Illinois PGA: Small thinking big again

    Writing from Chicago
    Sunday, August 24, 2014

    Mike Small has won the Illinois PGA Championship 10 times.
    By Wednesday afternoon, that sentence may have to be revised.
    Small starts his defense of title No. 10 at 9:10 a.m. Monday at Stonewall Orchard Golf Club in Grayslake.
    To say he is the favorite is obvious. In reality, because of the way he’s played in the championship of the section – as opposed to the Illinois Open, this is the Illinois Closed, with only PGA of America members eligible – he is the overwhelming favorite.
    “This is the one that means a lot to be because we’re PGA members, and this is a big deal to us,” Small said on the scoring porch after winning by four strokes at on the South Course at Olympia Fields Country Club last year.
    A four-stroke victory is a runaway, but it pales to other of Small’s efforts in grabbing the Jim Kemper Trophy. He won by an Illinois PGA Championship-record 11 strokes at Olympia Fields in 2010. He beat Jim Sobb by six strokes at Stonewall Orchard in 2009. He was 14 under par when he triumphed at Stonewall Orchard in 2007.
    His 8-under-par 63 on Olympia Fields South in 2010 set the course record for the just-refurbished layout and established a new Illinois PGA mark for low total: 200.
    String together all 10 victory marches, do some math, and one discovers that Small is an aggregate 68 under par across 30 rounds in those championships, with a 40-stroke victory margin.
    About the only thing Illinois Golf Hall of Famer Small doesn’t own is the single round Illinois PGA record. That belongs to the estimable Bob Harris, the Sunset Ridge flash who pounded Arlington Country Club to the tune of a 9-under-par 62 in the final round of the 1959 edition. Harris needed most every stroke to beat Tony Holguin by two.
    Nobody else has won more than six. Johnny Revolta did that, including a Small-like five in seven years, when he was the sage of Evanston Golf Club. (Until recently, Revolta was thought to have won five times, but it was discovered that he wasn’t credited with his 1942 title on the original Willie Marshall Trophy. E.J. “Dutch” Harrison was, and he wasn’t even based in Illinois at the time. So Small actually broke Revolta’s record at Medinah in 2008, not at Stonewall Orchard in 2007.)
    Small will try to run away and hide, but others will be chasing him with the same idea. Steve Orrick, the 2012 champion, is up from Decatur with an eye toward annexing his second title in three years. Midlothian’s Frank Hohenadel, the winner on Medinah No. 1 in 2011, will start early on Monday, before the heat takes full effect.
    Last year’s runners-up, Matt Slowinski, Curtis Malm and Travis Johns – all of whom have come in second alone in the previous three years – are also expected to be heard from.
    Small won $10,000 last year. The purse is expected to be announced on Monday morning.

