NE Match Play at Wild Horse

[Jay Carstens]

Happy to report the 2nd state championship at Wild Horse is  now in the books.  Tough conditions for the final too!  Congrats to the winner, Jon Deines of Beatrice Country Club.

 http://www.journalstar.com/articles/2005/06/27/sports/doc42bf914ee27a4054732578.txt

Next up:

http://www.nebgolf.org/Tournaments/amateur/index.htm

 

[Tony_Chapman]

Jay:

A group of GCAer's including: Mike Sweeney, Neil Regan, Thomas of Huckaby, Tom Paul, Pat Mucci, Bob Huntley, George Bahto, Dick Daley and myself were at WH on Saturday playing just after the morning matches.

Ask Mr. Paul about young John Hurley who managed 64 at WH on Friday. He was quite impressed in watching the Hurley, Pat Duffy quarterfinal match.

Josh did an excellent job with the golf course. Firm and fast as always, though he would probably tell you the wet spring hasn't helped the green approaches any.

The boys were then onto Sand Hills with Mr. Greco, so I am hoping for some exciting posts in the next couple of days.

[Brad Swanson]

   With that line-up heading to Sand Hills, I'm surprised one of the TV networks didn't try to arrange some type of "Battle at Sand Hills"esque format made-for-TV event.  Hell, I would've even paid $$ if it was a PPV event.  

Cheers,
Brad Swanson

[Jason Hines]

That must have been a heck of a 6 iron at 180 yards into that wind for the win.  Especially with those two bunkers in the front of the green and the large third in the back.  I played there Memorial Day weekend in 30mph wind out of the NW and if you did not mark your ball on the 14th, 15th or 17th greens it was going to roll on you.

Great Fun.

[RJ_Daley]

I just walked in from the long drive home.  Thankfully, I finally motivated a home buddy to accompany me out there and share the driving.

Not all of us went to Sand Hills.  My friend and I went to Bayside on Sunday because in addition to the match play finals, they had a a shotgun 230Pm start for a Nebraska club pro outting.  Don Graham, the WH pro was a very busy man these last few days.

My friend Steve and I arrived Friday evening just as the youngster Hurley was teeing off from 18.  I haven't seen anyone ever drive a ball up that close to the green (about 40-50 yards left strait up the gut of the green from right angle)  He skipped his pitch to pin high and about 5 feet.  He missed the birdie put on the razor sharp cup edges to shatter the course record at 63.  He tapped in to still take the new course record at 64.  It was pretty awesome to see this ~17year old.  As happens, he lost the next day on the 19th hole shooting 74 in regulation.  

We played Saturday morning, as Tony stated, following the match play pairings.  I had my personal worst 18 there.   Most of the gents headed up to SH after the morning WH.  My buddy Steve and I played a second 18 and I confess (I took a cart in the heat)  But, played slightly better.

Sunday, we headed up to Bayside because of all the doings at WH.  I'll do another thread on Bayside.  Sorry, no pictures this time.

We did return after 27 holes at Bayside to play a final 9 holes for the day, teeing off at 730Pm.  Steve, the 74 year old retired Marine and I covered the course in 1.25 hours, and both shot our best rounds of the weekend.  In fact I had my best 9 holes ever at WH, only once finding the "wooga" and not loosing any balls in the heaviest, most lush isolated patches of rough I've ever seen there, owing to the finally wet spring after several years of drought.  After making birdie on the 9th hole, I was almost in tears that darkness closed us out, not knowing if I could have kept my best round ever at WH going...

[Jay Carstens]

Tony,
I heard young Hurley from O'Neill has been collecting scholarship offers for a long time.  He won his second-straight high school championship this year at Pioneers Park (138).  They'll have to wait another year though, as I'm pretty sure he's just a junior.

[Jason Hines]

Dick,

Did you play any of the new t-boxes at WH?  9 is quite a different hole from 182.

Jason

[Tony_Chapman]

Jay - In writing my side job for the Grand Island Independent, I had the good forturne of watching John with the Michelob Amatuer at Riverside. At the lengthened 18th on the final day with little wind he had 185 yards to the 540 yard hole. He was 64 paces beyond his closest comepitor. Quite a good player, but yet to win any major junior event in the state which baffles me.

You are correct he will be a senior in the fall. Very well built and about 6-foot-3 and he is working weekly with Mike Schuhart.

Jason - I know some of the guys played it from back there, but we played it at the short tee which is one of the funnest shots on the course to me. The pin was front left next to the hidden bunker and it would have been very easy to putt it there if you weren't careful.

[RJ_Daley]

Jason, actually I played the back tees on 9 for a hoot on our second round of Saturday.  I made par!  My first official ball, I made 4 from 160 blue tees.  I birdied it from the 160 Sunday eve to close my summer journey.  I thought I played the new tee down wind with you last year, didn't I? Didn't you hit like 8 iron or something?

All the club pros left by the end of our twilight 9 as darkness closed in.  Only an exhausted Don Graham the WH pro, the club pres, my lot neighbor, my home buddy and another gent remained to consume a substantial quantity of drinks until near midnight. We were working on a plan to get me to move out there...

The new tees at 1,9,12, and 17 boost the course yardage up to somewhere around 7050, I think.

[RJ_Daley]

Jay, we arrived at dusk Friday night after our 13 hour drive , just in time to watch from the putting green as Hurley launch his drive on 18, up the right, over the vast bunker, to about no more than 50 yards up the gut approach to the green.  He skipped it in to about 5 feet, missed the birdie putt to smash the record at 63, but tapped in the rimmer to still capture the new course record at 64.  Yikes!

edit, oops, but I repeat myself...

[Mike_Sweeney]

I will post more when I catch up, but here is the group at Wild Horse.



Neil Regan, George Bahto, Tom Paul, Steve, Bob Huntley, Mike Sweeney, Tony Chapman, Huck, Pat Mucci and Dick Daley

[Mike Hendren]

Mike,

Thanks for posting this.  My smile is almost as big as those in the photograph.  

GOLF IS A GREAT GAME.