FOR THE RECORD, Will MacKenzie actually quit playing golf after tenth grade, though this isn't the point in his bio with which he really takes issue. "I don't know where they're getting the smoking-blunts-in-the-cave part," he says. "Yeah, I think I smoked, but let's say I never inhaled."

It's 7:30 in the morning, and MacKenzie is eating breakfast at a posh New Orleans hotel before his first-round tee time. Next to him sits his 24-year-old girlfriend, Alli Spencer, a recent college graduate who models for the likes of Guess and FHM and is wearing a tight white T-shirt that reads LITTLE MISS TROUBLE. MacKenzie starts talking as soon as he sits down. By the time the coffee arrives, he's covered burritos (a favorite), professional climber Chris Sharma (a hero), and fishing (a passion), though somehow it doesn't seem all that scattered. MacKenzie's sanguine, raised-in-the-sun manner and North Carolina drawl dampen his rapid-fire brospeak, and he moves with an athletic grace—he's five-eleven and broad-shouldered, a sinewy 170 pounds—that masks his inability to sit still.

Even when he talks about his personal history—which he's been reciting almost weekly since Hawaii, when golf writers finally stumbled upon their new John Daly—he manages to be relaxed yet frenetic. He talks about growing up in an athletic family, the third of four boys; picking up golf at age four, when his oldest brother, ten years his senior, sawed off a driver, five-iron, and putter and began taking him to the local course; winning his first tournament, the Popsicle Open in Greenville, at age five; becoming a fixture on the national junior scene; burning out at age 14; and being a standout soccer and football player in high school.

Spencer, who has been happily clarifying (and poking fun at) MacKenzie, elaborates. "According to Will, he could pretty much be a pro in anything," she says.

"Definitely motocross," he says. "There's no doubt, dude."

Whether he was pro material or not, MacKenzie was an all-state kicker on the football team, capable of 60-yard field goals, and schools were lining up to recruit him. "Except for that 1.8 GPA," he says. "And the 940 I got on my SAT didn't really help."

"You did not make a 940!" Spencer interjects.

"A 940 was great back in the day," says MacKenzie. "It used to be tough."

"It was not great ever. It's awful. That's like ..."

"Retarded?" MacKenzie offers.

"Yes, retarded."

"So I didn't get any offers. They all wanted me to kick football for them pretty bad. But they were like, 'This 1.8, bud—we can't get you on scholarship.' " And so in 1993, after a semester stint at a local college, MacKenzie took the money he'd saved up washing dishes and selling grilled-cheese sandwiches at Grateful Dead shows and headed west, kicking off his strange odyssey to the PGA Tour. Only later, when he was 25 and diagnosed with ADD, did he have an explanation for his academic struggles. But in a house with four active boys and endless outdoor options, the line between having ADD and keeping up with three brothers can get a little blurry. "I know it's overdiagnosed," says Spencer, "but Will has it. We were at lunch once with a financial adviser, going over a bunch of serious stuff. I look over at Will and he's got the menu open on his head, like a hat, and he's drumming with his silverware and staring out the window."

Willy Mac doesn't medicate—might mess with his game.