'Softie' Casey earns first TOUR victory the hard way

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Paul Casey ranked in the top 10 in both Driving Distance and Putts per Round.

HUMBLE, Texas -- He calls himself a softie.

Cries at "Bambi." Tears flow when he watches rubbish -- his word -- movies.

And the few times he's gotten emotional on the golf course? Usually, he chuckled, had nothing to do with soft and cuddly or anything resembling joy.

Until Sunday.

Paul Casey got choked up big-time when he tried to put the day -- and his first PGA TOUR win -- into perspective.

"Do you have an easy question?" he grinned?

The Englishman known as much for his warped sense of humor as his need for warp-speed in his BMW M5 was at a loss for words.

He threw the Shell Houston Open into his schedule because he heard the course might suit his game and it was a great run-up to next week's Masters. He kept his head down and played his own game on this windy, stop-and-start week, and when he found things getting a tad messy at crunch time, he pulled it together, went into sensible mode and beat J.B. Holmes in a wind-blown one-hole playoff.

Holmes, who had to wait nearly three hours after finishing his round, had yanked his tee shot in the water and all Casey had to do was play it safe. Nice 3-wood off the tee, a little short on the second shot. A nice par that followed the bogey on the same hole that forced the playoff in the first place.

"Should have hit that pitch shot harder in the playoff,'' said Casey, the first European to win the SHO. "Would have been nicer. I don't know. Fairly anticlimactic wasn't it? I was sort of wanting a fist pump or a jump in the air or something.

"Couldn't really do it with a tap-in.''

So, he choked back the tears. Then flashed that wide, cracking grin of his.

This one could open the flood gates.

Casey has been a major fixture for a while now. A player with power and finesse who was lost somewhere in conversations that begin with Adam Scott and Sergio Garcia and wind their way -- now -- to Rory McIlroy. He's been an oh-right in conversations, despite three top 11 finishes at the Masters in four tries. And there was a tie for seventh at last summer's windswept British Open at Birkdale.

The question hasn't been so much the shots as Casey's mental game, but that may have just been put to rest. Off-season changes that put him back together with his old caddie Craig Connolly and his marriage to Jocelyn Hefner made a huge difference. So did quality time in the gym and overtime sessions with Peter Kostis.

It all fell together this week in Houston where he managed to cycle around Memorial Park to get away from golf.

Hard to imagine, but at the start of the year, Casey was worried about staying in the top 50 in the world.

"I think I'm finally getting to the stage where I'm starting to, you know, have belief in myself,'' Casey said. "You know, I'm a top whatever I was, 12th in the world or something like that this week, coming into this week, 12 or 13. It's time to start believing that I'm in that group and that I can be a top-10 player in the world and maybe I can be top-5. Don't know. We'll see when we get there.''

He's, um, here. The SHO is his second win this year -- his first was in Abu Dhabi on the European Tour -- and those, coupled with a runner-up finish at the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play put him squarely in the top 10 by the time he walks into the Augusta National clubhouse Monday morning. Monday's update saw him jump to the sixth spot in the world.

The win is the 10th of Casey's career and it came on a brutal course and on a week that was anything but easy. With the rain and wind delays, Casey wound up sprinting to the 18th hole Friday night to tee off and finish the round -- in near darkness -- so he could sleep in a bit Saturday.

"I come around this morning and they've got buggies (golf carts) with people,'' he said, drawing a laugh. "What's that all about? Could have done with one of those the other day.''

But seriously, he said, that was big.

"Making that 18th tee and teeing off in the dark . . . " he said. "I'd rather play the hole in the dark on 18 than wake up at 5:00 in the morning, get ready and have to hit that 18th tee shot cold.''

Sunday, it was Holmes who had to his tee shot on the playoff hole practically cold. He warmed up a bit, but posting his 11 under and sitting and waiting for the field to finish. Well, it was advantage Casey. Or over when Holmes' ball dove into the water.

"I stuck to the game plan,'' Casey said. "Hit a 3-wood off the tee. Hit to the left edge of the bunker, drifted right. No problem -- 18 is pretty much a par 5 today anyway.

Casey started the final round in a six-way tie for the lead, lost it to Fred Couples a few times, watched everyone else fade away, then grabbed it back when Couples bogeyed the 16th and triggered a three-hole slide for the 49-year-old former SHO champ.

"You know, Freddie is a stud, isn't he, really,'' Casey said. "What a guy, what a player. ... That's incredible golf.''

And no, Casey didn't let the pro-Couples crowd -- the city has loved him since his days at University of Houston -- get to him. In fact, he didn't even look at the leader board. He knew players like Geoff Ogilvy, who beat him in the Match Play finals, and Couples would he the guys to beat.

"I kept my head down, to be honest, and didn't pay too much attention to what was going on,'' Casey said. "I just thought it was incredibly difficult out there, so why burden myself with knowing too much. Just get on with it. It's an incredibly difficult golf course with a very difficult conditions. They set it up brilliantly.

"You could get at the flags if you're in the right angles and you were bold enough to want to take that chance," he added. "I knew that ball strikers were the guys who were probably going to come out on top at the end of today with the conditions, and I put myself in that category. So I thought guys like Ogilvy, Freddie, of course, were the guys to beat.''

The finish wasn't as tidy as he'd have liked, but most of his aren't. He wobbled a bit in Abu Dhabi and definitely had a few brain blips at Match Play. Then there was the bunker shot at the 72nd hole -- a tough one that.

This week, Casey learned a lot more about himself and his game. The three-time Ryder Cupper stood up and won in the United States -- the one thing other than a major missing from his resume. He hung tough in horrible conditions. And, he found a strong 3-wood -- 13 degrees -- that has a place in his bag next week, too.

He's not a private plane kind of guy, but he took one to Augusta Sunday night. And you can bet there were a few tears on the flight.

"It's a little bit like my first win felt in Europe which I can remember very vividly,'' he said. "First win in Europe, first Ryder Cup experience, and now first PGA TOUR win. Three fairly major events in my life, in my golfing life.

"So I think I need to give it a couple days to let this one sink in.''

After that? Well, nothing should surprise you. Especially not another run at a major.