Rahm takes the tourney, the season, the works

Writing from Bolingbrook, Illinois

Sunday, September 15, 2024

If there were moments over the first six months of the year when Jon Rahm regretted jumping from the PGA Tour to LIV Golf, those moments are long gone.

He’s battled back from a mid-season foot injury that kept him out of the U.S. Open to place seventh in the British Open, fifth at the Paris Olympics after being in medal contention late, and pile up top three finishes in the four of the last five LIV tournaments, capped by this finish: first in the United Kingdom, second at The Greenbrier, and, on a furnace-like Sunday, first at Bolingbrook Golf Club in the final individual LIV weekend of the season.

Those sterling results earned him the individual LIV season championship, and an additional $18 million on top of the $4 million for three days of labor here. In the age of silly money in golf, Rahm’s $34,754,821 this calendar year trails only Scottie Scheffler’s $53.2 million in PGA Tour earnings and bonuses. Nice work if you can get it.

But Rahm, who signed with LIV for a reported $300 million last December, didn’t talk about the money after scoring his three-stroke victory over Joaquin Niemann and Sergio Garcia. He spoke of the season’s struggle to find his form – even though he hasn’t been out of the top 10 in any LIV start this season – the ring that didn’t quite fit on any of his fingers, and the pressure of the day.

“It was definitely a stressful day, but that pressure (for the season title) was a privilege only two of us had,” he said, speaking of himself and Niemann, who would have taken the season title had he beaten Rahm this week. “That’s why I focused on winning the tournament. If I did that, everything would take care of itself.”

It did, as it turned out. His closing 4-under-par 66 for a 54-hole total of 11-under 199 outdistanced all comers, including Niemann and Garcia, who tied for second at 8-under 202 after final rounds of 66 and 68, respectively. They also finished second and third in the season standings. Niemann picked up $10 million for that, Garcia $4 million, his prize won by parring the last two holes to stay ahead of fast-closing Tyrrell Hatton, who closed with a 5-under 65 for 7-under 203.

Rahm’s form was there all week. On a course that featured hard greens and fairways where you needed ice skates in places, Rahm made only one bogey, on the 16th hole on Friday.

“Towards the back nine the wind picked up, it got difficult,” Rahm said. “I thought it played to my advantage because that made birdies more difficult, and I was hitting it so well that I felt like I could make pars and even give myself birdie chances. Little did I know that 11 through 13 was going to get a little iffy; a couple wind gusts, shots that I didn't feel like they were that bad and ended up in difficult situations. I made three great par saves, and off I went towards the end of the round.”

The clinching blow came at the par-4 17th. Leading Garcia and Niemann by two, Rahm rolled on a 15-foot left-to-right birdie putt to move to 11-under to the delight of many in the gallery of about 12,000.

“I knew I had to do something great, and I felt like I did,” Niemann said. “I played amazing golf. But yeah, I feel like to beat someone like Jon Rahm, you've got to do things better, and yeah, it's a good way to push myself. I want to be in that position. I want to keep improving. Yeah, it's a good way to show myself that I can be there, and just a few shots behind, which is pretty close.

“I'm pretty happy. I was telling my caddie that I don't feel any disappointment. I feel like I gave it everything that I had. It didn't feel like I gave a shot away the whole season. Yeah, that for me is a win.”

Garcia was of a like mind.

“Look, I fought hard, and I didn't feel as smooth as I've been feeling the last few weeks,” Garcia said. “I didn't feel bad, but I wasn't quite there most of the first day. Then I got better as the week went on. It was a good fight. Obviously I would have loved to get the W this week, and it would have been extra special. Still, Jon played great, and he also missed a couple of putts here and there that he usually doesn't miss. At the end of the day, I probably needed to shoot 6- or 7-under, and it's not that easy on this golf course the way it was playing.”

The ring, a typically-oversized deal with diamonds, gold plating and even a scannable QR code to watch highlights of his round online, reminded Rahm of another ring from his days at Arizona State.

“I have had a ring before for winning the Pac-12 championship, and that was special,” Rahm recalled. “For some reason, to think of the ring rather than a trophy, in a weird way it makes it a little bit more, maybe because I associate it to football and basketball and U.S. events. I feel like I'm that Americanized at this point.

