Trey Mullinax was strolling the same back yard that his family has called their own for the past 10 years. With a 60-degree Calloway wedge in hand, he laughed, looked into the summer sky and remembered.

He was uprooted from his home before the start of his sixth-grade year. His father Chip, mother Kristy and big sister Hailey packed their bags in the summer of 2004, and changed their address from Sumiton to the Dorsett Woods community in Mt. Olive.

The U-Haul only traveled 21 miles. But at 11 years of age, Mullinax had to start over — new school, new classmates, new city.

Most kids would struggle under such circumstances, but not Mullinax. The blond-haired youngster was armed with a dangerously winsome presence that ensured his social survival. 

That’s why, some 10 years later as he walked his parents land, it was no surprise that Mullinax was both relaxed and likeable. 

Never short of personality, Mullinax joked about all the attention he’s been receiving lately. “Why would anyone want to talk to me?” joked the Gardendale High School alumnus. 

But as he turned to the small, dimpled ball beneath him and dug his white Nikes into the freshly cut lawn, something happened. Something changed. 

The 22-year-old, only two days removed from clinching the University of Alabama’s second consecutive golf national championship with an unlikely 15-foot eagle putt, lightly struck the ball. It landed inches from the target. 

There was nothing funny or loose about it. Unlike his crooked Southern grin, the shot was sure and straight. 

Without struggle, the two-time national champion did it again and again, like it was no more difficult than sweating in June. 

This is something for which Mullinax credits both his father and his now-former head coach at Alabama, Jay Seawell. 

“My dad told me that I had a choice. I’ve got to pick one sport and, for some reason, my gut told me golf,” he said. “He told me that when I choose a sport, ‘We’re not going to halfway do it, we’re going to give it everything we have and we’re not going to hold back anything.’”

Chip saw to it that his son put in the hours, but as a freshman golfer at Alabama, Mullinax admits that his short game was in need of a makeover. Seawell was able to take it from there. 

“Coach Seawell kind of took me under his arm and taught me how to score, taught me how to play good golf,” said Mullinax. “I was a very up-and-down golfer, and he taught me how to manage my game and how to stay away from trouble.”

Both men played a significant part in molding the recent college graduate into not only the golfer he is today, but the golfer he hopes to be in the future. 

It was only right for both of them to embrace Mullinax on the 17th green of Prairie Dunes Country Club in Hutchinson, Kan., moments after the senior’s championship-clinching eagle putt.

The putt finalized top-seeded Alabama’s 4-1 victory over No. 2 Oklahoma State in the NCAA men’s team match-play final last Wednesday. Seconds after Seawell leaped into Mullinax’s arms, Chip marched across the green with arms open, saying, “That’s my son!”

That was Mullinax’s final stroke as a college golfer, and it sealed back-to-back national titles for the Tide. He now looks to make it a career, competing in the world of pro golf. 

Making the jump from collegiate to pro golf wont change his approach much. Mullinax has been playing golf, or as he puts it, “going to work,” since Chip placed a club in his hands. 

As Mullinax explained his sadness of completing his run in Tuscaloosa, he slid his University of Alabama-issued golf bag back into the back of his SUV, closed the door and walked away with the look of a man who hopes to some day “go to work” — at Augusta National.