Home schooled

March 21, 2006

TUMWATER -- His unlikely climb to the No. 1 ranking in all of NCAA golf begins here, on a cow pasture.

On his family's 10-acre farm, a patch of tall-grass pasture has been mowed, converted into a three-hole golf course, with each hole stretching about 60 yards and each complete with a pin flag. It's an early summer morning and a 4-year-old Shane Prante hunches over a golf ball, draws the club his father sawed off for him over his head and swings.

The ball sails, past the cows, past the chicken coop and past his pet chicken -- Annie. The reed-thin boy, his shadow casting a dark streak across the field, quickly follows, eager for his next shot.

Unlike the boys whom he'd one day beat at the state high school golf tournament while playing for Black Hills, Prante followed a different path to success in his sport.

Unlike the young men he'd one day beat in tournaments in California and Oregon and Washington as he played for Saint Martin's University, Prante didn't take the plane rides as a youngster to far away places like Arizona and New Mexico, playing in the high-stakes and high-cost Junior Golf Tournaments scattered across the West Coast.

Instead, Prante's game was honed here on this little par 3 course with the accompanying driving range his dad built.

And later, when at 10, his dad would wake him early summer mornings and drop him and his younger sister, Sheena, off at the Tumwater Valley Golf Course. With lunch money and season-pass in their hands and golf bag slung over their backs, brother and sister would spend their day -- from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. when dad came and picked them up -- playing golf. Three, and sometimes four, times a week they'd play 36 holes, launch shots on the driving range or work on their putting on the practice greens.

"It was so much fun," Shane Prante said, his voice rising in excitement as he recalled those times. "We'd golf all day."

It's not the standard path to greatness. Typically, golfers with game follow a line of private coaches. From the beginning, Prante's teacher was his dad, Tim, a stroke technician who understands mechanics and the inner game.

And now, Prante, in his final season at Saint Martin's, is again ranked among the top 15 nationally, top in the region among Division II schools. A pro career is only months away.

He will delay his pro debut on a mini tour in Arizona or California if he makes the Palmer Cup, an elite eight-member U.S.A. team that plays an all-star amateur team from Europe at the end of July. Last summer, Prante was the only Division II player named to the eight-member U.S.A. team that played in Japan. Another Division II player was later added.

Coming into the spring season a year ago, Prante's scoring average was 69.45, as he won two tournaments by 10 strokes, placed second in another and won two duel matches. That earned him the top ranking in all of NCAA golf, from Stanford to Samford.

Spencer Levin of the University of New Mexico was rated second with an average of 69.88, University of Indiana's Jeff Overton was third at 69.92 and UNLV's Ryan Moore, who is from Puyallup and made the rare leap to the PGA directly after college, was fourth at 70.11.

Coming from Saint Martin's, a small private school that began a golf program only 17 years ago, heightened Prante's accomplishment.

"Shane has a great approach to the game," said Kurt Kageler, Saint Martin's coach. "He works hard and he's not intimidated to play against anyone."

The three-hole course on the family farm, where Prante played hour after hour as a youngster, has been the ideal backdrop. He now owns or shares three course records - 61 at Tumwater, 63 at Olympia Golf & Country Club and 63 at River Bend in Kent. At River Bend, Prante was teamed up with a pro in a best-ball tournament. Prante's shot was used on every hole.

Remarkably, he shot two bogeys on his record-breaking day at Tumwater.

Prante, with his clinic-like shot and grit for making the big shot, has a knack for binging on birdies.

"John Cassidy asked me once what I think about when I get on a roll of birdies," Prante said. "I told him it's like you just can't wait to get the next one."

That's the magic to Prante's game. Often, a roll of birdies brings pressure, questions about being able to duplicate the feat. Prante just remains in the moment.

"He's one of the most mentally strong players I've had," Kageler said. "I coach a lot of guys with a lot of great golf swings. The difference is what's between the ears. That's the difference with Shane. I've seen him get himself out of some really tough shots."

Prante, who at 6-foot-2 and 170 pounds, can drive the ball 300 yards.

"I think God has blessed Shane with a lot of natural talent," Kageler said. "His dad and him have worked hard at developing it."

Prante, the reed-thin golfer with the knack for forgetting a bad shot, can still close his eyes and see his dad on their backyard course, demonstrating a swing or giving instruction. By the time he was in fifth grade, Prante, the oldest of four children, would line up with his brother and sisters on the backyard course and practice their swings, with dad filming as they shot.

Golf was the ticket to college for a family who always had enough, but never too much.

