Wilson credits Augusta State for pro success
The image in his head wasn't meshing with the reality in front of Oliver Wilson's eyes.
The Englishman arrived in Augusta in January 2000 with his golf bag and no luggage. With nothing else to do, he walked over to check out the new collegiate golf home to which he'd accepted a scholarship sight unseen.
"I just figured, 'Oh, Augusta, it's going to be incredible," Wilson said. "I'm basically imagining the National, but in a different setting."
Only a few miles from Augusta National Golf Club, Augusta State University's home facility was Forest Hills Golf Club -- at the time a bedraggled remnant of a Donald Ross design.
"I looked down at the greens and thought, 'Oh my God, what have I done?' " Wilson said. "I walked out on the range and thought, 'I've made a mistake, This is awful.' "
The only solace: "It was still sunny, so it was much better than home."
His new coach, Jay Seawell, had seen that look before in other English golfers on the Jaguars' emerging men's program.
"Everybody came over expecting to be a tour potential player and that the golf courses were all perfect," Seawell said. "It was always a rude awakening that first week. Now Augusta State has a beautiful practice facility, and they've redone Forest Hills. But at that time we were using the old range and some golf balls that I think Bobby Jones had struck himself in the 1930 Southeastern Open out there. So it was a culture shock to him, but if you ask him he'll say it was one of the times of his life."
Now 28 and ranked No. 39 in the world, Wilson says Augusta State changed his life.
"I wouldn't be here if I didn't go to college in Augusta," he said. "If I had gone to a different college, I still don't think I would have made it. Augusta was awesome."
Wilson returns this week to his "second home" of six years, the city where he met his fiancée, the city best known for the event he has qualified to play -- the Masters Tournament. He won't be looking down at the pristine grounds of Augusta National with the same thoughts that ran through his head nine years ago.
"I wanted to be the first Augusta State golfer to be there, but obviously Vaughn (Taylor) beat me to that," Wilson said of the homegrown Jaguar who played in the previous three Masters. "So I'll take being the first English Augusta State golfer to get there."
Finding the game
Wilson came to golf by accident in 1990.
The youngest of three children was taken with sports -- soccer and skiing at the top of his list. At age 10, on the slopes in Sofia, Bulgaria, an opportunity to try something new landed on him in the form of another skier, who twisted the young boy's knee.
"It was the first day of the holiday, so that kind of ruined it," Wilson said.
Doctors told him skiing, soccer, running, riding a bike -- "anything really with a kicking action" -- was not going to be in his future.
"Which was really, knowing what I know now, a lot of rubbish," Wilson said. "But when they told me that I thought, 'What am I going to do now?' "
Athletic diversion arrived as a Christmas present from his mother -- golf lessons for Ollie and his father, Doug.
"It was very alien to us, and I was sort of naive when I booked the lessons," said his mother, Vicki. "I rang our local club where we're now a member and said, 'We'd like to play golf; can we come and play?' And they said, 'We don't quite work like that. You have to apply for membership,' and all this sort of thing."
So Wilson and his father took lessons at the public Oakmere Park. Ollie was quickly smitten and soon began making divots in his parents' garden.
"He'd be out there until dark chipping over the hedges," his mother said. "He just lights up on the golf course."
Two years later, Wilson's mother won tickets to the 1993 Ryder Cup matches at The Belfry, about an hour away from their home in Mansfield. They even spoke with European hero Seve Ballesteros and got an autograph.
"Oliver was just walking around watching them play, and every minute he was swinging his arms with an imaginary club in his hands," his mother said. "So yes, that was a big inspiration for him. I think he was in awe of them then."
Within two years of his first lesson, Wilson was the first in his family accepted into the local Coxmoor Golf Club.
"The golf thing I just kept practicing and playing every weekend, and I really enjoyed it," he said. "You get half decent and start representing your club in the juniors and start playing county tournaments, then all of the sudden you're playing in the national county events."
Wilson was 14 when he won a tournament that earned him a trip to play at Orlando's Lake Nona. By the time he was 15, he had played on the England boys team with well-heeled players such as Justin Rose.
Wilson credits Rose for his "first proper golfing tip from someone who knew what he was talking about." It came in Slovenia on the final hole of the last match in the European team championship.
"I birdied 17 to go 1 up, and I was so pumped up and nailed my drive up 18 and was walking down the fairway fired up," Wilson said. "Justin walked with me and told me to calm down. It was fine on long shots but just breath down the fairway. I hit it on and made the putt to win 2 up. I always remember that tip."
Two chances
When recruited as a teenager by Augusta State coach Jim Kelson, Wilson turned him down to play an amateur schedule in England full time while working part time when the weather turned from bad to horrendous in the winters.
"I did various things," he said. "I worked on a building site with my dad, was a barman for not quite a year, and I worked in a bakery at Morrison's supermarket."
His long-term plans were modest: "Play golf in the summer and ski instruct in the winter. But that didn't really work out."
When Wilson was beginning to think golf might be a waste of time, opportunity knocked again thanks to the U.S. Customs Service.
A friend of his, Adam Frayne, was on his way to Augusta State but hadn't completed the paperwork for his visa. When a letter from his mom wishing him luck in college was found during a baggage search at immigration, Frayne got sent home.
"He thought he'd go over and figure it out then, which didn't work for him," Wilson said. "For me, it was awesome."
Frayne called Wilson and encouraged him to take his spot on the team, which already included Englishmen Robert Duck and Jamie Elson.
