John Wortinger couldn't believe it. Out on the ninth hole at Maxwelton Golf Club, Kari was doing it wrong again.

Kari, his daughter, was golfing on a summer morning, and a shot put her within 20 yards of the green. The club she reached for and used was the pitching wedge.

She settled into an open stance, eyed the hole and swung the club.

She hit the ball dead right.

If only she had listened. John repeatedly told Kari to use a sand wedge, but his stubborn daughter fought him yet again.

"I still remember that day," she says. "He yelled at me because I would never use my sand wedge. I yelled back. The next day, I started using my sand wedge. From then on, I've had a lot of confidence."

She's also had a lot of wins.

Wortinger won medalist honors in 13 of the 16 dual matches she golfed in this season. She won the Northern Lakes Tournament two weeks ago by five strokes. She finished nine strokes ahead of everyone else at last week's sectional. She has what's believed to be Wawasee's best score ever, a 38, which she's done twice.

Now she's ready for Saturday's Huntington Regional (9:30 a.m. tee time) at Norwood Golf Course. She advanced to the regional one year ago, but her season ended there.

"I should have gone further," she says. "I hit the ball the best I ever had. My putting killed me. That's why I putt so much now."

Listening to Dad on that ninth hole, she believes, is the difference this year.

"Her putting and chipping are tremendous over last year," Wawasee coach Bill Lantz says. "Last year she was in the high 30s and low 40s at times, but she was up and down a lot. This year, she stays there.

"The sand wedge allows Kari to get the ball up in the air."

Don't get the wrong idea about Kari and her dad.

"My dad's my biggest supporter," Kari says. "Besides myself, he's also my biggest critic. I don't like to play with my dad because we fight. I don't play with my mom (Jackie) because she's good. A couple of years ago, my mom held the (Maxwelton) record with a 73. Now it's a 72, and this is a par-72 course."

"Kari and her dad are too much alike," Lantz says. "Both are right even when they're wrong."

Golf is big in the Wortinger family. Kari's, cousin, Travis Wortinger, attended Cumberland College in Kentucky on a golf scholarship. He competed in the nationals.

And as soon as Kari, a senior, and junior brothers Chet and Chad graduate, their parents plan to move to Florida so they can golf more often.

"Every day this summer, my mom was out here," Kari says. "And my dad always says if there's one thing he could do, he would golf year round.

"We're a golfing family."

Kari's a golfer, but she's the first to admit she acts anything like a golfer.

To prove it, she points to her left foot. The heel flaps on the worn shoe.

These are her golf shoes. Not only do they not have the customary spikes on the bottom, one has a loose heel. Kari would rather die than part with them.

"I'm superstitious," she explains. "I'm a jeans and T-shirt type of golfer. My golf shoes are falling apart. I'm a scruff."

That's why she kept her T-shirts. Wawasee's golf team has polo shirts, but Wortinger still wears golf T-shirts from her freshman year underneath at every match.

She won't swing the golf club until she's on the tee. She sits in the van as long as possible before a match starts. She always puts her card in her back pocket. She won't go to Norwood to practice this week before the regional.

"And if a ball ticks me off, I throw it in the water," she says. "I've done that a couple times. It's the ball's fault."

Superstitious, yes.

Those superstitions are nothing compared to her ability to talk. To say Wortinger is outgoing is to say the Chicago Bulls aren't too shabby.

Drastic understatements.

Lantz was scheduled to go on a local radio show last week. Wortinger went along. Wortinger did all the talking.

"I'm a people person," she explains. "I'm not quiet. I talk your ear off out there. I'm not one of those who is golf, golf, golf. I talk about school out there, about girls who got hit by golf balls."

The Warriors won only a handful of matches this season. The team truly was Wortinger & Co. Wortinger typically finished 10 to 19 strokes ahead of the second-best score on the team. Still, the one girl who went out of her way to put a smile on the face of a struggling teammate was Wortinger.

"My personal opinion is, Kari deserves anything good that happens to her," Lantz says. "Sometimes you can't always say that about a player. Sometimes you have to pretend. There's no pretending with her. Even as our teams have been weak, her attitude toward the other kids never changed."

Lord, the stories this girl can tell, cackling all the while.

Her first drive in her first match last season landed inside a tree. She had to reach inside the tree to her elbow, snatch the ball out and take a penalty stroke.

Her favorite story - she claims she has one to tell after every match - happened in the first match this season, back before school started. She even calls this story "the maintenance building story."

Wawasee played DeKalb and Goshen at Maple Crest in Goshen in a downpour. Wortinger single-handedly managed to get the match called.

"We got on the greens, the ball would go this far," she says, holding her arms about a foot apart. "We were behind the fifth hole. It was pouring. I went into the maintenance building, asked the guy to use the phone. I called the pro shop.

"As soon as the phone rang, they knew who it was. The golf pro even asked if it was Wortinger calling. I was ticked. We weren't leaving that maintenance building. The coaches got to watch inside from their big window, and we were playing in a downpour.

"We postponed the match."

If she could have, she would have liked to thrown out her score after nine holes at last week's Warsaw Sectional at Rozella Ford Golf Course.

This is the level Wortinger is playing at: she had a 45 on the nine holes, which was the second-best score.

Man, was she steamed.

She three-putted four holes, and to her thinking, she should have had no higher than a 41 if she would have played her game.

"This was the first time her putter left her this year," Lantz says. "It happened last year at the regional, and I think this brought back all those negative thoughts she had put in the past.

"She can be very stubborn. Kari has an easy-going personality, but she's still very serious about what she does. She didn't want to talk to her mom, me or God. But I needed to get a little info to see what was going wrong."

"I'm my biggest competitor," Wortinger says.

"No," Lantz answers, "You're your biggest critic."

"I hate to fail," Wortinger says.

She didn't. She went directly to the 10th hole, lay down and waited to start the last nine holes. She responded with six birdie putts the last six holes, good for a 39.

Now, much to her chagrin, she goes to Norwood.

Oh, she's ecstatic to go to the regional. She just doesn't care for the course. Up until this year, the Huntington Regional was held at LaFontaine Golf Club, a challenging course.

Wortinger liked that course.

Norwood, she says, is too easy. When asked about the course, Lantz tells Kari "to be diplomatic." She played an 18-hole match there earlier this year and shot a 90.

"I don't hate the course, but I don't like it because anybody can score good," Wortinger says. "It's not a course that separates the good and bad players."

While the biggest reason Wortinger has won 13 of 16 matches this year may be because her chipping and putting improved over the summer, her biggest strength is driving the ball off the tee.

"Kari can hit it off the tee 200, 220 yards," Lantz says. "She can hit her 4-wood off the fairway 200 yards. Playing a longer course helps Kari. She can move the ball. That's why she doesn't like Norwood, because it's shorter."

Lantz has known Wortinger since the third grade. He knows her personality well enough to know what happens if she isn't one of the three to advance out of the regional.

"If she chokes, she goes home with her parents," Lantz jokes. "But she won't. She's the best golfer around here. She beat the Penn girls, the Goshen girls and the DeKalb girls. She's beaten everyone around here.

"A 103 got out of the sectional. Kari isn't capable of shooting a 103. It's really a par 72 course, and all you'll need is an 80 to get out.

"I don't think Kari is under any pressure. Her name won't come up when the Fort Wayne coaches talk. The golfers from Fort Wayne may feel pressure, because they should get out."

Wortinger knows what she'll do. She'll listen to the guy who turned her game around this summer, who made her putting and chipping better.

"I just gotta play smart, as Dad would say," she says. [[In-content Ad]]