Bryant Bolden five for five

    Writing from Glenwood, Illinois
    Tuesday, June 13, 2013

    Winning a golf tournament, no matter the level, is not easy.
    Repeating in the same tournament the following year is that much harder.
    So how about doing so five straight years?
    How hard is that? How good is that?
    Bryant Bolden could hardly put it into words on Tuesday after doing just that.
    Bolden survived a sudden-death playoff with Jake White to collect his fifth Illinois Golfer Challenge Junior Golf Championship winner’s trophy in as many starts. He won the younger boys division in 2009, 2010 and 2011, and scored a victory in the Boys 16-to-18 Division last year, the final year the Challenge was held under the auspicies of the SouthtownStar.
    New sponsor, same old Bolden, but with a twist, that being the playoff. The previous four times, Bolden won out right. A recap of those exploits, with his score, opponent and margin of victory:
    2009: 78, beat Adam Zmikly, Tom Schuman, Austin Konieczka by 4
    2010: 78, beat Luke Ostrom by 4
    2011: 75, beat Tony Kestel by 2
    2012: 77, beat Tom Thanasoras by 3
    Nobody had won the younger division of the Challenge in consecutive years before Bolden did so, and he made it a three-year sweep in 2011. By winning in 2012, he matched Angela Dehning’s four-for-four success on the ladies’ side. (These days, Dehning is an assistant pro at Midlothian Country Club.)
    This year was uncharted territory. White, from Frankfort and a member of the Lincoln-Way East golf team, went out in even par-36 on Glenwoodie Golf Course’s well-kept links. Bolden was out in 3-over 39 and was in a tie for fourth at the turn when scorecards were compared. But even as Mokena’s Matt Contry and Valparaiso’s Brad Bobrowski found obstacles on the back nine, and White, via bogeys on the 10th and 11th and a double-bogey on the par-4 16th, was 4-over before a birdie at the last, Bolden was smooth.
    He’d begun his rally with a birdie at the par-4 ninth. Three pars followed, and then a birdie on the par-5 13th. An uncharacteristic double-bogey on the par-4 15th threatened to derail his round, but a birdie at the par-4 17th, at 321 yards the shortest par 4 on the course – “I almost lipped out” Bolden said of a near-eagle from about 50 yards distant – pulled him back to 3-over, where he stood after parring the home hole.
    White was already in the house with his 75.
    The playoff, while only two holes, twisted in each player’s direction. Bolden was wide right off the tee on the first hole and could only punch short of the green, but White, barely on the green in regulation, left his birdie putt a good 15 feet short.
    “Jake opened the door for me there,” Bolden said. They matched bogeys and moved to the par-4 second hole.
    That’s where White kicked it wide open for Bolden on the par-4 second. In regulation, Bolden had missed the fairway to the right and struggled to a double bogey after a daring second shot kicked back into the pond fronting the green.
    In the playoff, it was White to was jailed to the right and could only punch out. That would have been fine during the round, but Bolden bombed it down the middle of the fairway and had 115 yards left for his second into the northeast wind that had brought fog during the majority of the morning but now gifted the course with a freshening breeze.
    Bolden used the wind as a brake, and the back shelf of the green as a backstop, for his approach shot, which stopped about eight feet from the cup. White was 18 feet to the left and slightly below the hole with his third, and needed to make it to put the pressure on the Central Connecticut-bound player.
    And White made it, center cut, to save par. And Bolden promptly answered, his downhill slider tumbling in perfectly, for the birdie 3, the victory and another Joe Jemsek Trophy to go with the other one, and the three Marshall Dann trophies from the 13-to-15 bracket, in his collection.
    “This gives me good confidence going toward college,” Bolden said.
    And an enviable record for others to aspire to.

    Notable: Darren O’Hanlon of Frankfort was third at 6-over-par 78, with Michael Barber of Beecher fourth at 79. ... Andrew Zarnowski of Chicago Ridge scored 92, but is a winner in another way. A caddie at Beverly Country Club, he’ll be attending Marquette next year on an Evans Scholarship.
    – Tim Cronin