Austin’s Matthew Wright wins national Special Olympics golf title
Matthew Wright has never been one to shy away from a challenge.
Whether it’s rowing on Lady Bird Lake or teeing it up at Lions Municipal Golf Course, Wright hasn’t allowed obstacles to stand in his way.
“He’s very sure of himself,” said local lawyer Tom Forbes, who married Matthew’s mother more than two decades ago. “He’s self-confident and never afraid of taking risks on new things.”
One new challenge was flying cross-country to take part in a national golf tournament. Wright was selected to compete in the Special Olympics North America Golf Championship in New Jersey as part of the organization’s unified division, meaning he participated with a partner/coach, who in this case was friend Drew Widney. The two headed to Seaview Golf Club in October to compete with about 200 others through multiple divisions.
Wright has a lineage in the game. His great-grandmother was a 21-time club champ at El Paso Country Club. And Wright did his ancestors proud by capturing the title with Widney, edging a team from Arizona by three strokes to take home the national title in the three-day, 54-hole event.
Although he’s only gotten serious about the game over the last decade, Forbes enrolled Wright in golf classes when he was still a teen.
“It didn’t pique his interest much then, but now he really loves it,” Forbes said. “Obviously, we’re really proud of him. It’s so heartwarming to see. He’s such a terrific person. He likes people and as a result, people like him. And he tries so hard, it’s a joy to watch him do these things.”
Wright, who considered putting as one of his strengths, said this was a memory he’ll never forget.
“The feeling of winning this golf championship was amazing,” he said. “I had a great time playing.”
Mahan coaching small DFW high school
Starting next year, just call Hunter Mahan “Coach."
That’s because the 41-year-old former six-time PGA Tour winner and former U.S. Ryder Cup and Presidents Cup player is set to begin coaching the boys’ golf team at Liberty Christian, a private, college preparatory school located in Argyle, just north of Dallas.
“I asked randomly about the head coaching golf position because I thought it could be fun and interesting and something completely out of my comfort zone but something I have a lot of knowledge in, and the coach was retiring so I threw my name in the hat,” said Mahan, who is taking over in the spring season. “When you talk about God’s path for you, it just became so clear for my wife and I. We plan on moving (to Argyle) next year from Dallas and for the kids to start attending school there.”
Mahan reached a career-high world ranking of No. 4 on April 1, 2012. That made him the highest-ranked American golfer at the time. But he last won in 2014 at The Barclays, a FedEx Cup Playoff event, and his game went into steep decline. Mahan’s longtime caddie John Wood and swing coach Sean Foley both are reluctant to say why Mahan lost his mojo but agree that having three kids in diapers and enjoying being a stay-at-home dad factored into it.
Mahan stepped away from the PGA Tour after the 2020-21 season — he still has limited status as a past champion — but said it was the right time for him.
“If you don’t love it on Tuesday, you can’t love it on Thursday. It’s just never going to work that way,” he said, noting it was everything before the competition that was a struggle for him. “It was actually a rather easy decision based on that. I have four kids at home and a family and it was clearly my time to do something else. I didn’t want to keep playing just to keep playing because I could. I didn’t want my kids on the road with me. I wanted them at home going to school and being with their friends. Uprooting them for my life didn’t feel right to me and it wasn’t right for them. I wasn’t going to ask them to do that. It just didn’t make sense.”
He made just two cuts in his final 20 starts on Tour during the 2020-21 season, and appeared in the last of his 453 career tournaments in July 2021 at the 3M Open.
With three girls and a boy ranging in age from 3 years old to 10, the former Oklahoma State Cowboy golfer has been happy handling car-pool duty. Mahan says he plays occasionally but rarely hits balls and it’s not even a monthly thing he does anymore. None of his kids have the golf bug just yet, but he imagines that coaching a high school golf team will get him to play a bit more. Mahan won’t be the only former standout athlete coaching at Liberty Christian. Former Dallas Cowboys tight end Jason Witten is coaching his son on the football team and Olympic gold medalist Jeremy Wariner was named the track and field coach in July.
Mahan mused that he could be the start of a trend of players enjoying shorter careers. He earned more than $30 million in official money and despite never winning a major, he had nothing left to prove.
“When I joined the Tour, Vijay Singh, Kenny Perry and Jay Haas were in their 40s and having their best years. They were on Ryder Cup teams. I don’t think that’s going to happen anymore,” Mahan said. “The money is going up so much and the pipeline of new players coming through is so good, guys are going to be like, well, I’ve made so much money do I really want to grind at 45 and travel all the time? Golf is getting younger. The youth of golf is going to be at the forefront.”
Birdies and bogeys
After consistently standing up and speaking for the PGA Tour over the last two years, Rory McIlroy shockingly left his role as a player director on the Tour’s Policy Board with a year to go in his term last week. On Monday morning PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan sent an email to players stating the five remaining player directors had elected Jordan Spieth to serve the remainder of McIlroy’s term, which expires at the end of 2024. Spieth, 30, previously served two years on the Tour’s Player Advisory Council in 2017 and 2018 and was PAC Chairman in 2018. He was then a player director from 2019-2021. The 13-time winner on Tour joins fellow player directors Patrick Cantlay, Charley Hoffman, Peter Malnati, Webb Simpson and Tiger Woods. Current PAC Chairman Adam Scott will replace Hoffman as a player director in 2024.
Tim Schmitt is the managing editor for Golfweek, golf coordinator for the USA Today Network and lives in Round Rock. Golfweek's Adam Schupak contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin's Matthew Wright wins national Special Olympics golf title