    – Tim Cronin

Hossler's comeback earns him Western Amateur

    Writing from Chicago
    Saturday, August 2, 2014

    Beverly Country Club exemplifies man’s wish to get away from it all. In this case, the getaway is for golf. But when your course straddles the city limits of Chicago, getting away is more a concept than a reality. At least aurally, and sometimes visually, the city makes its presence known.
    Ask those who played in this week’s Western Amateur. At various times, and sometimes simultaneously, thanks to its Southwest Side location, one might hear jets coming in for a landing at nearby Midway Airport, sirens from ambulances and fire trucks zooming to and fro, trains rumbling by on the Baltimore & Ohio line, 100-decibel boom boxes playing classic rhythm and blues from revelers in the Dan Ryan Woods, and the general cacophony of the city.
    The jingle of an ice cream truck completed the masterpiece of sound when Saturday’s championship match between Beau Hossler and Xander Schauffele was on the 13th hole.
    At that juncture, Schauffele still held a 1 up lead on his compatriot from California. But he had been 3 up after 10, when he two-putted the treacherous green on the par 3 while Hossler had three-putted.
    Perhaps the bells of the ice cream truck tolled particularly for the senior from San Diego State, for from the middle of the 11th hole on, Hossler was the better of the two. The Texas sophomore would escape the 11th with a halve via a birdie, and win six of the last seven holes to claim the title of champion in the 112th Western Amateur.
    Hossler’s 2 up victory could not have been foreseen when he shoved his tee shot to the right on the 11th hole. He was fortunate to not have gone out of bounds, as he had been on Friday afternoon, when a limb of a tree to the right of the 13th kept his ball from going out-of-bounds and kept him in his quarterfinal match with Arlington Heights’ Doug Ghim. Hossler birdied to win that hole and eventually knocked off Ghim on the 19th.
    “I was just trying not to lose 6 and 5,” Hossler said of his predicament in the championship match.
    The 11th against Schauffele, Hossler would not win, but the halve, coming on a sliding 15-footer after Schauffele had run down a 22-foot putt for a birdie 4, was the bedrock upon which Hossler constructed his comeback.
    Hossler won the 12th when Schauffele shoved his tee shot into a bunker to the right of the par-3 green, and couldn’t get up and down. He won the 13th with a booming drive down the middle – there were no shortage of those from him and most of the leading contenders – and a 25-foot two-putt par, while Schauffele, having bunkered his approach, again couldn’t save par. And Hossler won the 14th to square the match, sinking a 16-footer for birdie and then watching Schauffele unable to match the bird from about a foot closer.
    At this point, Hossler looked every bit like the prodigy who led the U.S. Open at age 17 two years ago at the Olympic Club in San Francisco. And Schauffele, after a smart start that saw him 3 up after 7 holes and 2 up at the turn, looked like his tank was empty.
    It was. He knew it, and Hossler knew as well.
    “Fatigue and exhaustion definitely kicked in,” Schauffele said. “You have to be fresh, be all there physically and mentally. I definitely fell asleep at some point and woke up on 15 to try and make it interesting.
    “That’s all I had in the tank.”
    His last outburst came on the 15th, a demonic par-4 that tumbles downhill to the north and, even after considerable tree clearing, has enough hardwoods to either side to make one pay for an errant drive.
    Schauffele hit such a drive, into a copse of trees on the right, but didn’t have to pay. He cashed in with a marvelous approach that swung hard to the right and rolled to within five feet of the cup for a kick-in birdie. Hossler, after an approach to 14 feet, was again 1 down.
    But it was all Hossler from that point. His approach on the par-4 15th stopped five feet from the hole, while Schauffele’s was up on the hill to the right, making for an impossible recovery, and the match was square again.
    Hossler took the lead on the par-3 17th, the hole that has brought so many to ruin over the decades. With the pin back right, he played a safe approach to the front of the green. Schauffele went for the bundle and saw his shot stop on the back collar, leaving him a difficult chip or putt or belly-wedge or something to get the ball to the hole, and, with the right prayer, not too far beyond.
    He grabbed a wedge and, after too many mini-practice swings to count, tried to hit the ball at its equator. It moved forward all of 30 inches.
    “I left it short and looked silly,” Schauffele admitted. A wry smile at that moment didn’t really mask the pain.
    So Hossler, who usually needed birdies to win holes against Ghim on Friday, and had romped over Northbrook’s Nick Hardy 4 and 3 in Saturday’s semifinal, had won a hole with par and was Dormie 1.
    He would take the match with a conceded birdie on the par-5 18th after a smart layup and wedge on while the wheels fell off Schauffele. He drove deep into the woods between the 18th and 16th fairways, played his second down the 16th, and thought he had a clear shot to the 18th green. He did, except for the 50-foot tree to the front left of the green that caught his ball and dropped it into some of the heaviest rough on the course.
    His next shot was into a bunker, and his next move after that was to shake hands with the winner.
    Make no mistake. As much as Schauffele faded, Hossler played winning golf.
    “I had to go out there and get it,” Hossler said. “I’m proud of the way I was managing myself around the golf course. I was able to scramble, miss in the correct places a lot of times, as well as make key putts.
    “I’m fortunate to come out on top. The difficult holes for him came at the wrong time.”
    
    Fighting Illini fall in semifinals

    Hardy is headed to Illinois this fall. Brian Campbell, a senior from Irvine, Calif., is on the welcoming committee.
    They’ll be able to commiserate with each other over their semifinal losses. Hardy’s 4 and 3 loss to Beau Hossler was pretty cut and dried, but Campbell stretched the battle with Xander Schauffele to the 18th hole before yielding. Putting, Campbell said, was the problem.
    “I opened by missing a 4-footer for birdie on the first,” he groused. “But eventually I realized I was still in it.”
    Campbell trailed from the third through the 14th hole before dropping an 8-footer for birdie on the par-4 15th. His 9-foot birdie miss on the par-4 16th was the big miss. Schauffele sank a 7-footer for a 3 on the hole to go 1 up, and stayed there. The players matched par on the 17th and birdie on the 18th.