“I feel like in a weird sense, you're part of a select group that get to have a championship ring, which is not a possibility in other sports. In itself, I think it's just being able to wear what it represents. I think seeing it firsthand right away as soon as we finished what this means is very special.”

Rahm earned the bauble by setting a target score the other contenders couldn’t match. Niemann opened with birdies on two of the first three holes, then stalled. Garcia rolled in an 18-foot birdie putt on the par-3 sixth to move to 7-under, a stroke back, but Rahm answered immediately with a 16-footer as Gacia watched a minute later to move to 9-under and all but close the door on his rivals.

Rahm completed the mythical Chicago Slam by adding the LIV title to the BMW Championship he won at Olympia Fields in 2020. He, like several notables before him – guys like Tiger Woods, Jack Nicklaus and Bryon Nelson – knows where the winner’s circle is around here.

“I have a pretty good track record in Chicago, so I'm always going to be happy to come back,” Rahm said. “I've played Olympia Fields twice, won once; played at Medinah, I think I finished top 5; played at Conway Farms, definitely top 10, I don't know if it was top 5 or not; and came here and won. Yeah, I would encourage to come back to Chicago because I definitely like coming here and playing golf in this city.”

Rahm has a great memory. He tied for fifth in the BMW at Conway Farms in 2017 and tied for fifth in the BMW at Medinah in 2019, along with the dramatic playoff win at Olympia in 2020, when he rolled in a 66-foot, 5-inch putt to beat Dustin Johnson on the first hole of sudden death.

In his mind, Rahm, who missed the U.S. Open with an injured foot, turned his season around with changing the shaft of his driver.

“There was a lot of weeks where I would make a good swing and the ball would start left and not cut,” Rahm said. “That was the issue. I thought it was my swing. Finally I talked to somebody at Callaway, and Adam and my swing coach Dave, and they all thought maybe we should reconsider a new driver shaft.”

Rahm traveled to Callaway in Carlsbad, Calif., and found the magic wand.

"The second I hit this one, it was instantly, okay, this is different, this is better,” Rahm said. “That's kind of where I got back to not manipulating the shot to make it fade and see the ball start on a certain line and trajectory. While I was compensating my swing to try to hit fairways, it was bleeding into the rest of my game.

“It was getting to a point where I was making other good swings and still feeling like they were good swings and they were going straight left, which is very unusual for me, and that slowly started to come back with that shaft, and that was -- Nashville I saw a big difference. Not perfect but a big difference, and that's when I thought towards the rest of the season, okay, this is more familiar territory, more to how I usually hit it. Almost not really thought it, but almost thought that it was basically a matter of time until I was going to give myself a good chance to win.”

Adding in the British Open and Paris Olympics, his finishes beginning at Nashville are 3-10-T7-T5-1-2-1. That’ll work.

“The driver is the best club in my bag,” Rahm beamed.

Just what the rest of the LIV field doesn’t want to hear.

The unkindest cut of all

The tournament within a tournament involved trying to lock in a spot for next year and avoiding getting bounced from the LIV roster in 2025. Among the six players losing their LIV card next year are Bubba Watson, a team captain who can appeal to retain his place, and Kalle Samooja, whose last four holes are a trail of tears: bogey, par, bogey, double-bogey.

The last dropped him out of the top 48, meaning he’ll probably be chasing status on the Asian Tour next year with an eye toward getting back on the LIV gravy train in 2026. Pat Perez appeared headed for a similar fate, but Samooja’s pratfall moved Perez back inside the favored circle.

Around Bolingbrook

The Crushers, captained by two-time U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau, took the team title and lead that championship going into next week’s match-play championship in Dallas, where they will defend their season crown. But DeChambeau spoke highly of Bolingbrook, calling it “close to a major-championship test. There were some shots just like a jumper in the U.S. Open would play. The greens that firm with the rough all around it, it was pretty difficult. I’d love to see s come back here and have more of this type of golf because I truly do love it.” … Bolingbrook reopens to the public on Wednesday, though the only tee times left are at 5:30 and 5:40 p.m., so players would only get a few holes in before sunset just before 7 p.m.

– Tim Cronin

Rahm surges to lead at LIV in Bolingbrook

Writing from Bolingbrook, Illinois

Saturday, September 14, 2024

Jon Rahm probably doesn’t know it, but he has a chance for a rare Chicago Slam tomorrow.

