Shelton the winner – now the Western Am really begins

Writing from Sugar Grove, Illinois

Thursday, August 6, 2015

A funny thing happened at Rich Harvest Farms on Thursday.

Robby Shelton won a 72-hole golf tournament. He posed for photos with a shiny trophy. He was given a big silver plate to take home.

But really, he hasn’t won a thing yet. The medalist in the Western Amateur is little noted nor long remembered – unless he goes on to win the whole thing.

Shelton, a 19-year-old from Wilmer, Ala., added rounds of 1-under 71 and 5-under 67, the latter featuring an eagle-birdie outburst early in the round and four more birds to start his back nine, to finish at 11-under-par 277, beating Gavin Hall by two strokes.

Jordan Niebrugge, Dawson Armstrong, Aaron Wise and Sam Horsfield tied for third at 7-under 281, while Charlie Danielson of Osceola, Wis., was in solo seventh at 6-under 282.

But all those scores are wiped off the board on Friday morning, when match play begins among the Sweet Sixteen qualifiers. The stroke play totals only seed the players, who start anew.

One of them will won four matches and collect the 113th Western Amateur title.

The last champion to also win the stroke-play competition was Chris Williams, three years ago. He was the 24th to do so, and the 12th in the Sweet Sixteen era.

Shelton played here in the Palmer Cup in June, going 4-0, with two wins in team play and two wins in singles. Along with four rounds in the Western Am, plus practice rounds, he believes he’s played Rich Harvest 10 times.

“I know it pretty well by now,” said Shelton, who will be a junior at Alabama. “If you hit the fairways, it’s really gettable.”

Between the Palmer Cup and the Western Am, Shelton tied for third in the PGA Tour’s Barbasol tournament, played the same week as the British Open.

“It gave me a lot of confidence to be up there third in a PGA Tour event,” Shelton said. “Pretty cool. I knew I had the game to come here and compete.”

Shelton advanced to the Sweet Sixteen two years ago and lost in the first round. He’s one of four repeat qualifiers, including 2013 champion Niebrugge, Danielson and Jonathan Garrick.

Shelton plays Jack Maguire of St. Petersburg, Fla., in the opening match of the Round og 16, at 8 a.m.

NCAA champion Bryson DeChambeau of Clovis, Calif., missed by a stroke. He was 5-under in his final round through 16 holes and within the top 16, but triple-bogeyed the par-4 17th hole, and could only manage par on the par-5 18th.

