U.S. Am Wednesday: Illinois' perfect day

Writing from Olympia Fields, Illinois

Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Todd Mitchell chuckled when he asked if he’d thought of playing golf for money, as in, on the PGA Tour.

“I spend money to play golf,” Mitchell said, grinning.

He had a right to grin after surviving his opening round match in the 115th U.S. Amateur at Olympia Fields Country Club, a 1 up victory over Chase Koepka, the brother of PGA Tour regular Brooks Koepka. Mitchell was 3 up with six holes to play, watched Koepka rally to square the match on the 17th holes, then got up and down for par at the last to advance to a second-round match against Australian Ryan Ruffels.

“It was kind of a battle of who can make the least mistakes,” Mitchell said.

It’s the first time in three U.S. Amateur match play appearances that Mitchell, a Bloomington insurance executive, has advanced to the round of 32. Last time, he went up against Webb Simpson, who has since won the U.S. Open.

He’ll have hometown company. Illinois redshirt senior Alex Burge rolled over Sam Stevens, 5 and 4, in his opening round test. And David Cooke, who prepped in Bolingbrook and now calls Lisle home, scored a 3 and 2 victory over Hank Lebioda of Winter Springs, Fla., making Illinois residents 3-for-3.

Thomas Detry, Burge’s Illini teammate from Belgium, also scored a first round victory.

Even with a whiff on the 11th when his ball was sitting on roots between trees, Mitchell was 3 up on Koepka after 12 holes. Then Koepka won the 13th, 16th and 17th holes with pars to take the match to the 18th tee. Neither player found the fairway, and neither found the green with their approaches. Mitchell was in the deep greenside bunker to the left with little green to work with, but stopped his bunker shot five feet past the hole and sank the slider to save par. Koepka couldn’t match that, and Mitchell could breathe again.

“I knew it was going to be tough,” Mitchell said. “Everybody knows who Chase Koepka is, one of the best amateurs in the world. We both made some mistakes.”

Mitchell’s final putt was perfect, turning to the left and disappearing.

“I just knew where I wanted to start it and knew how hard to hit it. That's all I thought of,” Mitchell said.

Burge used birdies to win the fourth and fifth holes of his match against Stevens and never looked back. Pars on Nos. 9, 10 and 11, against bogeys by Stevens, gave Burge a 5-up bulge.

“I was even par on a windy day,” Burge said. “I didn’t really change my mind-set from the first two days. Just hit fairways and greens and try to have other people make mistakes. I did a pretty good job of that today and it turned out well.”

What Burge wasn’t at the start was settled down. Stroke-play qualifying had to conclude before match play began, even as an 18-for-10 spots playoff was going on.

“It was a little hectic,” Burge said. “I got here at 8:40 or so and I was just hanging out to hear about tee times. I knew the first tee time was 9:45. I went out to putt at 9:15 and got a call at 9:20 that my tee time was 9:45. It was kind of a quick warm-up. I hit seven balls and a few putts and was on the tee."

Cooke rattled the cage of Hank Lebioda right away, reaching the green of the 627-yard par-5 first hole in two and two-putting for birdie, then slamming his tee shot on the par-4 second about 50 yards to the left of the fairway, and recovering for another birdie. Two up after two holes, and Lebioda never knew what hit him.

“It was a good start,” Cooke said matter-of-factly.

It got better. He and Lebioda nearly aced the par-4 fourth, Cooke’s shot trickling down a slope to 14 inches, Lebioda’s to six inches.

“That was pretty cool, having two shots inside two feet and going ‘good-good,’ ” Cooke said. “We couldn’t see from the tee, but did when we walked over the slope and seeing both balls in there was pretty cool.”

Cooke never led by less than 2 up after the sixth hole and closed Lebioda out with a par on the par 4 16th hole.

Detry beat Matt Oshriner of Baltimore 2 up, rallying from a 3 down deficit after six holes. Detry won five of the last 12 holes, including the 18th, to move on.

The round of 32 sees Burge facing Kyle Mueller, who knocked off medalist Brett Coletta, at 7 a.m., Detry playing Kenta Konishi of Japan at 7:10 a.m., Mitchell lining up against Ryan Ruffels at 7:20 a.m., and Cooke facing off with David Oraee at 8:20 a.m.

Around Olympia Fields

Defending champion Gunn Yang fell 3 and 2 to Cameron Young, then barely shook Young’s hand. Said Young, “I think it was just a little frustration, nothing personal. I think it was a moment of shock after missing a short putt.” ... NCAA champion Bryson DeChambeau routed Robby Salomon 8 and 6, which wasn’t the widest margin of the day. Brad Nurski of St. Joseph, Mo., scored an 8 and 7 victory over New Zealander Josh Munn. ... DeChambeau escaped a two-stroke penalty for a late start in stroke play qualifying because he was relying on a tee-time sheet that the USGA revised, but never advised him. ... Ruffels advanced via a 5 and 4 victory over 2014 Western Amateur champion Beau Hossler. ... Paul Dunne, who made a big splash in the British Open, beat Robbie Ziegler 2 up. ... World No. 1 amateur Jon Rahm-Rodriguez of Spain hit his approach to three feet on the third extra hole to eliminate George Cunningham of Tucson, Ariz. ... Coletta's 7-under-par 133 won the stroke-play qualifying medal.

Fox’ broadcast booth is by the first fairway of the South Course, which isn’t being used for match play, because the backdrop of the clubhouse is more attractive than the view from the North Course, which would include the parking lot. As is standard in television golf coverage, Joe Buck and Greg Norman are calling the action off monitors. ... Tuesday night’s monsoon, which hit just after 8 p.m., dropped another 1.5 inches of rain on the golf course, making the total 4 inches over the last 10 days. The grounds crew couldn’t even cut the fairways on Wednesday morning, things were so soaked. Said Todd Mitchell, “It's hard to describe how difficult it’s playing out there. The golf course is playing long because it’s soft. They’ve moved some tees up but when the wind’s blowing 25 mph, it doesn’t make it any easier.”

– Tim Cronin