If he wins LIV Golf’s season-ending individual tournament at Bolingbrook Golf Club, he’ll not only win the season title, the tournament itself, and $22 million ($18 million for the season crown and $4 million for the weekend), but he’ll capture a Chicago Slam.

Rahm won the BMW Championship at Olympia Fields Country Club in 2020, when, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the closest spectators got was watching from outside the fence along the third hole by Vollmer Road. Snagging the LIV Golf Chicago crown at Bolingbrook would complete the unusual feat, and curiously, he’d be the second LIV Chicago winner in succession to also have won at Olympia Fields. Last year, Bryson DeChambeau won at Rich Harvest Farms eight years after winning the U.S. Amateur at Olympia.

The mercurial Spaniard moved to the top of the leader board with the day’s best round, a bogey-free 6-under 64 to place him at 7-under 133 after 36 holes. Unlike the empty fairways at Olympia Fields, some 15,000 fans were on hand Saturday, many following him. Rahm leads fellow Spaniard Sergio Garcia (65 for 134) by a stroke and overnight leader Brooks Kopeka (73 for 135) by two.

Rahm, calling his play “really organized golf,” ran down a curling 45-footer for a birdie on the par-3 17th to get to 5-under for his round and gain a tie with Sergio Garcia, and then scored another birdie on the par-5 third, his final hold of the day, to take the lead.

“I felt like I did everything I needed to do right, committed to the shots that I needed to, and then executed really, really well,” Rahm said. “Didn't miss a lot of fairways. That's a great key around here. Yeah, I think it wasn't until 1, which was my 16th, the only fairway I had missed was 14, and it was barely in the first cut.”

Rahm heads the field in driving distance (362.3 yards), greens in regulation (27 of 36, just ahead of Garcia’s 26), and scrambling. He’s also tied for third in fairways hit, though he has bemoned his driving this week.

Bolingbrook, with fast fairways, slick, quick greens and a steady diet of 12-to-15 mph wind, continued to confound players, especially on approach shots. You don’t often see top-tier players hit a full club long going into a green, but it’s been a common sight this week.

“If you miss the fairway, hitting the green is a very tough task, so you're already on the defensive,” Rahm said. “Again, it's a lot harder than it probably would look on paper.”

Garcia, 44, first gained notice in the 1999 PGA Championship at Medinah Country Club, where he gave Tiger Woods a Sunday scare and eventually lost by a stroke. Saturday, he was ebullient at being a stroke off the lead some 15 miles to the south.

“I still feel like I've got a lot of game in me,” Garcia said. “I'm very fortunate with my body. My body has been very good to me. I've pretty much -- haven't had any injuries throughout my career, so that obviously helps a lot.

“I'm sure there will be nerves (on Sunday). It's normal. You're playing to win another tournament, and there's always going to be some nerves, and it's a good thing.

“You've just got to do the things that you know what to do to kind of keep yourself – keep the RPMs on the heart a little bit lower. It's as simple as that.”

Koepka went south early, squandering the four-stroke lead he built on Friday. He went out in 3-over 38, but played the back nine in even par 35, including a 15-foot birdie at the last to climb within two of the lead and gain a spot in the final threesome with Garcia and Rahm.

Rahm extended his lead in the season points race over Joiquin Niemann, who scored 2-under 68 and is three back of Rahm at 4-under 136, to about 17 points. But if Niemann finishes ahead of Rahm at the finish, he grabs the $18 million bonus, no matter where the finish in relation to anyone else.

Hatton is aces

Tyrrell Hatton aced the 156-yard sixth hole, managing the feat with a 9-iron.

“I think that's the first one (of his career 12) that they actually got on camera, so that's cool,” Hatton said. “I'll enjoy watching that one back. Yeah, just a gripped down 9-iron around 160 yards and landed just short and trickled in and left side.

Hatton needed that to score 5-under 65 and climb back into red figures 2-under 138) for the tournament. He came into the week third in the season standings, which pays $4 million. But Garcia snuck ahead of him Saturday. That race for third is closer than the Rahm-Niemann fight for first after Rahm’s 64.

