OAKMONT, Pa. -- Nick Flanagan doesn't know what to do now in his golfing career, because he never thought he could do this.
U.S. Amateur champion? You've got to be kidding.
All the 19-year-old wanted was to hit a few golf balls, trek around the United States to advance his game, then return home to Australia and play well enough to avoid finding real work for a while.
"I've been having a great time, playing golf, going to the beach," Flanagan said. "I'm living it up at the moment. To keep it going like this would be terrific."
But this, winner of the biggest amateur tournament in the world? Impossible. Yet there he was Sunday, holding off the top-ranked Casey Wittenberg through two 18-hole rounds and a playoff hole to win the U.S. Amateur.
Not only he is the first Australian since Walter Travis in 1903 to win, the former soccer player is the one of the unlikeliest champions ever in a tournament that has turned out some of golf's biggest stars -- Bobby Jones, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods.
"I honestly really have no idea how I have won, but I have," said Flanagan, the third youngest winner ever.
By doing so, he became amateur golf's version of British Open champion Ben Curtis, an unknown who raises the level of his game far beyond what he imagined during one improbable weekend of excellence.
But at least Curtis grew up around a golf course in Ohio. Flanagan didn't start playing golf regularly until watching Tiger Woods win the 1997 Masters, an extremely short time to learn how to play so well.
Initially, he was a good player but didn't display any signs of potential greatness; his first significant victory came in the 2001 Australian schoolboys championship.
But it's a very long step from winning the 2002 New Zealand under-19 title and the Tasmanian Open to cradling the mammoth Havemeyer Trophy, as Flanagan knows.
They played some tournaments together earlier this summer, but Flanagan was so indistinguishable that Wittenberg didn't know who he was until seeing him Saturday on the Oakmont Country Club practice tee.
"I know nothing about him," Wittenberg said before the match.
The 18-year-old Wittenberg, by contrast, is a golfing prodigy, one nursed and molded by father Jim, a former PGA Tour pro. Wittenberg spent the last four years at the renowned Leadbetter Academy in Bradenton, Fla., developing his game, and he plays with a poised confidence rarely seen in one so young.
As his father said, "He knows what he's here for."
And while Flanagan was forced to sneak onto courses because he didn't have the money to play regularly, Wittenberg lived on a TPC course in Memphis and played whenever he wanted.
At Oakmont, Wittenberg became a big favorite once longtime star Trip Kuehne was upset in the second round. Despite Flanagan's run of victories at Oakmont, the Australian seemed overmatched, and even he knew it.
"Casey's a guy that knows where he wants to go. He's not going to let anybody stop him," Flanagan said. "I really didn't think I would be able to beat him and, luckily, I might have gotten him on an off day."
Even though it was Wittenberg who was groomed for this moment, Flanagan won the first two holes and never trailed, building his lead to as many as four holes. But he seemed to be in big trouble after Wittenberg won two of the final four holes to force the playoff, as afternoon gave way to evening on a long day that began in the early morning.
Right about then, Flanagan wanted nothing more than to jump on the next Qantas jet and go back home to Lake Macquarie in New South Wales, where his dad is a coal mine electrician and his mom works in a super market.
"The nerves got to me the last couple of holes," Flanagan said. "I just wanted to get it over and done with, because I was a nervous wreck."
But Wittenberg hit a 3-wood into the rough on the playoff hole, the 462-yard No. 10, and his second shot found the rough again. Flanagan hit an excellent drive, an approach to 25 feet, then calmly two-putted to win the championship he felt was beyond his skill level.
Flanagan was surprised enough. Imagine how Wittenberg felt.
"I made it to the finals at age 18 and, what's disappointing is you could be the best player for the next three or four years and not make it to the finals," he said. "That's just the way match play is."
Now, Flanagan returns home to celebrations and expectations, and no more anonymity -- he's already assured of playing next year in the U.S. Open, the Masters, the British Open.
Next year, the Tasmanian Open might have to wait.
"It's definitely changed things, but I don't really want it to change the way I act or the way I go about what I'm doing," he said. "It's not going to change my mind about turning pro or anything like that, because I've still got a lot of work to get my game up to anywhere near the place those guys are."
Of course, he felt much the same way before barely making the U.S. Amateur as the third of three qualifiers from the Cincinnati qualifier, then surviving a playoff just to reach the match play field of 64.
"It's just unbelievable," he said.
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