|
Tuesday's
Championship Notes
In
what became the microcosm of the first two days of the U.S. Junior
Amateur, nine competitors finished at 151 and were in a playoff
for five spots. Three groups of three teed off on the par-3 16th
and the results were dramatic.
The first threesome included Derek
Tolan,
a competitor in the 2002 U.S. Open at Bethpage (N.Y.) State Park.
Tolan hit his tee shot on top of the bridge that crosses over the
water that borders the front of the green. The next two players
missed the green as well and when the first group was done the best
score was a bogey 4, followed by a double-bogey 5 and Tolan’s triple-bogey
6.
The next threesome all hit the green and recorded two pars and a
three-putt bogey. That left the last group with a chance to make
the field of 64 with pars. Two players parred and one, Jesse
Speirs
of Bangor,
Me.,
hit a shot over the flagstick and was left with a 10-footer for
birdie, which he made.
“I knew the shot I had to hit and tried to execute
that shot,” Speirs said of his three-quarter 8-iron.
Speirs had a six-footer on the same hole in his
second round and missed it.
When asked about the first threesome’s debacle,
Spiers was diplomatic.
“I tried not to think about it.”
The playoff yielded four pars, two bogeys, one
birdie, one double bogey and
one triple bogey.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
With
his mother collecting golf balls with the number one on them for
her son to hit on the practice range before Wednesday’s first round
of match play, Brandon Lawson is practicing his game in preparation
for his first-round match against Steve Saunders of Albuquerque,
N.M.
Knowing he was in the field of 64 after shooting
74-74--148, and with the ease of a teen-ager, Lawson
and the rest of the range rats were hitting each other clubs and
generally goofing around with their days done and all having qualified.
Lawson
is different than most of the 156 at the Junior Amateur this week.
Coming to golf relatively late at 10 years old, Lawson, from tiny
Elburn, Ill., on the outskirts of Chicago, didn’t have the same
dreams that most of the field had of making the winning putt at
the U.S. Open or hitting
a 300-yard drive.
His dream was to play professional basketball,
but when he realized he was too slow and not a very good shot by
the time he entered his freshman year of high school, Lawson
focused
all his intentions on golf.
“When I started playing golf I thought I was
going to do it for fun because I still had that pro basketball thing
going, Lawson said. “I was No. 1 player on our high school team
all four years."
Lawson, who practices by hitting balls from his
front yard over the road that borders his house into the nearby
cornfield, would eventually become the state champion when he made
a birdie putt on the final hole at last year's Illinois State championship
as a senior.
Lawson,
who looks like a young Luke
Donald,
is outfitted with a Stanford
golf cap,
Stanford
logo on
his bag and a Stanford
head cover,
making it clear he is on his way to the west coast to play golf
under a scholarship where Tom
Watson
and Tiger
Woods played.
With his future set, Lawson’s
goal coming in to this week was to make the cut, something he didn’t
do in last year's Junior.
“That was my goal, to get into match play this year, because last
year I missed by two,” Lawson
said of
his goals this week. “I basically decided to get into match
play, see what I can do and take it from there.”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Shooting
an 83 in the first round of the U.S. Junior Amateur is devastating
when the leader shoots a two-under-par 68, and you are tied for
136th. That was the dilemma of 16-year-old Matt
Savage
of Louisville,
Ky.,
when he came to the course for his second round of stroke play.
Savage
didn’t have a birdie in the first round, but did have six bogeys,
two doubles and a triple bogey. His front-nine 44 was 9-over-par,
but did right the ship on the back nine to shoot a 4-over-par 39.
“I definitely knew I had to play well,” Savage
said of
his thoughts going into the second round. “I was thinking I would
probably be going home.”
But Savage
is staying
with Jim
Fitzgerald,
the head professional at Chevy Chase Country Club, and Fitzgerald
had followed
Savage’s first round and gave him encouragement on Monday night.
“He watched me play, and he told me I didn’t play that bad,” Savage
said of
Fitzgerald’s
counsel on Monday night. “He encouraged me to come back and
play well. They were more confident I was going to shoot 66
or 67 than I was.”
With afternoon/morning tee times Savage
had little
time to regroup before he started at 7:57
a.m. Tuesday,
but seemed to have no problem early on with his first birdie on
his third hole, the par-5 12th. With only a bogey on the 15th hole,
Savage
made the turn with an even-par 35, four shots better than his round
on Monday.
Savage
started his first Junior with bogeys on the first two holes, but
in the second round he made the turn with birdies on the same two
holes, which got him into a better frame of mind. Then he eagled
the par-4 seventh from 100 yards with a sand wedge.
“I birdied one and then birdied two, and that’s when I started thinking
'I’m playing well and I’ve got a shot to get in here,' ” Savage
said.
Savage not only had a real chance to make it into the top 64 for
Wednesday’s first round of match play, but he would tie the Columbia
Country Club course record of 66 held by five players, including
former PGA
Tour commissioner
Deane Beman in the 1966 Maryland Open.
“After yesterday I was so embarrassed I just wanted to come back
and shoot a decent round,” Savage
said.
“I was thinking a 69 would get me at least into a playoff.
I’m just happy to be in the match play, it’s my first U.S. Junior.”
The key to Savage’s round may have been the putter,
in his 83 in Monday’s first round he had six 3-putts and one 4-putt,
while in Tuesday’s second round he did not three-putt once.
It’s not the first time Savage
has had
such a turnaround. Just last week in a junior tournament he shot
77-69.
Savage
made the round of 64 comfortably with his 149 total and will play
Will Wilcox
of Pell
City, Ala.,
in Wednesday’s first round.
66s at Columbia Country Club
Jack Issacs, U.S. Open Qualifying
Harry Bradshaw, 1955 Canada Cup
Al Besselink, U.S. Open Qualifying
Deane Beman, 1966 Maryland Open
Jack Skilling, 2000 Maryland Open
Matt Savage, 2003 U.S. Junior Amateur
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Jared
Goslee, a 17-year-old from Salisbury, Md. withdrew from the Junior
Amateur last week. On Tuesday it was disclosed that Goslee
was diagnosed with leukemia and is a patient at Johns Hopkins in
Baltimore, undergoing treatment for the disease.
-
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Columbia
Country Club has had 11 members participate in the Junior Amateur,
including Greg Carlin, who is in this year’s field and made it to
the round of 64 with a 145.
Bob Bowers was the first in 1948, Perley Cullinane
played in 1949, '50 and '51, Glenn Mitchell played in 1950 and '51,
Bob Understein and Dan Boone played in 1959, Dan Mc Andrews in 1977
and '78, Charlie Gates also played in '78, Mike Mitchell played
in 1996, Mike Brenneman in 1998, Thomas Feldman in 2000 and Carlin,
who also played in the 2002 championship.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
One
interesting thing about the U.S. Junior is that none of the caddies
have names on their backs, but numbers that are assigned to the
players. So if you want to follow the championship you need
a pairing sheet.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
There
were some minor changes made at Columbia
for the
Junior Amateur, including the flagpole that now stands near the
putting green off the 17th tee. It had been in the planning
stages for years, but was finally erected last week.
Also, the 17th tee was lengthened 20 yards by
the USGA’s request to make the hole 290 yards for the competitors,
and the driving range fence was heightened to not only protect the
cars on Connecticut avenue that borders the club, but also the retirement
home that is directly behind the range.
In the past, woods were not permitted from some
parts of the range for the members, which will no longer be an issue
with the changes.
Notes
compiled by Alex Miceli, a frequent contributor to the USGA's Web
site.
|