– Tim Cronin

Records fall at Rich Harvest

    Writing from Sugar Grove
    Wednesday, August 5, 2015

    Going into the first round of the Western Amateur, the men’s course record at Rich Harvest Farms was 5-under-par 67.
    Two players, Dawson Armstrong and Jose Mendez, matched that in Tuesday’s opening round of the 113th Western Amateur. Wednesday, it was obliterated. In the morning wave, David Cooke and Harrison Endycott, playing in the same group, fired 6-under-par 66s.
    They shared the course record for about 10 minutes, for Aaron Wise, in the next threesome, was so inspired he fired an 8-under-par 64 to grab the mark.
    It lasted the rest of the day, though Charlie Danielson gave it a scare in the afternoon with a 7-under 65 to roar into a tie for second place. Thursday, when the final two rounds of stroke play qualifying are played, there’s no guarantee it will stand.
    Cooke, the Illinois Open champion, won’t have a chance to better his 66. His opening-round 80 added up to 2-over-par 146, two strokes over the strict cut line. The Western Amateur takes only the low 44 and ties – 45 in this case, at even par or better – for the 36-hole shootout to determine the Sweet Sixteen for match play.
    Wise scored his 64 the old-fashioned way. He birdied everything in sight. Nine birdies, offset by a bogey, added up to equal nines of 32 and a score never before seen on Jerry Rich’s backyard playground. He’d scored 4-over 76 on Tuesday, and said the difference was positioning off the tee.
    “In the fairways you can attack the pins here,” said Wise, a 19-year-old from Lake Elsinore, Calif., who’ll be a sophomore at Oregon in the fall. “Yesterday, I was hacking out of the trees and bushes. That was the difference.”
    For his fine effort, Wise is still only in a tie for seventh entering the final 36. The leader is Dawson Armstrong, whose 66 on top of an opening 67 earned him a total of 11-under 133 and a two-stroke lead over Taylor Funk and Danielson.
    Armstrong, a 19-year-old from Brentwood, Tenn., whose greatest feat so far is capturing this year’s dogwood Invitational, fell hard for Rich Harvest when he arrived, and the affair is blossoming.
    “What I like best about this course is that it gets my mind off playing golf and gets me thinking about just how beautiful it is out here,” said Armstrong, who has 12 birdies and only one bogey across 36 holes. “At the beginning of the week, I told myself that I would have fun first and if I played well then that’s awesome.”
    So far, so awesome.
    Even Rich, the owner and designer – with Greg Martin – of the layout, thought so.
    “A 64 on Rich Harvest Farms is phenomenal,” Rich said. “Over 20 years of hosting amateur players, these are the best we’ve ever seen.”
    Danielson, from Osceola, Wis., and a senior on the Illinois golf team, birdied seven of his first 10 holes and closed with a brace of birdies, matching 20-footers on the eighth and ninth holes, for a 30-35 excursion.
    “I learned you’ve got to get the ball in the fairway, for sure, and then you can kind of be aggressive with the pins today,” Danielson said.
    At 135, he’s two strokes ahead of pal Jordan Niebrugge, from down the road in Mequon, whose low amateur placing in the British Open is still the talk of Wsiconsin.
    “I want to keep that going into here,” Niebrugge said. “I got off to a good start yesterday. I just hit a lot of really good shots.”
    Funk, the son of PGA Tour veteran Fred Funk, says he doesn’t have the same swing as his father, but he gets similar sparkling results. Wednesday, he opened birdie-eagle, then closed with four birdies on his last seven holes for his 67 and 36-hole aggregate of 9-under 135.
    “It could have easily been 8- or 9- or even 10-(under),” Funk said. “I gave a few away on the back nine, which was my front nine.”
    Funk failed to qualify for the U.S. Amateur, but bounced back with a victory at the Southern Amateur (at Old Waverly).
    Daniel Stringfellow was the only Illinoisan to make the cut. He’s at 1-under 143 entering the final 36 of stroke play.
    Among those missing the cut: defending champion Beau Hossler, two strokes too high at 2-over 146.
    “I drove it badly, chipped bad and putted bad,” Hossler said. “That usually leads to missed cuts.”
    A host of local notables, including Illinois Amateur champion Tim “Tee-K” Kelly, also hit the road after 36 holes. So did 2014 U.S. Amateur winner Gunn Yang, who at least gets to defend at Olympia Fields in a fortnight.
    Match play begins with the round of 16 on Friday morning, with the championship match slated for Saturday afternoon. Admission is free.
    – Tim Cronin

Pettersen romps to IWO title at Mistwood

Writing from Romeoville, Illinois

Wednesday, July 29, 2015

A new rangefinder was 15-year-old Madasyn Pettersen’s goal.

“I came here to be the low amateur,” Pettersen said after raising the Kosin Cup – not for low amateur in the 21st Phil Kosin Illinois Women’s Open, but for the whole deal – after fired a career-low 6-under-par 66 with nine birdies to finish at 8-under-par 208 and score a five-stroke victory at Mistwood Golf Club.

Grabbing the low am title – which she did – means a gift certificate worth $750 in the Mistwood pro shop that would more than take care of the rangefinder’s cost.

Belying her youth, she played like a veteran, withstanding the early charge of fellow competitor Chelsea Harris, who birdied four of the first five holes to move to 6-under and gain a three-stroke lead on Pettersen.

The kid’s answer? Three birdies in four holes. And when Harris bogeyed the seventh and eighth, Pettersen was back in the lead.