"He was a natural," Tim Prante said. "You could tell him something and show it to him and he could just pick it up immediately. He was a quick learner. You never had to work on one thing very long."

Tim Prante, a scratch golfer himself who has read everything Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus, Ben Crenshaw and Lee Trevino have written about golf, was his kids' coach. Shane Prante never had a stroke coach other than his dad until last fall when he hired Joe Thiel, a well-known instructor from Olympia with students now in the PGA and LPGA.

Several years ago, Chris Mitchell, a golf pro now in Portland and once a college teammate of Freddy Couples, worked with Prante once, filming and observing his swing. Mitchell, who has coached thousands of kids, said Prante's stroke was among the top 10 of all the students he had worked with.

"It's one of those homemade, dad teaches you how to play sort of stories," said Prante, who was home schooled along with his two sisters and brother. "My dad read a lot of books. He taught me how to play."

But Tim Prante, a two-sport standout in high school who grew up in Elma and now works for Simpson Timber, downplays his role. He maintains all he did was point the way.

"Shane did all the work," the elder Prante said. "It's not about what I've done. It's what Shane has done. I'm just lucky to be a small part of it. We've been blessed by God."

The father-son, coach-athlete relationship has tightened their bond. They're very close. Dad's instructions were never just about mechanics, never just about backstroke and follow through. It was also about instilling a moral compass.

"I used three yardsticks - emotional intellect, mental intellect and spiritual intellect," Tim Prante said. "If you're weak in one of them, that's as strong as you're going to be in all areas. We tried to build a strong foundation in all three areas. You're only as strong as your weakest link."

From the beginning, Prante's mother, Jean, has been her son's biggest fan. But she can't bare following him through a course, watching a match unfold.

"I get too nervous," Jean said. "If he hit a wayward shot I felt so bad. I can't stand to watch, but I tell him I support him 100 percent."

Shane Prante is a determined competitor. And not just with a golf club in his hands. Kageler saw that again at a team get-together when his players side up to play Whirlyball, a fast-passed version of basketball played in bumper cars. Prante's team lost the best-out-three.

"You could see Shane was getting more intense," Kageler said. "But you know, that's why he's been No. 1 in the nation. He doesn't like to lose."

Setbacks are like pep talks. In fifth grade after getting cut from an all-star basketball team, Prante snuck out of his house and practiced late that night after getting cut, long after everyone else had gone to bed.

"My parents don't even know about that today," Prante said. "I didn't want to be the guy people laughed at. I wanted to get better and prove I could be on the team. Maybe not be the best player on the team, but be on the team. I'd spend hours and hours playing. My dad set up obstacle courses with cones. I'd spend hours practicing out there."

That commitment to perfect carried over to golf. And the payoffs came early.

While playing golf for Black Hills, Prante advanced to state four times and placed in the top five each time. Yet full scholarships were few -- Portland State, Saint Martin's and a partial offer from New Mexico.

He mailed his resume and stats to over 50 schools. But the future No. 1 ranked golfer in the country got little response. Western Washington didn't think he was good enough. So when Prante won the Western Washington Invitational for the third straight year this year - no one had ever won it back-to-back - he felt vindicated.

"Nothing pisses me off more than someone telling me I can't do something," Prante said. "It makes me want to go out and do it. I have a lot of heart. I'll never give up. Giving up is one of the worst things you can do."

But Prante considered quitting golf when he learned three weeks before beginning classes at Portland State University on a golfing scholarship that the golf program was dropped. The coach, crying as she spoke, apologized as she shared the bad news.

"I couldn't believe it," Prante said.

He thought his college golf career was over before it had even begun. Prante attended South Puget Sound Community College that year and didn't golf. The next year he enrolled at Tacoma Community College, where he golfed for one season, hoping to get some scholarship offers. But he didn't win a tournament.

Saint Martin's was his lone offer.

"I think the reason he flourished here was because academically and socially it was a perfect fit for him," Kageler said. "He never felt any pressure from me. He felt comfortable. There were no high expectations for him and he just flourished."

In October, Prante, who will graduate this spring with a degree in psychology, will play in the first of two qualifying rounds for the qualifying school for the PGA. Kageler will help Prante get endorsements and financial backing so he can concentrate on golf, allowing him to focus on his dream.

"I think he's got what it takes to make it," said Kageler, the coach who has believed in Prante from the start. "But if he's going to do it, he has to be dedicated to golf and golf alone."

It's a long journey from a cow pasture to the PGA. But Prante is determined to make it.

Courtesy of the Olympian