    The numbers

    Hossler was not only the winner, but the better player in the championship match, especially on approach shots. Neither player set records for hitting fairways – each hit 5 of 13 – but Hossler hit 14 greens in regulation, including all nine on the inward nine, while Schauffele hit only 11, and just four after the turn.
    Hossler played the 18 in 2-under, including the usual concessions, while Schauffele was even. He’d been 2-under through 11 holes.

    Seeing burnt orange

    Hossler is the first Texas Longhorn to win the Western Am since John Klauk in 2002. The result in the championship match was a reversal of this year’s California Amateur, which Schauffele captured 2 up at La Costa in June. Other recent winners representing Texas: Justin Leonard (1992 and 1993) and Ben Crenshaw (1973).

    – Tim Cronin

Hossler wins a classic in Western quarterifnals

    Writing from Chicago
    Friday, August 1, 2014

    Birdie followed birdie as naturally water flows downstream.
    Doug Ghim would sink a putt, and Beau Hossler would answer.
    Hossler would drop a bomb from across the green, and Ghim would fashion a miracle from a bunker.
    On and on it went across the back nine of Beverly Country Club’s pristine acreage, a semifinal berth in the 112th Western Amateur at stake, until the 19th hole, Beverly’s 10th, when Ghim’s three-putt bogey opened the door for Hossler to win the hole – and the match – with a par.
    “You weren’t going to win a hole with par in this match,” Hossler said. “He’s clutch and solid.”
    It wasn’t going to happen on the back nine, at least. Not with each player scoring 5-under-par 30, matching birdies on the 10th, 14th and 17th holes and each getting two more birds to win other holes. It was the most exciting match of the 112th Western Am to date, and one of the best in any match-play amateur tournament since Matt Kuchar and Sergio Garcia threw birdies around like penny candy in the 1998 U.S. Amateur quarterfinal at Oak Hill in New York,
    “It’s up there,” Ghim said of his personal ranking of matches he’d played in. “I was playing to win the whole thing.”
    Ghim had survived squandering a 4-up lead against Matt Hansen in the morning’s Round of 16 match, taking a 1-up victory with a birdie on the 18th hole, his fifth 4 on the par-5 in as many visits to the hole. But he two-putted the final hole for par against Hossler, who also parred after hammering his tee shot closer to the 16th fairway than the 18th.
    The fireworks between the future Texas teammates began at the 10th hole, with Ghim dropping a 25-foot birdie putt and Hossler answering from 18 feet for a matching deuce to keep the match all square.
    “The birdie on 10 to halve the hole was key,” Hossler said.
    Ghim went ahead with a 4-foot birdie on the par-5 11th, and after matching pars at the 12th, Hossler went from goat to hero in the space of a few minutes. His tee shot on the par-4 13th  floated to the right, flirting with the fence along 91st Street. It clipped a tree and stayed in bounds, allowing him a recovery shot. That low slash finished on the left side of the green, with the cup far right. After Ghim’s approach went into the fronting bunker, Hossler smacked his putt. It traveled 63 feet, and would have run 15 more and off the green except that the hole got in the way, allowing him to square the match once more.
    “Honestly, I felt I was going to win with a two-putt, because he was shortsided in the bunker,” Hossler said.
    That stacked up as the most spectacular win of the match, but not for long. They matched birdies on the par-4 14th. Hossler birdied the par-4 15th to go 1 up after an approach to four feet. Ghim birdied the par-4 16th to return to all square after his approach from the right rough somehow stopped 18 inches from the cup.
    The par-3 17th bordered on surreal. Ghim, with the honor, splashed his tee shot into the right greenside bunker. Hossler went for the pin, which was back left, and almost flew the green. Instead, the ball checked up and began to trundle and trickle its way downhill. Eighteen seconds after Hossler swung, the ball stopped two feet from the cup.
    That would seemingly be a gimme birdie, but Ghim was up first, again trying to hole out from a bunker, as he had failed to do on the 13th. The bunker shot floated in the air, landed a foot from the hole, caromed off the pin and dropped into the cup. Ghim jumped in the air, his caddie-teacher-father Jeff ran over and high-fived and chest-bumped him, and Hossler suddenly had to make his two-footer to keep the match square. He did, and, with 10 birdies between them in eight holes, they went to the last.
    Pars would result, each player missing a short birdie putt. And it was off to the 19th, where Hossler would survive.
    “I used to struggle in match play,” Hossler said. “I’ve finally come to realize you should expect anything, because anything can happen.”
    Having dispatched the pride of Arlington Heights (and his soon-to-be Texas teammate), Hossler will take on Nick Hardy of Northbrook at 7:30 on Saturday morning. Hardy, an incoming freshman at Illinois, will be well-rested, having dismissed Geoff Drakeford 6 and 4 in his morning match and Scheffler, the third Texas player, 5 and 4 in the afternoon.
    “Haven’t met him,” Hossler said. “I don’t know anything about him.”
    On the other side of the draw, Illinois senior Brian Campbell, who hails from California and is the Big Ten player of the year, will face Xander Schauffele, a senior at San Diego State, in the second semifinal at 7:45 a.m. Campbell knocked off Joshua Munn 2 and 1 in the morning, then outlasted Cory Crawford in a 23-hole marathon, matching the second-longest match in the Western Am since the Sweet Sixteen format went to 18-hole matches in 1961.