Around Bolingbrook

The field averaged 70.481 strokes on Saturday, with the course set at 7,024 yards, still over par but an improvement on Friday’s 71.111. The two-day average is 70.796. … The par-3 third hole has been the toughest, at 3.352. … Only 30.6 percent of the field had hit the first green (the 10th normally) in regulation. … It was obvious from the start Saturday’s crowd would be big. Three blocks away on Rodeo Drive, the Crossroads of Faith United Methodist Church is parking cars for a $20 donation. About 45 minutes before play began Friday, there were about 25 cars parked. About an hour before play began Saturday, some 150 cars were already parked, with a line to get in. … According to LIV, which is suddenly announcing approximate attendance figures, the previous high in the U.S. was 14,000 for both weekend rounds in Nashville this year. … High man for the tournament is Hudson Swafford, whose pair of 8-over 78s would be taken by just about any of the regulars who play Bolingbrook during the week.

– Tim Cronin

Koepka all alone after first LIV round

IG – LIV R1 Gamer

Writing from Bolingbrook, Illinois

Friday, September 13, 2024

Anyone who thought Bolingbrook Golf Club would be a pushover for the stars of the LIV Golf brigade were surprised as the first round played out.

The maintenance staff of the course and the LIV Golf setup crew had Bolingbrook playing as hard as it ever has, with greens approximately as hard as car hoods and fairways running like rabbits from a hunter. Add in a 12 mile-per-hour wind that jumped at times, and the greats and near-greats had their hands full with the Arthur Hills design.

Only Brooks Kopeka solved it completely, scoring 8-under-par 62, a course record, to lead Paul Casey by four and the duo of Abraham Ancer and Anirban Lahrio by five. A sevensome of notables, including Bryson DeChambeau, Dustin Johnson and Patrick Reed, are tied for fourth at 2-under 68.

Koepka won the previous LIV tournament at the Greenbrier and is chasing his third title of the season.

The end result: Only 18 of the 54 players finished under par, with another two at the par of 70, with the field averaging 71.111 strokes. The likely prospect for tomorrow: The players will have figured it out and go low, perhaps even Caleb Surratt, who finished double-bogey-triple-bogey and whose 10-over 80 was the day’s high.

“I can’t speak to the fairways because I didn’t hit many,” Koepka said. “But the greens, Ricky (Elliott, his caddie) said they firmed up a lot since Tuesday. It seemed like from the par-3 13th on, they were very firm. But I like it when a golf course is firm and fiery.”

Koepka surpassed the previous Bolingbrook course record of 63, set by Mac Meissner in the third round of a Forme Tour tournament in 2021.

“I putted really good,” said Koepka, who scattered eight birdies on his bogey-free card. “If a good player gets hot, he can shoot 62 pretty easy."

Koepka, more than good, has won five majors, including last year’s PGA Championship, so it’s hardly a surprise he’s leading the pack, but he birdied only one of his first seven holes before catching fire. Then he ran down birds in seven of his final 11 holes, including five of the last six and the last three. His 6-footer for a birdie on the par-4 second hole finished his round with a flourish. Amazingly, he said he hadn’t played the back nine, where he scored 5-under 30, until Friday.

“I tip my cap to him,” Casey said. “He did it in true Brooksy style. This is a different golf course than it’s been. The wind shifted, and the rules and grounds staff must have been under instruction to turn the water off. It turned shiny and glassy. I found it really difficult, suite honestly.

“I’m trying to stay alive. It’s like Monty Python getting hacked to pieces, leaving an arm and a leg here and there.”

The season championship race saw Jon Rahm and Joaquin Niemann flip their 1-2 placings by virtue of Niemann’s 2-under 68 to Rahm’s 1-under 69. Niemann is at 202.32, Rahm 198.33, but don’t memorize that, as it’ll likely go down to the final hole on Sunday, trying to solve the course and each other.

“It’s playing fast,” Niemann said of Bolingbrook.

“It was one of those days when my score was better than how I played,” Rahm said. “I know Brooks is 8-under but the other scores aren’t as low. I don’t recall ever playing fairways like that, so bouncy. It’s not the easiest to shoot low.”

No crowd size was announced, but it appeared to be no less than 8,000, with many fans lingering about the suites and hangouts like the Birdie Shack, for which there was an additional charge.

