Weaver Trying To Leave Tragedy Behind

By Ken Klavon, USGA

San Francisco – Two life-altering moments defined Drew Weaver’s year, one of sanguine proportions and the other so tragic it would be impossible to explain the reasoning behind it.

The 20-year-old from High Point, N.C., has delved into the depths of hell and rode the euphoria of a dream come true, all in a three-month span. Had fate guided him elsewhere on April 16, he might have been a victim of the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.

The sequence of events that Monday on the Virginia Tech campus made golf, among everything else, moot. Weaver, a junior-to-be, remembered walking out of his accounting class that day. Minutes earlier he had gotten the news when an e-mail popped up on his laptop. His stomach felt like it was trying to digest motor oil. He got outside, turned his head right to view a scene of chaos, sirens blaring and police barricades before taking a metaphoric leap through a portal that made him fully appreciate life’s value.

A 12-footer for birdie on the 18th hole Tuesday to complete his second round brought a fist pump from Drew Weaver. (John Mummert/USGA)

About 100 yards away at Norris Hall – the same building where he had a class on Tuesdays and Thursdays – student Cho Seung-Hui was in the process of killing 32 people and wounding 25. Weaver heard about "five or six" gunshots before sequestering himself in the library with a number of other students for three-plus hours. There he phoned his mother, 50-year-old Cathy Weaver, who had been at home getting ready to shower after a water aerobics class. A self-professed news junkie, who once worked in the media business, Cathy couldn’t understand why her only child would be calling during class. "He said, ‘Mom, there’s been a shooting,’" she said.

His father Bob Weaver, a 50-year-old family physician, knew something was terribly wrong when his beeper went off twice, a code for an emergency.

"We were spared the absolute angst of hearing, as a parent, whether our child was OK," said John.

Weaver, polite and engaging, said the calamity is hard to talk about only because he has relived the story to the media repeatedly. The story needs to be told but he wants to make certain he tells it right out of respect for those who died. He wants people to know that "just because we had a tragedy doesn’t mean we should have a large shadow cast over" everyone affiliated with the school.

If anything, Weaver latched onto a silver lining in that he’s become more optimistic in his outlook. A bogey or bad shot doesn’t bother him nearly as much as it did. The young adult who has been so self driven for perfection that he carded his first-ever B when he reached college, the competitive golf connoisseur who used to ball up in exasperation at bad shots and purposely hit into bunkers when he was 7 because he liked sand, the introvert who compartmentalizes everything, has learned that life’s details don’t matter much when it can be taken away so easily.

Cathy has noticed subtle changes in his demeanor. He has "kind of a pensiveness," she said, adding that life’s disasters are amplified a bit more now.

In an amazing twist, the heavy-hearted Virginia Tech team bonded to win the ACC championships three weeks later. That victory helped Weaver on a therapeutic path of recovering from the shock of it all. Since then, Weaver has a patch on his Virginia Tech golf bag that reads ‘VT Remembers.’ It’s the same bag he used at the British Amateur and the same one he has this week at The Olympic Club.

Several weeks following the ACC championships, Weaver took a cruise. He had 10 days to prepare for the British Amateur at Royal Lytham and St. Annes when he got home. He had never played a links-style course before. Choosing to compete at the British Amateur came by default after he couldn’t get into the bigger college-aged amateur events in the United States. Turned out he made the right choice. With his dad on his bag, Weaver became the first American since Jay Sigel to win the British Amateur 28 years ago. "Drew’s golf game has been improving," said his affable father. "It took a quantum leap when we went across the pond."

"Once I won my third match and got into the quarterfinals, I thought I had a good chance [to win]," said Weaver. "You don’t realize how hard it is to win in this format. Every player is at the peak of their game."

By virtue of the victory, Weaver earned exemptions into the British Open, this year’s U.S. Amateur and next year’s Masters. He’s hopeful that he’ll be selected to the USA Walker Cup team, which has two open spots, calling it a dream come true if it were to happen. First things first, though.

After putting an exclamation point on his final putt of stroke play Tuesday, sinking a mesmerizing 12-footer that broke 2 feet right and lagged in, Weaver qualified for match play with a 1-over-par 141. His club-appointed caddie, 33-year-old Brooks Werner, knew right away Weaver would need little massaging. Weaver, he said, knows his own game and manages it so well that he hasn’t had to utter encouragement or give him any pep talks. The two have had instant chemistry.

"I don’t want [him] to think I’m there to recite poetry" if things go awry, said Werner.

Should Weaver win this week, he’d become the first player since Bob Dickson in 1967 to win the British Amateur and U.S. Amateur in the same year. What’s more, only three other players (Harold Hilton, Bob Jones, Lawson Little - twice) have ever done it. Weaver’s lips curled upward with a smile at the thought of that.

"I went in with no expectations that week," he said of the British Amateur. "I come into this week with no expectations."

And in the large vacuum of life, it doesn’t much matter at the end. Thank the grim reaper for that.

"April 16," said Weaver, "things can only be so bad. One thing that day did was change me because now I’m more of an optimistic person."

More appreciative, and attuned to life’s pleasantries because of it.

Ken Klavon is the USGA’s Web Editor. E-mail him with questions or comments at kklavon@usga.org.