Air Force golfer Whitney has unusual approach

Air Force's Tom Whitney does not closely resemble the typical golfer.
His beefy 6-foot-3, 225-pound build seems more suited for football coach Troy Calhoun's tight end corps than Eisenhower Golf Course. His white Oakley sunglasses look like they're borrowed from Tony Hawk's wardrobe, not Tiger Woods'. And the socks pulled up to midcalf? Let's just say you won't see that look on the cover of Golfstyle Magazine.
But spend just a handful of holes with Whitney and all this makes sense.
Because Whitney does not play anything that closely resembles typical golf.
The 20-year-old senior-to-be from La Quinta, Calif., who will play next week in the U.S. Amateur Public Links Tournament at Jimmie Austin OU Golf Club in Norman, Okla., blasts 340-yard fairway-splitting drives. He used a 9-iron last week at the Eisenhower Blue Course's par-3 13th when it measured 191 yards (most weekend golfers would have pulled a 4-iron or hybrid). And he rarely encounters a par-5 he can't reach in two shots or a dogleg he can't cut.
Perhaps most impressive is that he executes this power game without a complete grasp of his swing mechanics or around-the-clock grinding on the driving range.
Whitney said he never has had a swing coach and has taken only "a handful of individual lessons." His swing mostly is self-built with tips from his father, and he relies on feel, not polished technique.
"I'm not the kind of guy that's always in the mirror checking his swing or practice putting in the dorm hallway," Whitney said. "Don't ask me where my club is at the top (of the swing) or if I'm on path - I don't really know what my swing looks like."
Air Force coach George Koury described Whitney - who earned all-Mountain West Conference honors this past season when he set a school record with a 72.0 stroke average - as "pretty raw." But Koury also said that in his time at the academy (in the early 1990s as a player and since 1999 as an assistant and then head coach) Whitney is "far and away ... the most talented that we've had."
"When he is on," Koury said, "I would say he's in the top 20 to 30 in college golf."
Power clearly is Whitney's top asset, but he's not Happy Gilmore. He has a surprisingly feathery touch around greens. And while his putting can be streaky, he drained a sweaty-palmed, knee-knocking 6-footer on the 18th hole of a U.S. Open local qualifier to get into a playoff, which he won to advance to the sectional qualifier.
And, Koury said, in about the past six months Whitney has "really learned to think his way around the course a little bit more than just hitting it hard and high."
That should help next week in Oklahoma when Whitney tackles his first USGA event. But so will his power. The Publinks Tournament includes two rounds of stroke-play competition, and the top 64 players advance to match play.
"If he can get to the match play, he's got a great chance," Koury said. "Because just watching him, it's intimidating. Guys are hitting a lot longer clubs into greens, and he's hitting little wedges and 9-irons."
"I think I have the ability to change people's minds on the tee," Whitney said. "Make them swing a little harder, make them try stuff they normally wouldn't do."
Like play golf that's far from typical.