Rookie Osborn is finding his way on the Nationwide Tour

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Give Garrett Osborn his props. He may be a Nationwide Tour rookie and a serious Johnny-come-lately to the competitive side of golf, but he has a pretty solid handle on how the professional process works.

Badz/PGA TOUR

Garrett Osborn has finished inside the top 10 in two of his last three starts.

That's not always the case for a baby-faced kid like Osborn, 23, who is so dripping wet behind the ears that, upon introduction, he gives the impression he has been standing in thunderstorm. He quietly turned professional late in 2007 and successfully navigated the roiling waters of four stages of the PGA TOUR National Qualifying Tournament, including the pre-qualifier, without capsizing. He arrived in Nationwide events without the fanfare that accompanied more decorated first-year players like Colt Knost, Matt Every and Casey Wittenberg.

Osborn had every right to be proud of his career-best tie for third in the Ford Wayne Gretzky Classic presented by Samsung in Canada a fortnight ago, if for no other reason than it was spurred by his career-best number, a bogey-free final-round nine-under-par 62. Yet the Birmingham, Ala., native and University of Alabama-Birmingham graduate understood that, while he took it very deep on payday and earned his largest check, he did not get the full effect of his lofty finish.

Osborne wants -- and needs -- experience. He wants his feet held to the white-hot fire that being in the hunt for a tournament victory can ignite. He needs to measure how his swing and his thought process hold up under pressure, to gauge how much twitch is produced in his central nervous system.

In other words, he went unfulfilled because he began the fourth round too far back despite the fact that he missed a playoff between Justin Hicks and Wittenberg by a mere shot. While he passed a slew of players he never really got a whiff of the lead while he was on the golf course.

"The whole idea is to have a chance on the final nine,'' he said. "To do that, I feel like I have to get better and become more consistent.''

Nevertheless the finish is one more building block that provided another boost of confidence for a player feeling his way in his new career and learning what is required to succeed. Osborn admitted to being overwhelmed early on by the rigors of weekly travel, by the riddles created by a stream of new golf courses, by the dilemmas produced regarding where to seek lodging and sustenance.

"In college, we'd hop in a van, drive someplace, play golf for two or three days and drive back,'' he said. "Everything was taken care for us. This is different, very, very different. It's all a learning process.''

And that's what Osborn is doing. This while showing he has the ability to hold his own on a highly competitive circuit.

He has discovered constant air travel "takes it out of you'' and that he definitely "is not superman.''

Therefore he cannot sustain good play over long stretches.

"I now know I have to listen to my body,'' he said.

Osborn is happy he listened to himself when he was a senior in high school. A high school quarterback and a switch-hitting catcher, he was all set to head to the University of Georgia on a baseball scholarship when, out of the blue, he had second thoughts, mainly concerning golf.

Not that Osborn was polished at the game mind you. He didn't become serious until the moment he decided to give golf a whirl. Prior to that he dabbled a bit during the summer months and played in family dogfights every Sunday. The real hook was the idea of playing a sport where you earned your playing time on the course, a fact that removed politics from the equation.

Enter Alan Kauffman, the golf coach at UAB. He was acquainted with Osborn and his family. Older brother Payton, who played the Nationwide Tour in 2004, was an all-conference player and a member of two NCAA tournament teams with the Blazers. Plus he knew Garrett was a good athlete. So Kaufmann took "a leap of faith'' and signed him.

It took a while, but Kaufman's faith was rewarded. Osborn averaged 76 strokes per round as a freshman and showed improvement in his sophomore season. The big jump came over the summer and fall of 2005. Osborn returned to UAB and started winning tournaments and became the nation's second-ranked player in the first semester of his junior season. A wrist injury in May of 2006 prevented him from playing in national amateur events, but he had another solid season as a senior, enough to tempt him with the thought of eschewing law school to turn professional.

"I was very fortunate to have the support of my dad (Mark), who has been with me all the way,'' Osborn said.

His first foray into serious competition came in a Monday qualifier for a Nationwide Tour event turned into a comedy of errors. He stepped on his ball in the rough and then kicked it. It led to a withdrawal. Osborn was more composed once the PGA TOUR Qualifying Tournament began. He finished fifth in the pre-qualifier and first stage. He birdied the difficult final hole at the Hombre Golf Course in Panama City, Fla., to make it on the number and then earned his Nationwide Tour card in the final.

So here he is, learning his craft on the fly, but acquitting himself well enough to be ranked 40th on the money list and, with almost half a season to go, certainly in the conversation about who will make 'The 25' and graduate to the PGA TOUR at season's end.

That's not a bad place to be.