DUBLIN — The practice-round gallery following Tiger Woods — who seeks to win the Memorial Tournament for the third time — was so large Wednesday that Kevin Hall went elsewhere to analyze short games.

        The Memorial begins here today. Woods, 25, said his swing is honed but he derives more pleasure from fashioning shots around the putting surface than he does anywhere else on the course.

        “I love to hit shots and create shots around the green,” he said. “To be able to give myself some more arsenal to use around the greens, I love it.”

        Hall, 19, is the former Winton Woods High school golfer who recently completed a great spring as a freshman at Ohio State. Because he's deaf, he couldn't hear the roars echoing around Muirfield Wednesday, but he knows a crowd when he sees it.

        Said Hall: “I'm familiar with Tiger's game ... so I followed Ernie Els and Vijay Singh and some of the other guys that I could get closer to for purposes of watching them work (Wednesday). I learned a lot about touch and pace and being creative.”

        “Creative” is something Hall knows a lot about, because he is blazing a trail for the deaf much as Woods has blazed a trail for many new people taking up the sport, especially African-Americans.

        Hall, who is African-American, already was immersed in the game when Woods came along. But he said he has been affected by Woods' intense, exuberant style on the course.

        “It's pretty neat to be a part of a change like that (leading more African-Americans to take up the game),” Woods said. “In the past, this great game wasn't accessible to everybody who wanted to play it. To be able to influence it positively is a big kick.”

        For all Woods' impact, however, it has not generated a ripple for African-Americans at the highest level of the game: the pro tours and the top college golf schools.

        Jackie Hall, Kevin's mother, said she saw only two African-American players on the Division I tournament circuit this year: her son and Steve Reed, a freshman at Texas A&M. Jim Brown, the coach at Ohio State, said he has seen only about five African-American players in 35 years of college coaching.

        “It's an expensive game, and it hasn't been that many years ago that a (nationwide effort) began to make it accessible,” Brown said. “It will be awhile before those efforts percolate upward. Starting young is a key.”

        Hall was 8 when he was introduced to the game. When he was 13, he became the first student in the 80-year history of St. Rita School for the Deaf to be mainstreamed into public-school sports. At 16, he was one of 25 youngsters who received personal instruction from Woods in a golf clinic at Glenview.

        “In the clinics I've done, I've seen a lot of good swings,” Woods said. “A lot of kids are going to be pretty darn good.”

        Time is required to see an impact at the high levels, he said.

        “One-tenth of one percent (of golfers) get to the professional level,” Woods said. “There's a lot of weeding-out that happens. I think that you need a bigger base to start out with. That's what I think is starting to change.

        “There are kids hitting the ball further than I ever thought I could when I was that age — 13, 14, 15, 16 years old. ... These kids in 10, 15 years, they might be the ones that are going to be out there.”

        OSU's Brown doesn't make predictions about pro prospects but said Hall could be the Buckeyes' No.1 player next year.

        “Kevin has the makings to be a very, very good player,” he said. “His iron game is terrific, and he has great trajectory and control of distance on his shots. ... Passion, work ethic, a great listener — he has those things.”

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