    Round of 16

    Doug Ghim (270), 18, Arlington Heights, Ill., d. Matt Hansen (279*), 22, Los Osos, Calif., 1 up
    Beau Hossler (276), 19, Mission Viejo, Calif., d. Cheng-Tsung Pan (276), 22, Mialoi, Taiwan, 3 & 2
    Scottie Scheffler (278), 18, Dallas, d. Taylor Macdonald (274), 22, Brisbane, Australia, 3 & 1
    Nick Hardy (278), 18, Northbrook, Ill., d. Geoff Drakeford (274), 22, Traralgon South, Australia, 6 & 4
    Brian Campbell (278), 21, Irvine, Calif., d. Joshua Mann (272), 23, Palmerston North, New Zealand, 2 & 1
    Cory Crawford (276), 21, Sanctuary Cove, Australia, d. Lucas Herbert (276), 18, Ravenswood, Australia, 1 up
    Xander Schauffele (278), 20, San Diego, Calif., d. Bryson DeChambeau (272), 20, Clovis, Calif., 1 up
    Hunter Stewart (275), 21, Nicholasville, Ky., d. Charlie Danielson (277), 20, Osceola, Wis., 2 & 1

    * – qualified in sudden-death playoff.

    Quarterfinals

    Hossler d. Ghim, 19 holes
    Hardy d. Scheffler, 5 & 4
    Campbell d. Crawford, 23 holes
    Schauffele d. Stewart, 3 & 2

    – Tim Cronin

Ghim and bear it: He's the medalist

    Writing from Chicago
    Thursday, July 31, 2014

    Doug Ghim all but admitted it.
    He took the morning off, which is why and how he scored 2-over 73 in the third round of the 112th Western Amateur.
    But there was an extenuating circumstance: The course-record 63 the 18-year-old Arlington Heights standout chalked up at Beverly Country Club the day before.
    “I never quite got acclimated in the morning,” Ghim said. “The 63 put pressure on me.”
    Apparently, the 73 took the pressure off, for Ghim, who went from leader to pursuer, fired a 6-under-par 65 in the afternoon round, with birdies on the first two holes and an eagle on the seventh to light the way. That resounding rebound, punctuated by a two-putt birdie at the last, brought Ghim the stroke play victory at 14-under-par 270, an honor which will mean only that he’s the biggest target when match play commences and he, as the top seed, shakes hands with 16th-seeded Matt Hansen on the first tee at 7:30 on Friday morning.
    Hansen advanced with a 25-foot birdie putt on the second hole of a sudden-death playoff. He, Nicholas Echavarria and Adam Schenk tied for 16th at 5-under 279, all three scoring even-par 71 in their final round to force extra holes. The trio parred the par-3 10th, and that took them to the par-4 16th, where all three hit the green in two, and Hansen found the cup first.
    Ghim’s closing 65 came with him paired with third-round leader Bryson DeChambeau, who stood at 11-under 202, a stroke ahead of Joshua Mann. Ghim was tied for third, three strokes in arrears.
    Not for long. A few encouraging words from his sister at lunch buoyed the incoming Texas freshman, and he went to the first tee with vigor.
    “It was right off the bat,” Ghim said. “Birdied the first hole and on No. 2, I had a tough 6-footer for birdie. I had it going.”
    Golf’s a funny game that way. But when Ghim’s going, look out. DeChambeau opened bogey-bogey, and the four-stroke swing, coupled with Mann parring every hole on the front nine, put Ghim back in control. His big drive and equally stout second left him about 12 feet for eagle on the par-5 seventh. It might as well have been a gimme, so confidently did he stroke it home.
    “I got to the point I felt confident the rest of the round,” Ghim said. “Honestly, I was a little bit irked with my play in the morning. There were a couple of annoyances.”
    Such as bogeys on the 15th and 17th, for instance. But he birdied the 18th – as he has in every round – and was on his merry way after lunch. Only a double-bogey on the par-4 15th scarred his card.
    Nine-under on the par-5s this week, he wanted to be 10-under with an eagle on the par-5 18th. It was possible after his 350-yard drive on the 599-yard hole, but his 240-yard 4-iron went a hair too far.
    “I wanted it to come up on the collar,” Ghim said. “Past the pin on that hole is not a good spot, and I was 20 feet past the pin. But it wasn’t too stressful.”
    He looked at the scoreboard to see where he stood, and calmly two-putted for birdie.
    The collegiate influence has been strong in top-level amateur golf since World War II, and  nothing this week is different. Three Illinois players (Brian Campbell, Charlie Danielson and inclming Nick Hardy) and three Texas Longhorns (Beau Hossler, Scottie Scheffler and the incoming Ghim) are in the Sweet Sixteen. There are no Fighting Illini-Longhorn matchups in the first round, and probably no favorites, either.
    “Match play is a game of circumstance,” Ghim said. “My match against (Jordan) Niebrugge at the Publinx is a great reminder of that.”
    Ghim needed 23 holes and a 10-footer for par to knock off Niebrugge in the round of 16 at Sand Creek Station in Newton, Kan. He made it all the way to the championship match.
    “If I stick to my game plan, I’ll be fine,” Ghim said.
    Niebrugge was in the mix for a Sweet Sixteen berth at lunch but shot 3-over 74 in the afternoon to miss the playoff by three strokes. Other notables going home include Frankfort’s Brian Bullington, China’s Zecheng Dou and Tianlang Guan, 32-year-old Andrew Price of Lake Bluff, and 51-year-old Michael McCoy, who needed a final-round 68 to make the playoff and posted a 78 instead.
    The qualifying score of 279 matched the low set at Point O’Woods Golf and Country Club in 2004.