Around Bolingbrook

Lee Westwood had the shot of the day, a holeout from the fairway of the par-5 third for an eagle. He finished at 1-over 71. … The Crushers, captained by DeChambeau, lead the team standings. The overall team championship is next week. … Tyrrell Hatton let fly with the world’s most explicit Anglo-Saxon oath twice after poor shots, both of his own making. … There are a dozen major champions in the field, compared to seven in this week’s PGA Tour stop, the Procore Championship in Napa, California. … For kids on hand, a big draw will be the petting zoo near the fan entrance. … As has become a LIV tradition, a quartet of skydivers landed on the first fairway in advance of the shotgun start. … LIV has a management staff of 45, in addition to social media people and the television crew, on hand.

– Tim Cronin

The LIV world comes to Bolingbrook

Writing from Bolingbrook, Illinois

Wednesday, September 11, 2024

Long ago, some people looked askance at Roger Claar when he, as the mayor of Bolingbrook, said his little village would be a destination for tourism.

This week, it is. Claar, who ruled Bolingbrook for over three decades, had the vision to build a municipal golf course in a cornfield west of the center of town, and that golf course this week is the site of LIV Golf Chicago, the season-ending individual championship for the maverick golf operation.

Bolingbrook Golf Club? Really?

That was the first reaction when the news spread earlier this year that LIV wouldn’t be returning to Rich Harvest Links, the plush private layout on the edge of Sugar Grove, also known as software tycoon Jerry Rich’s backyard course. According to a reliable source, Rich was paid $1 million for each of LIV’s visits the past two years, but the league, funded by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, wasn’t willing to bankroll a third such rental fee.

So, LIV looked about, found no other private club willing to take on the burden of tournament golf for a relatively minuscule fee – the WGA pays much more for a club to host the BMW Championship, for instance – and landed on Bolingbrook.

Precisely what the village of Bolingbrook, which owns the course, is receiving is clouded in mystery. A Freedom of Information Act request by Illinois Golfer for contracts between the village and LIV has not been acted upon by the village, which most recently extended its period to turn the contracts over in June and has not fulfilled the request. Mayor Mary Alexander-Basta has said, most recently on Aug. 7, that the revenue will be based on what LIV spends from Sept. 8 through 16.

“It's really based on consumption of what is used, how much is used throughout the days, so there's not a – I don't have a full amount because we don't know what we don't know,” Alexander-Basta said. “We don't know how much usage, we don't know how much food, we don't know how much beverage. We'll find out closer to the date.”

That indicates to those who know how tournament golf works that there’s no flat fee above and beyond use of the course, clubhouse and food and beverage. If there’s any benefit to Bolingbrook hosting the tournament, it’ll be in the publicity the course receives, especially on television.

An Arthur Hills design opened in 2002, Bolingbrook will play to a par of 70 over 7,131 yards. That makes it a short course by modern standards, with one par 4, the 15th (usually the sixth for public play), potentially drivable for the big hitters at 342 yards.

“They’re small greens and they’re not flat, so they play even smaller than they are,” Jon Rahm said of the putting surfaces. “It’s in fantastic condition.”

Still, scores will be low, which makes for good television – the CW is the weekend outlet, WGN-TV locally – and the possibility of multiple leaders down the stretch.

Rahm would like to be among them, and not just for the $4 million individual first prize on offer this week. He also leads the season standings, with only Joaquin Niemann able to catch him. Whoever takes the season crown will win $18 million, so if either win the tournament, they win the title and pocket $22 million before team earnings – LIV still has the team concept, which is largely ignored by all but the players, who divvy up an additional $5 million – are factored in.

The Rahm-Niemann showdown is but one attraction. The other is the tournament itself, featuring all the stars of LIV who largely built their reputation on the PGA Tour and then over the last two-plus years, shifted their allegiance to the new operation for lucrative deals of either guaranteed money or advances on future earnings. In Rahm’s case, for instance, the reported figure was $300 million guaranteed.

So Phil Mickelson, the 54-year-old whose move to LIV started all the rigmarole, will be on hand, along with U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau, multiple major winner Brooks Koepka, Cameron Smith, Sergio Garcia, Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed and all the rest.

Rahm’s move less than a year ago was the big name surprise that followed the PGA Tour and PIF agreeing to negotiate a deal that would lead to some unification of the two operations, if not the ceding of LIV control by PIF to the Tour in exchange for an ownership stake. Those negotiations go on – they have been in New York this week, a location and time that raised more than one eyebrow given the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and the reported-but-denied Saudi involvement in backing ringleader Osama bin Laden – the PGA Tour’s side bolstered by the recent investment of up to $1.5 billion by a separate group of American sports team owners who see a way to make a buck themselves with a bigger PGA Tour. But no deal has been made.

