Wednesday, June 15, 2005 | 9:24 a.m.
PINEHURST, N.C. -- Out of the shower stepped Andres Gonzales into his room at the Sheraton Baltimore North, unknowingly moving his half-clothed self into sight of a handheld video camera.
Somehow, he didn't find it strange, but Gonzales is no exhibitionist. He's just Ryan Moore's roommate.
"With all the fame Ryan's had in the past year, there's cameras everywhere, so you kind of get used to it," Gonzales said during the NCAA championship earlier this month.
This particular camera is one from the crew of Wonderland Productions, an Emmy-winning company shooting hours upon hours of footage of everything Moore as he makes the transition from amateur and college star to professional hopeful. It may become a reality TV documentary or something similar, although the Moore family hasn't given Wonderland permission to do anything beyond collecting video of Ryan's hectic life.
Moore's evolution takes one of its final steps when his week ends here at the U.S. Open, as he uses the exemption he earned as the U.S. Amateur champion to play his second major tournament of the year. Moore announced Monday he will turn pro when he accepts a sponsor's exemption at next week's Barclays Classic in Harrison, N.Y., giving up his British Open amateur exemption to gain more time to chase enough money to earn his PGA tour card through the end of the 2005 season.
Moore being Moore, the move into the challenging professional ranks after dominating the amateur world last year does not faze him.
"It's no different," Moore said. "Golf is golf. It's the same golf shots, and it doesn't matter where you are or what you're wearing. I'm not going to change my mindset. Obviously, I'd love to go into Pinehurst with the same mindset I had (at nationals). I think I hit every fairway. That's what you have to do in a championship."
With domed greens that simply refuse to hold long approaches and narrow fairways that demand precision from each tee shot, Pinehurst No. 2 is a course that sets up well for Moore's meticulous approach. This will be his second U.S. Open appearance, having gone through qualifying on three hours' sleep to earn a spot at Bethpage in 2002, where he missed the cut.
The treacherous courses and bright lights of major golf do little these days to affect Moore, who finished tied for 13th at his second Masters in three years, introducing him to even the most casual of golf fans.
Moore is likely to cash in on his raised profile next week by signing six-figure endorsement deals and hiring an agent. He must hold off on those announcements this week in order to retain his amateur status and his exemption.
That also means Moore won't be earning any money here, no matter how well he plays. To avoid qualifying school, Moore will need to crack the top 125 of the money list in about a half-season, most of which he will play on sponsor's exemptions as tournament directors fight to bring in one of the hottest names in golf to brighten their marquees. Last year's No. 125 player, Tag Ridings, finished with $623,262 in earnings.
Here's where it gets tricky: Because he is not a tour member, Moore can only play 12 events this season, two of which will be gone after this week. He can take only seven sponsor's exemptions, meaning he will have to Monday qualify for three more tournaments. To earn more starts, Moore would have to gain special temporary member status by equaling the $442,872 earned by last year's No. 150 player, Paul Stankowski.
Considering how well Moore has played on Tour -- he would have made nearly $200,000 between the Masters and his T-24 finish last year at the Chrysler Classic of Greensboro -- that is within reach.
Moore said his main goal for the remainder of the year is to earn his card and Dwaine Knight, now Moore's former coach at UNLV, said it was still hard for Moore to pass up the British Open at St. Andrews in Scotland.
"He just feels like this is his best chance," Knight said.
Moore's rare situation is what attracted Wonderland to him in the first place. Just 22 years old, Moore is already making million-dollar decisions and charting a career that millions will follow from his first swing.
The Wonderland crew shot him getting royal treatment at the Nevada State Legislature and the governor's mansion last month, and filmed him playing his final college tournament at nationals. Moore wore a wireless microphone seemingly everywhere as the crew trailed him and his UNLV teammates around Baltimore.
Easygoing as always, Moore barely notices the men with video cameras laying on the ground and standing behind crowds to record his every sneeze and smile.
"It's just normal," Moore said. "I'm going to have a lot of cameras around me the rest of my life, hopefully, so that's the last thing I'm going to worry about. I figure if you have a camera following you, that's a good thing."
"It's no big deal at all, I don't think. They're just there. I don't have a problem with it."
His brother, Jeremy, spent an entire day at Caves Valley Golf Club with the cameras trailing his every move. There he is sipping coffee and talking to Ryan's caddie, Kirk Brown. And there's Jeremy talking to his little brother about another round of golf. It's not exactly action video, but Wonderland specializes in turning these quiet sports moments into good stories on film.
"They're just getting a different look at it, a different perspective," Moore said. "It's not something very many people understand, how it works. They just think if you're a good player in college, you just get to go out on tour, but that's not the case. They thought that could be an interesting story."
Jeremy said there is no actual production scheduled as yet, but Wonderland's pitch about using Ryan's story as a look into what it takes to withstand the attention and pressure of life as a college golf phenom was too interesting to turn down.
"We liked the guys and they had a good concept of what they wanted to do," Jeremy Moore said. "They're very capable guys."
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