    The first round matches for Friday morning:

    7:30 – Doug Ghim (270), Arlington Heights, vs. Matt Hansen (279), Los Osos, Calif.
    7:45 – Cheng-Tsung Pan (276), Miaoli Country, Taiwan, vs. Beau Hossler (276), Mission Viejo, Calif.
    8:00 – Taylor Macdonald (274), Brisbane, Australia, vs. Scottie Scheffler (278), Dallas
    8:15 – Geoff Drakeford (274), Traralgon South, Australia, vs. Nick Hardy (278), Northbrook
    8:30 – Joshua Mann (272), Palmerston North, New Zealand, vs. Brian Campbell (278), Irvine, Calif.
    8:45 – Cory Crawford (276), Sanctuary Cove, Australia, vs. Lucas Herbert (276), Ravenswood, Australia
    9:00 – Bryson DeChambeau (272), Clovis, Calif., vs. Xander Schauffele (278), San Diego
    9:15 – Hunter Stewart (275), Nicholasville, Ky., vs. Charlie Danielson (277), Osceola, Wis.

    Only two of the 16, Pan and Hossler, have advanced to the Sweet Sixteen before, and they’re matched against each other in the Round of 16.

    – Tim Cronin

DeChambeau to Western Am lead

    Writing from Chicago
    Thursday, July 31, 2014

    Sixty-three one day, 73 the next. Such was the fate of Doug Ghim on Thursday morning at Beverly Country Club. Ghim, the 18-year-old who fired a course record 63 in the second round of the 112th Western Amateur, scored 73 in the third round to fall out of the lead and into a tie for third.
    The leader after 54 holes, with the fourth round just underway, is Bryson DeChambeau, whose 4-under-par 67 moved him to 11-under 202 and a stroke ahead of Joshua Munn, who also scored 67. Ghim, Taylor Macdonald and Zecheng Dou were at 8-under 205 going into the afternoon round.
    The fight for the medal is one thing, but the biggest battle is for the final places in the Sweet Sixteen. Entering the final round, there was an eight-way tie for 11th, which included defending champion Jordan Niebrugge. Michael McCoy of West Des Moines, Iowa, the lone senior in the field – he’s 51 – was tied for 27th, as was Brian Bullington of Frankfort. Tianlang  Guan of China, the 15-year-old sensation, scored 2-over 73 in the morning and was at 214, six strokes out of a Sweet Sixteen spot.
    – Tim Cronin