There she stayed. While amateur Brooke Ferrell was going around Mistwood’s testing back nine in 4-under 32 to post a 2-under 70 and finish at 3-under 213, and Harris’ 71 brought her in at a like total, Pettersen poured it on by pouring birdies in. To wit:

• Birdie at the treacherous par-3 14th, played over the water with a wind-in-the-face 5-iron to 15 feet.

• Birdie at the par-5 15th after a second shot that finished pin high to the left of the green.

• Birdie at the par-4 16th after an approach to 15 feet.

• Birdie at the par-3 17th after a tee shot to 12 feet.

• Birdie at the par-5 18th after a second shot that bounced to the fringe behind the green and a nifty chip to five feet.

“I won!” she mouthed to her family, including 9-year-old Bella, her little sister and loyal caddie, after the final putt fell.

She not only won, she dominated. Records are sketchy, but Pettersen, who will be a junior at Rockford’s Auburn High School this fall, is certainly the youngest winner of the IWO, and no other player, much less champion, has birdied the final five holes of any round, much less to win going away.

Pettersen’s finish left Harris, an assistant women’s team coach at Illinois State, breathless.

“She played lights out,” said Harris. “I got outplayed today. I had it early and lost it.”

They were the last twosome and finished in under four hours, but some considered them slow because the pentultimate group was two holes ahead at one point. That margin was a little more than a hole at the end, but it may have bugged Harris that Pettersen surveyed many a putt from many an angle.

“I prefer to play a little faster,” Harris said.

On the other hand, Pettersen was making everything she looked at by the end, and nothing saves time more than sinking a long putt.

“This spring I said to myself, ‘I want to putt like Jordan Spieth,’ ” Pettersen said.

A grip change and several hours of practice later, she was sinking long putts with great regularity.

“Nine birdies today, I think that’s pretty darn good,” Pettersen said.

Ember Schuldt of Sterling took fourth and was the only other player under par, her even-par 72 leaving her at 2-under 214. Bing Singhsumalee was fifth at 1-over 217 after a closing 72.

– Tim Cronin

Harris, Schuldt, Pettersen co-leaders in Illinois Women's Open

Writing from Romeoville, Illinois

Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Two talented pros and a prodigal amateur share the lead in the 21st Phil Kosin Illinois Women’s Open entering Wednesday’s final round.

One pro is Chelsea Harris, the assistant coach of the women’s team at Illinois State. She added an even-par 72 on Tuesday to her opening 70 and stands at 2-under 142 going into the concluding 18 holes at Mistwood Golf Club.

The other pro is Ember Schuldt, the pride of Sterling. The 2014 Illinois graduate now trying to make her way on the Symetra Tour carded her second straight even-par 71, a round highlighted by a chip-in birdie on the front nine.

The amateur is Madasyn Pettersen, the 15-year-old Rockford resident whose second round of 2-over 74 earned her a share of the lead. She had held it by herself after an opening 68, which remains the low round of the championship.

They’re a stroke ahead of Brooke Ferrell and two ahead of Bing Singhsumalee and Leithann Cabush, all of whom are amateurs.

Those looking for a steady player in the final round might want to back Harris, who had one birdie and one bogey.

“It was tempo again,” Harris said. “I have a tendency to get quick in everything I do, so I work on my tempo. But I don’t think of anything over the ball. It’s ‘crickets.’ ”

And, perhaps, a groan on her lipped-out birdie opportunities on the last three holes.

Schuldt’s card was more involved, with five birdies, including one at the last, along with a pair of bogeys and an untidy 5 on the par-3 ninth.

“I’m very excited about my position and excited about tomorrow,” Schuldt said.

She’ll make money at the least, which has only been the case twice in 10 adventures on this season’s Symetra Tour, the stepping-stone to the LPGA.

Then there’s Pettersen, who struggled to a 2-over 38 on the front, but birdied two holes on the back to offset a double-bogey 6 on the par-4 13th. The last of her birdies was on the par-5 18th, created by a 290-yard drive, a pin-high 6-iron, and a near chip-in to about 5 inches.

The rest of her day? Not so great, she inferred.

“Hopefully my full swing is better tomorrow,” Pettersen said. “There were not a lot of greens hit, not a lot of fairways. As a scrambler, I had a lot of practice.”