"Then when opportunity came again, which is very rare that you get two bites at a cherry, we said, 'Grab it with both hands and go,' " his mother said.
So Wilson called new coach Jay Seawell to see whether the program was still interested in him. He also sent a recruitment video that didn't do him justice.
"I broke it down in slow motion," Seawell said. "The last bit of his follow-through used to be kind of a claw. I thought, 'How in the world does he do that?' It didn't affect anything he did within the swing. That's just something he did at the very end for some reason."
The coach wasn't immediately convinced this was the player he should make his first recruit.
"I don't know his exact words, but he went and asked Robert and Jamie if I was any good because my swing was horrific," Wilson said. "And they actually vouched for me."
Said Seawell: "They said, 'Coach, you need to get this guy.' His swing had a funny look to it, but his resume was too good to pass up, that's for sure. I'm glad that I wasn't looking for something superficial like how you follow through, because he turned out to be a fantastic player for us."
Learning process
The first impressions Wilson made on his coaches were in qualifying for the initial event of the spring semester. He shot a dismal 85.
"You could just see something there," said Seawell, currently the coach at Alabama. "He was trying too hard, and I made a coach's decision."
Despite bogeys on the last two holes, Wilson shot 66 in his first collegiate round at the Gator Invitational in Florida.
"I looked pretty good on that one," Seawell said. "He never looked back. He played an instrumental role in us being what we were in the future."
Wilson became the school's first three-time All-American, leading the Jaguars to a national ranking as high as No. 2 in Division I. For one two-week period he was the top-ranked collegiate golfer in the nation.
Four times he was an individual tournament winner -- three times as a senior, including a dramatic eagle on the final hole at Forest Hills to lift himself and the Jaguars to a victory as hosts of the Cleveland Golf/ASU Invitational.
Seawell was most impressed with the confidence Wilson built up.
"There were a couple of times he would say, 'Coach, you might want to turn your head,' because it was a gamble shot," Seawell said. "But he pulled it off 100 percent of the time."
Seawell recalls the NCAA championships at Ohio State when Wilson pointed out a tiny 4-foot opening in the tree canopy and said he was going to cut it through there from out of the rough.
"I'll be doggoned if he didn't hit it right through the middle of that hole and everything was perfect," said Seawell. "He did that 10, 12, 15 times in my three years with him."
After helping Great Britain & Ireland win the Walker Cup in 2003, Wilson felt his swing needed an overhaul to compete at the professional level.
"It wasn't anywhere near good enough to turn pro, but I did anyway," he said.
Wilson flew to New York to see swing coach Mitchell Spearman.
"He ripped my swing apart, which was exactly what I wanted," he said.
At first, the scope of the changes had Wilson questioning his strategy.
"I couldn't play a hole of golf remotely decent for like six months," he said. "I kept going out to play and came in after two holes. I couldn't really find anywhere near the fairway."
His new swing started to settle in as he pursued sponsors exemptions on the developmental Challenge Tour in Europe. He played well enough to earn the 15th and final card offered for the European Tour in 2005.
"When I first turned pro I wanted to play full time over here (in the U.S.), and I don't now," Wilson said. "I want to be a world player. I love traveling all over and playing in Asia and Europe and out here. I want to play everywhere, really. I want to play the best tournaments every week."
While he has yet to win as a professional, he finished runner-up eight times and against some quality fields that included playoff losses to Sergio Garcia, Paul Casey and Miguel Angel Jimenez.
His performances earned him a spot on the 2008 Ryder Cup team and in the top 50, which got him an invitation to the Masters.
Wilson finished in the top 10 at both elite World Golf Championships events this season.
"I feel like I belong and it's normal," he said. "I want to win loads of tournaments. I don't want to win just one. I feel as if my game is good enough now that if I have a good week I can win anywhere. I know that."
Augusta experience
The Masters became a priority for Wilson after his experiences in Augusta. One perk for playing at Augusta State was an annual field trip to play Augusta National.
"That made up for all the bad range balls and all the stuff at Forest Hills," Seawell said. "That is a dream for anybody who plays the game of golf."
Wilson played the National four times in school, the first just three months after his arrival.
"It was incredible," Wilson said. "Jayce (Stepp) drove, and we stood out his sun roof while we were going down Magnolia Lane. It must have taken us about 10 minutes to drive down that road, just taking pictures all over the place. It was great."
Said Seawell: "We're going about 1.4 miles per hour the entire way. To see their faces when they got out of the car is still priceless."
Wilson shot 79 that first time. The next year he shot his personal best 72 in fine fashion. Down nine strokes at the turn in his standing match with Stepp, Wilson rallied with three consecutive closing birdies to win by two.
"He was devastated," said Wilson, still gloating.
The mix of relationships he built with fellow English imports such as Duck and Elson and homegrown Southerners including Stepp from Cartersville, Ga.; Jay Haas Jr. from Greenville, S.C.; and Michael Webb from Elberton, Ga., helped make Wilson comfortable in Augusta.
He met his fiance, Lauren Smith -- a former star on the women's golf team -- at Augusta State.
"He is a true Englishman, so when he came over he'd probably never heard country music in his life," Seawell said. "I think we turned Oliver into a good ol' English redneck by the time he left there."
Despite his initial fears, Wilson has never regretted coming to town.
"I was lucky," he said. "Augusta was awesome. We had a lot of fun and loved it."
Reach Scott Michaux at (706) 823-3219 or scott.michaux@augustachronicle.com.
