Armstrong wins Western Amateur on 20th hole

Writing from Sugar Grove, Illinois

Saturday, August 8, 2015

Dawson Armstrong has this penchant for the dramatic.

He’ll hole a long putt, or sink a long chip shot, and like that, the match he’s playing will turn around.

He did so several times in the 113th Western Amateur on Saturday at Rich Harvest Farms.

The first time, it brought Armstrong the momentum in his semifinal match against Robby Shelton.

The last time, it won Armstrong the championship. The 19-year-old from Brentwood, Tenn., a sophomore at Lipscomb University, holed out a 50-foot bunker shot on the second extra hole for an eagle 3 and victory over 19-year-old Aaron Wise of Lake Elsinore, Calif.

“My actual first thought when it went in? The pain in my stomach went away.” Armstrong said. “My stomach started cramping up on me as soon as we finished the first hole. I did not feel good.”

Armstrong won the first sudden-death championship since Ryan Moore’s 19-hole triumph over James Nitties in 2004. But nobody within memory has won any WGA title as dramatically as Armstrong, whose sand wedge from the deep bunker in front of the second green hopped twice and, with a gallery of about 100 watching at 5:15 p.m., dove into the cup.

“I ran up about two feet, and it hit the pin and dropped in,” Armstrong said. “When we got up there, my dad told me, ‘You’ve had a lot of great shots, but nothing’s gone in.’ I was, ‘All right, let’s try to knock this in.’ I knew he was going to birdie it.

“I was trying to land it just over the ridge and trickle it down. It was going to have to be a lucky shot, and it was extremely lucky.”

Fittingly, the second hole at Rich Harvest Farms is called “Chance.”

“That was an incredible shot,” Wise said. “Not much I could do about that.”

Wise, who had reached the green of the 552-yard par-5 in two, still had a 25-foot downhill putt to force a third extra hole. He ran it by, and Armstrong was the champion.

“I’d missed a couple of putts low coming in, so I played a little more break on that one, and unfortunately it stayed out,” Wise said.

Armstrong led only twice in the match earlier, and for only a hole in each case. He was 1 up after seven and nine holes, but Wise squared the match on the next hole each time, a brace of birdies moving up 1 up after 13 holes. Armstrong squared the match with a birdie on the 14th,  and made a remarkable save from the junk to the left of the par-3 16th.

“It was the perfect shot for that moment,”Armstrong said.

Wise’s par save on the par-4 17th gave him the lead going to the last when Armstrong made one of his few mistakes, a putt through the fringe that never got anywhere. But his 90-foot up-and-down birdie on the par-5 18th, coupled with Wise three-putting from the back fringe after a bold approach, forced extra holes.

“As I was walking up, I felt I had a chance, because my lag putting was real good this week,” Armstrong said. “I’d had a putt earlier on No. 6 that almost went in from 20 feet off the green.”

This cross-country putt stopped four feet below the hole. Wise, faced with a putt that would go uphill, then fall toward the hole, left the first putt 10 feet short, then tapped his next one, which would have won the match by halving the hole, two feet by.

“It was a touchy putt for a time like that,” Armstrong said of Wise’s putt from the fringe.

Armstrong’s penchant from great shots every other hole started on the 14th, when his approach stopped five feet from the cup, setting up a birdie to square the match.

Armstrong’s father Dale was on his bag for the four match-play rounds. He hadn’t caddied for him since he was a 14-year-old, before he was playing in AJGA competition. And there are no caddies in college tournaments.

“I’m hoping he’ll never forget that moment, because I won’t,” Armstrong said.

“My attitude was, he’s the boss,” Dale Armstrong said. “I’m going to do what every caddie does: ‘Show up, keep up and shut up.’

“I hated that (Wise) lost it on the 18th. He gave Dawson a chance. We were thankful for the opportunity. Dawson’s attitude the whole week was, ‘Let’s have fun and then we’ll play good golf.’ He stayed with it.

“He’s got a great short game; always has,” the proud father continued. “He’s got great hands. To get the ball up-and-down on 16 out of the hazard, and then to have that putt (on 18) and then to hole it? Three out of five holes, he hit great short game shots. But it doesn’t surprise me. It happens to him all the time.

“I don’t know where it comes from, but it shows up.”

Armstrong, who called Rich Harvest “perfect, a dream of a golf course,” beat Shelton 2 and 1 in the morning semifinal, an outcome keyed by his chip-in birdie 2 on the par-3 13th. It was the middle of three straight holes he won to break open the all-square match.

Wise advanced to the championship match by rolling over fellow Californian Jake Knapp 4 and 2. Wise, entering his sophomore year at Oregon, built a 5-up lead after eight holes thanks to five birdies, and coasted from there.

“Right now, it’s hard to say, but I’m sure, reflecting back in the next couple of days, I’ll learn a lot,” said Wise, who, unlike Armstrong, is in the U.S. Amateur, which starts a week from Monday at Olympia Fields Country Club.

“I really hadn’t played any match play at the top amateur level,” Wise said. “My goal was to make the match play this week, and I exceeded the goal; I almost got it done.”

Armstrong is a bit of a student of history. He knew that Sweet Sixteen participants had accounted for more than 70 major championships. He knew that Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods had preceded him as Western Amateur champions. But he didn’t know that in the century-plus history of the championship, nobody had finished a title match like that.

Dawson Armstrong stands alone.

– Tim Cronin

Saturday results

Semifinals

Dawson Armstrong d. Robby Shelton, 2 & 1

Aaron Wise d. Jake Knapp, 4 & 2

Championship

Armstrong d. Wise, 20 holes