoped.

"I'm sure he's thinking, 'Let's just get this over with, let me win the next hole and be done with it or halve the next hole and be dormie," said Nallen. "I definitely think that worked to my advantage and it got him a little tense."

List said the opposite instead, preferring to retreat to the locker room away from all the hullabaloo and rest his mind so it wouldn't race.

Now the 2003 U.S. Amateur Public Links semifinalist has steamrollered stalwarts Danny Green, Trip Kuehne and Nallen. Not bad for a kid who didn't qualify for match play in this championship the last two years.

The toughest match, however, comes next in the form of the King Kong-like Ryan Moore. They have never played one another before. List is well aware of who he's playing, but will be ready.

"I've been an underdog in every match I've played," said List. "So, yeah, I'll say I'm an underdog again."