By John Erardi / The Cincinnati Enquirer

Golfer Kevin Hall, a Winton Woods product, celebrates with his mother after winning the 2003 Met Championship. Enquirer file/GLENN HARTONG

Four years ago this weekend, then-college freshman Kevin Hall, a graduate of St. Rita School for the Deaf and former star of the Winton Woods High golf team, finished second in Ohio State's annual tournament, the Kepler Intercollegiate.

This time, he is the odds-on favorite to win the Kepler, based upon his victory last weekend at the 14-team Marshall Invitational in Huntington, W. Va. The Kepler begins Saturday with 36 holes (8:30 a.m. shotgun start) and wraps up with 18 holes Sunday.

Given the Kepler field, winning it would be another huge victory for Hall. In the 18-team field are Big Ten foes Michigan, Michigan State, Northwestern, Wisconsin, Penn State, Purdue, Illinois and Iowa. Also competing are Xavier and Miami.

Hall, 21 and now a senior, has had a terrific college career, alternating this year between No. 1 or No. 2 on the team.

But he did not win his first college tournament until last weekend in Huntington. He did it in style, shooting a seven-under par 206 (stroke average 68.7) for the 54-hole event, including a tournament-record tying, six-under par 65 in the final round.

If somebody had told Hall four years ago after finishing second at the Kepler that he would go four years before winning, what would he have thought?

"I wouldn't have believed it," he said by e-mail Thursday morning, before heading for class and then OSU's Scarlet Course for some practice.

Noting his runner-up finish in the Kepler as a freshman, Hall expected he would have won earlier and more often by now.

"That was a strong field, and I certainly figured I had a chance of winning a tournament any time soon," he said. "For me to go four years before winning my first tournament was not going to happen. Well, I guess it did happen. But I'll take it, no regrets. It takes time to grow into it."

Hall shot a first-round 73 at the Marshall Invitational. One hole into his second round, he decided to try something he hadn't tried since his sophomore season: putting cross-handed. For a righthander like Hall, that means his left hand is his bottom hand on the putter; his right hand is on top. This is the opposite of the typical right-handed grip.

What made him do it?

"I had been striping the ball down the middle, hitting my irons stiff to the pin and walking away with pars," he explained. "I was not making anything, no matter how hard I tried. I (needed) to do something different.

"So on the 19th hole of the tournament, I had a 5-footer for par. I thought, Aw, why not? Let's putt cross-handed and see what happens. I hit a good roll, and drained it. The stroke felt pure. If it didn't work out, I'd have gone back to my normal grip."

Though deaf, Hall has always been outgoing. It is his nature and the way his parents, Jackie and Percy, raised him, to never let his handicap get in his way.

Marshall senior co-captain Burke Spensky, who was paired with Hall for last Friday's two rounds in Huntington and finished runner-up, told the Huntington Herald-Dispatch that he came away impressed with Hall's game and his personality.

"He's fun to play with," Spensky said. "We found ways to communicate. He's a class act."

Hall does well in the classroom. The journalism major's grade-point average is above a 3.0 during his academic career at OSU.

At first, Hall had a sign-language interpreter, Chris Chirico, who helped him get acclimated to the large campus and traveled with him to many tournaments during Hall's freshman year. Chirico still interprets for Hall some, but Hall's teammates and OSU coach Jim Brown don't need that assistance now.

Brown, for example, has become a lip-reader. Also, the more one is around Hall, the better one can understand his speech sounds.

An Enquirer sports reporter who met Hall as a freshman at Winton Woods and saw him again last year at the Kroger Senior Classic, was able to understand much of his speech the second time around.

Hall's ability to communicate is legendary. His outgoing personality is contagious. Everybody wants to be a part of his world.

Typical was just one of many interchanges on and around the course in Huntington last week.

"We were on the third hole when Neal (Grusczynski), the No. 2 player at Xavier, and I hit our golf balls close together on the green," Hall said. "We played paper-rock-scissors to see who would go first. The advantage there, of course, is that the second guy to putt can read the line of the first guy. I had rock, he had scissors, so I won (and deferred to him). I got to see his line and nearly drained the putt. We had a good time with that."

Having those good times is Hall's second favorite part about golf. Foremost, of course, is the competition.

Last weekend in Huntington, those two things went together like strawberries and shortcake.

Hall hit some spectacular shots in Huntington. One in particular stood out.

"It was on the fifth hole," Hall recalled. "I had dead-hooked my drive left off the tee and left myself 240 yards to the green off a downhill lie and two trees in front of me. I had two options: play back to the fairway or attempt a low, daring 3-wood runner to the green. Knowing myself, it wasn't much of a choice, I went for it.

"I caught the ball flush 20 feet for birdie - and I wound up with a (tap-in) par. I wish golf was that simple!"

Hall's favorite moment off the course came on the return trip to Columbus from Huntington in an RV.

"We were yapping all over the place, trading jokes, quipping about each other and watching Major League Baseball. It was great. We didn't stop laughing 'til we got home."