Rahm is not along in his eagerness to see one.

“We have an opportunity to create a new stage for golf in the world of sports that could be better than what we had before,” Rahm said. “I think we could do some special things having both tours, with the League and the Tour. Now, you do need the ‘smarter people’ behind closed doors to decide what it looks like.”

Perhaps the TV-arranged December foursome of DeChambeau, Koepka, Rory McIlroy and world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler will prod the two sides to come to a deal.

“If there's ever anything like that in the future, yeah, I wouldn't mind (playing in it),” Rahm said.

Meanwhile, after Thursday’s pro-am, he and his 53 pals have three rounds of golf to play in Bolingbrook.

Really.

Around Bolingbrook

Tickets (at livgolf.com) start at $50 for a Friday grounds pass; a three-day pass is $113.31. … General parking for the tournament is about four miles away, at 200 Old Chicago Drive in Bolingbrook. That’s south of the Bolingbrook Drive exit on Interstate 55. … Most suite holders will park on a grass lot near the course.

– Tim Cronin

Carroll captures second Illinois PGA in three years

Writing from Elgin, Illinois

Wednesday, August 28, 2024

Brian Carroll went into the final round of the 103rd Illinois PGA Championship knowing he couldn’t rest on the laurels of two good rounds, not even the 7-under-par 65 he authored at hilly Elgin Country Club on Tuesday. A two-stroke lead in the section championship can disappear in one hole.

“Going into the day I said it would be great to open with an eagle to set the tone for the day,” Carroll said. “It’s a reachable (480-yard) par-5. But I hit maybe one of the worst drives I’ve hit for the three days.”

A good second to just in front of the green allowed Carroll, head pro at The Hawk in St. Charles, to make it happen. His 30-yard pitch-in extended his lead to three strokes, Andy Mickelson of Mistwood having birdied as well. Carroll would lead by three at the turn, withstood the challenge of Briarwood’s Matthew Rion, who closed the gap to a stroke, and won the title with a final round of 4-under-par 68 for 15-under 201, two strokes ahead of Rion and five ahead of Mickelson and Butler National’s Andy Svoboda.

Rion had run down an 8-foot birdie putt on the par-3 16th to get to 13-under, a stroke behind Carroll, who was in the trailing threesome. Carroll saw Rion’s putt fall.

“You can’t control what they’re gonna do,” Carroll said. “All you can do it hit the best shots you can. Starting with a lead, you just try to add to it so if somebody has a great round they’re unable to catch you.”

Carroll accomplished that with his short iron on the 163-yard 16th. It finished about 15 feet from the cup on the same line as Rion, and he nailed it for the deuce that eventually secured the title plus the $10,500 first prize from the purse of $77,500. It’s his second Illinois PGA crown in three years and eighth top 10 in succession, including a runner-up via a playoff loss in 2018.

“I thought 17-under was the number,” Carroll said. “Even if somebody plays a great round, they’re not going to get there.”

That would have broken Mike Small’s record of 16-under, set at Stonewall Orchard in 2014. But 15-under was good enough.

“It was certainly all could have asked for,” Carroll said. “If you’d told me going into the week I was going to shoot 15-under, I’d have sat in the clubhouse and watched.”

Carroll, Rion, Mickelson, Kevin Flack (Maun-Nee-Tee-See), Frank Hohenadel (Mistwood), Chris Green (Glen Voew), Steve Orrick (Bloomington), Matt Slowinski (Hinsdale) and host pro Jonathan Duppner (Elgin) all qualified for the PGA’s national club pro championship. Small, Svoboda, and Jeff Kellen (North Shore) were already eligible.

Flack finished fifth at 6-under 210. Small, the 14-time Illinois PGA champion, rebounded from a 4-over 76 on Tuesday with a 2-under 70 to tie Hohenadel, who aced the ninth hole on Tuesday, for sixth at 3-under 213.

Next year the section championship reverts to a 36-hole format, abandoning the three-day, 54-hole joust used, except for poor weather years, since 1973, and occasionally before that back to 1935.

“Usually over three days, if I play my game of limiting mistakes, I’m going to be close, have a chance toward the end,” Carroll said.

Wednesday was the perfect template for his game.

– Tim Cronin