Ferrell backed up her opening 71 with an even-par 72, highlighted by three straight birdies on Nos. 14, 15 and 16. She pocketed six birdies, six pars and six bogeys.

Singhsumalee and Cabush each scored 1-over 73, Cabush playing the last 13 holes in 1-under.

The cut fell at 11-over 155, with 30 players advancing to the final round.

– Tim Cronin

In IWO, a child will lead them

    Writing from Romeoville, Illinois
    Monday, July 27, 2015

    Madasyn Pettersen has been playing golf for 11 years.
    She’s 15.
    Monday, her 4-under-par 68 paced the field in the first round of the 21st Illinois Women’a Open at Mistwood Golf Club. And she wasn’t surprised at all.
    “It was just a normal day,” Pettersen said.
    For her, at least.
    The Rockford teen had fired a 68 in the middle round of last week’s AJGA Midwest Junior Players Championship at Mistwood, and eventually finished second to Naperville’s Bing Singhsumalee.
    This time, Pettersen leads Chelsea Harris and Jessica Yuen by two strokes, and Ember Schuldt and Katy Jarochowicz by three strokes, with 36 holes to play. Singhsumalee is tied for seventh after at even-par 72.
    Given the spate of youthful golfers on the international stage, this shouldn’t be a surprise.  Pettersen is just three years younger than top-ranked Lydia Ko, for instance. The two share one trait: They can putt.
    Pettersen scored five birdies, including three in a row, after bogeying the par-4 second hole on Monday. The 30-footer for a bird on the par-4 fourth hole was her longest.
    “I’m just a great putter,” Pettersen said, volunteering that she three-putted twice.
    She also has high goals.
    “I want to break Kathy Whitworth’s record of 88 wins,” Pettersen said.
    It’s impressive enough that she knows of Whitworth, whose last victory was 30 years ago. But Pettersen isn’t brash, just bubbly.
    And her resume is growing. She won the IWGA Junior last year, two years after getting disqualified for using a range finder she thought was allowed. At 7, she was playing so well the women who run the Rockford Women’s Golf Association were worried she would beat them in the Rockford Women’s Golf Classic, and arranged for her to play in the IWGA Junior instead.
    That was only her fourth year on the links. Last year, their worry finally came true, Pettersen winning after a year off to fight an inflamed shoulder, plus a stomach-related hopsital stay.
    So far this week, she’s again beating all the girls, young and old. And this time, it’s amateur and pro.
    Harris, for instance, is the assistant coach of the women’s team at Illinois State. She posted her 2-under 70 on the 6,249-yard layout playing with Yuen.
    “I focused on tempo,” Harris said. “Made five birdies. Having three bogeys in a row fired me up.”
    Those came on Nos. 8, 9, and 10, and were followed by birdies on the 11th, 13th and 15th holes – the latter a tap-in after missing a 6-footer for eagle on the par-5 in Kelpie’s Korner. She had been 2-under until riding the bogey train, but finished 2-under, which bodes well for the second round.
    “I’ve only played 10 times this summer,” Harris said. “But this is my favorite tournament of the year behind the U.S. Open.”
    Yuen’s 70 was less eventful, with three birdies and a bogey, but she closed with a birdie on the par-5 18th, one of only five there on the day, and essentially picked up two strokes on the field.
    Yuen, a Missouri recruit who will be a senior at Nequa Valley this fall, switched teachers last year, and says working with John Platt, Mistwood’s ace instructor, has paid off.
    “I feel more confident in my swing,” Yuen said. “I hit 15 greens. I was attacking the hole all day. Tomorrow, I want to repeat it or do better.”
    The field averaged 77.11 strokes, the most impressive the one by Brooke Ferrell of Edgerton, Wis., on the par-3 seventh hole. Her 166-yard 7-iron found the bottom of the cup.
    “I actually wasn’t very happy with the shot,” Ferrell said of her first impression of her hole-in-one. “It was a chunk-and-run.”
    Ferrell finished with a 1-under 71 and is in the thick of it.

    – Tim Cronin