AUBURN — He plays golf as well as Rick Neuheisel, but approaches it more like Don James — methodically, carefully, respectfully.

"There isn't a hole on any course that I can't bogey," said Tyrone Willingham. "If you get lackadaisical and don't pay attention to detail, it happens. How many of us can stay in the moment?"

On the eve of his first Washington team starting fall practices, Willingham was focused. But for one warm and wonderful afternoon, it was on golf, not football.

He played Washington National in 2-over-par 74 Friday, and then said he'd play another nine later that afternoon at the Plateau Golf Club near his home in Sammamish.

He played Washington National as part of a media event, and for the first time in at least 20 years players were involved. At least a dozen were involved, Joe Toledo hitting a ball there, Joe Lobendahn hitting it there.

Things are definitely different at Washington, where players seem to matter both more and less, recognized as golfers and students by the new coach, but also lost in the anonymity of new uniforms without names on their backs.

You have to go back to Jim Owens in the 1960s and '70s to see Washington jerseys with just numbers. And to Owens' first two Rose Bowls teams — 1959 and 1960 — to teams that didn't have captains selected before the season began.

Like Owens did those two years, the 2005 Huskies will be led by four captains selected each week. Game captains. It was not unlike Willingham's first year at Notre Dame, in 2002, where he was the first coach to use weekly captains since Frank Leahy in 1946.

"You never want to exclude leadership," said Willingham, in explaining his failure to have seasonlong captains. "There may be 20 leaders on this team and we want to give them an opportunity to step forward."

He said at season's end, the players will vote for those who have been the best leaders. In other words, they will be picked for what they've done and not who they are.

The players seemed relaxed around Willingham. It was obvious they weren't excited about losing the names on their jerseys, but, like cutting their hair, they'll do what the coach wants.

"It doesn't matter," said senior linebacker Evan Benjamin about losing his name on his jersey. "We can play in practice uniforms as far as I'm concerned. We're in a time of change, and that is just one of the things changing."

Benjamin was buoyed by the new attitude.

"We've had 95 percent of the guys here this summer. We've gotten bigger, stronger, faster. Things are definitely different. I think we're going to have an awesome year. I can feel it."

So how does it feel to know the media has picked your team to finish last in the conference?

"I didn't see that," said Benjamin, when you know he had, "but thank you for telling me."

The Willingham personality is already pervading the team, certainly the polite, but oblique relationship with the media.

Washington will join USC regionally and teams like Notre Dame and Penn State nationally in returning to a time when fans had to know numbers to get a name. When the sum was more important than the parts.

"We're trying to change a culture," said Willingham. "Today we are always faced with the I and the me, not just in sports but in the workplace. It is always a battle between the individual and the group. If you play as a team, it's amazing what can be accomplished."

Just the moment you think Willingham is some of kind of out-of-touch throwback, he talks about trying to give the players the numbers they want, and he brings them to a golf tournament.

"Off the field," said Benjamin, "we are starting to get more involved in the community and at the same time we're starting to take on school work as a top priority."

I like the fact that Willingham is trying to do it his way, and not the way of Don James, or even Jim Owens. Willingham seems, through a tough transition, to be his own guy.

He seems to care enough about the players that they'll give up some of their identity for him and the team. Will it matter? Sometime in October we'll find out.

I'm not sure we'll ever really understand Willingham, which is exactly the way he wants it.

You would think, as serious as he is, the golf clubs would go in the closet until spring. Keith Gilbertson, as the coach at California, was roasted by a Bay Area writer for playing during the season as somehow symbolic of his lack of commitment.

"It depends on the year, the weather, a lot of things," said Willingham. "The year we went to the Rose Bowl [at Stanford] I played every Friday, five, six, maybe nine holes, and then went to work.

"If the president of United States can play golf — and he has the fate of the whole world in his hands — why can't a football coach?

"If you went upstairs and read a book, what's the difference? You see, I'm comfortable with who I am."

Before he invited the players to play golf with the media, he checked with the NCAA to see there was no violation of the rules.

"As a coach today, you wouldn't dare do anything without checking," he said. "You are always checking."

More like James than Neuheisel, but not like either one. Not really.

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