TePaul's Boy

[Adam Clayman]

O’Neill’s John Hurley Named Nebraska Amateur Golfer of the Year
The Nebraska Golf Association is proud to name John Hurley of O’Neill as its’ 2007 Amateur Golfer of the Year. Hurley won his first state championship in June claiming the Nebraska Match Play Championship at Hillcrest Country Club. He also finished 3rd at the Nebraska Amateur, won the Indian Creek Invitational and qualified for his 3rd straight U.S. Amateur Championship. Hurley will be honored at the NGA’s annual awards banquet November 16th at the Country Club of Lincoln.

[TEPaul]

As I'm sure most know and remember who've heard me speak about him and his game, Long John Hurley still apparently has the highest ball speed the USGA Tech Center with their US Open and US Amateur on-site computer tech equipment have ever seen in real life.

For those who know Philadelphia courses I'll tell you how that translates on a golf course you may know.

In a practice round for the 2005 US Amateur at Merion while playing Philadelphia CC with some fellow US Am competitors Hurley caught his tee shot real solid on the 8th hole.

We all looked around for it for a while in SW range only to find it almost in the front of the left green side bunker. That's a drive of about 380 yards and uphill too.

At first I thought it must have hit a sprinkler head but I asked two spectators who were up there and they said, no, unbelievably it landed way up there.

A ball speed that high is apparently generated by a clubhead speed in the neighborhood of 135MPH

[Joe Hancock]

Does anyone named "Tom" automatically get a boy these days? Used to be a time when you had to earn your boy.....

 

[TEPaul]

I don't know whether I ever mentioned this but the day I met that young bomber, Nebraska's Long John Hurley there were some coincidences that fairly boggled my mind.

I started following him on the 7th hole of the quarterfinals of the Nebraska Match Play Championship at C&C's Proctor and Axland's Wild Horse.

There were only three people following the match, me and John Hurley's mother and father. I introduced myself to his mom and her name is Susan Hurley. My wife's maiden name was Susan Hurley. Then I introduced myself to his dad whose name is Jack Hurley, my wife's uncle. I asked them where they came from and they told me O'Neill, Nebraska. O'Neill is my wife's first married name. My stepdaughter's maiden name is Lauren O'Neill. If Long John Hurley had told me he had a sister or girlfriend in O'Neill Nebraska named Lauren I woulda been truly spooked. Now, if the latter bit had happened, even though I'm not a superstitious man, I believe I coulda got from him by osmosis how to add 150 yard to my tee shots and I too could hit a drive on Philly CC's #8 380 yards.  

[TEPaul]

By the way, for any of you who ever plan on watching a golfer who hits the golf ball as hard and as far as Long John Hurley, I'll give you a little tip if you want to actually watch the ball in flight.

Most people who watch golfers hit a ball just watch the golfer hit the ball and then sort of casually turn their head and watch the ball in flight.

Well, you just can't do that with John Hurley.

Just before he actually makes contact you have to rather quickly swivel your head down hole or you will miss the golf ball altogether. It is out of there that fast.  

[mike_malone]

I thought this thread would be about Wayne Morrison.

[Kevin_Reilly]

For those who know Philadelphia courses I'll tell you how that translates on a golf course you may know.

In a practice round for the 2005 US Amateur at Merion while playing Philadelphia CC with some fellow US Am competitors Hurley caught his tee shot real solid on the 8th hole.

Olympic 17th hole during US Am...Driver, 8 iron.

[TEPaul]

Mayday:

You never get anything quite right do you?

Wayno's not my BOY, he's my PISSBOY!

It never ceases to annoy me when Wayne and I are driving somewhere and Ron Forse calls Wayne on his cell phone first. It's incredibly humiliating to me when Ron doesn't call me first. Has Mr Forse no idea who runs this operation?

[mike_malone]

Quakers don't say "piss".

[TEPaul]

Then why did YOU just say piss?

[Jim Nugent]

Any thoughts/predictions on how good a golfer Hurley will become?  i.e. what will that astonishing ball speed and distance translate to, after 72 holes have been played?  

[TEPaul]

Jim Nugent:

That's a good question but since I'm no golf coach it's sort of hard for me to say.

I basically watched the young man for a bit less than a week of golf both out there in Nebraska at that match play championship and then for most of the week of the US Amateur at Merion in 2005.

He was only 18 then and still in high school. As I recall neither his mother or father had much experience in golf themselves and at that time I think he was seeing some coach or teacher out there sort of infrequently like once a month or every two weeks or something. I recall John saying then that he'd been working with that teacher on significantly shortening his swing, particularly his backswing.

Now he goes to I believe Texas A&M or maybe it's Texas Tech. It looked to me like he was heavily recruited in his last year in high school. (I thought it was sort of comical how those coaches and recruiters had to proceed at various times--eg they could only email him early on and not actually talk to him. Then they could talk to him something like once or twice a day and it was pretty funny with what actually constituted an individual conversation).

Anyway he said he wanted to go somewhere in college where he could play all year around. Obviously he's very interested in turning professional----eg pro tour.

He's a big tall rangy guy who looks like he has some seriously long musculature, if you know what I mean. If anyone just looks at him it's not hard to tell he has the type of physique that can hit a golf ball a very long way.

All I told him back then was that for a guy who hit it that far he needed to become a lot more consistent with his short iron approaches because that's about all he's hitting anyway. Last time I spoke with him (I guess the next year) he said he'd really worked on that and felt he'd very much improved that part of his game.

He looked like a very good putter too.

My feeling is he just needs to mature in basic course management or score management for increased consistency. He's obvious very capable of going really low because he's done that a number of times in significant tournaments (a couple of course records) but he needs to manage his bad rounds better, in my opinion.

He has a pretty aggressive attitude on a golf course but for anyone who's that long why wouldn't he?

In that vein he sort of reminds me of Davis Love when he was young and in college and then just out on tour. For a year or two Davis hit the ball ridiculous distances but fairly quickly realized that wasn't going to make him much money and he dialed things down pretty far for more consistency and became much more successful.

I think Hurley may need to learn to do that somehow and just build his game around the strengthes his got---eg huge distance and the fact he's going to be using shorter irons much more than most any golfer. I guess if he wants to add that additional factor of real recovery imagination like a Tiger that would just add to his success huge.

The guy is obviously a really good athlete and for that kind of power his swing is remarkably short and compact. And he just has to have those "quick snap" muscles in spades like a Woods does. Anyone can see that when watching him because even with his shortish backswing (he really didn't seem to go to parallel) it's pretty hard to even see his arms coming through the impact zone it happens so fast.