Nicpon smooth in winning McCue

    Writing from Glenwood, Illinois
    Tuesday, June 18, 2013

    Nina Nicpon sees similarities in Glenwoodie Golf Club, host of the Illinois Golfer Challenge Junior Golf Championship, and Palmira, her home course.
    Perhaps that’s why she felt so much at home on Tuesday, en route to winning the Girls 16-to-18 Division of the Challenge.
    Nicpon, from Cedar Lake, scored 21-over-par 93 on her first visit to Glenwoodie for a 24-stroke victory over runner-up Sabina Bruozas of Mokena. Nicpon posted a half-dozen pars and only two “others” – triple bogeys, to be specific – in collecting the Carol McCue Trophy.
    There’s more water at Palmira, which Nicpon’s family owns, but you have to keep it in play at both courses, and she did so.    
    “I wanted to get the ball in the fairway off the tee, and keep it in the fairway,” Nicpon said. She couldn’t recall precisely how many of the 14 she hit, but said it was “most of them,” and most was better than most.
    “As I went on, I got more confident,” Nicpon said.
    One suspects that if Nicpon played Glenwoodie more often, she’d lower her score considerably. A member of the Marian Catholic golf team, Nicpon scored rounds of 75-83 in a tournament at Coyote Run in Flossmoor last week, a course the Spartans call home each autumn.
    As it was, her 93, punctuated by pars on both par-5s on the inward nine, was the class of the field.
    – Tim Cronin