Writing from Olympia Fields, Illinois
Thursday, August 20, 2015
At 37, Todd Mitchell was the oldest player to make the Sweet Sixteen in the 115th U.S. Amateur.
From Bloomington, he was the last Illinoian left standing.
Given everything, including the site – Olympia Fields Country Club – Mitchell considered his run in the Am a success, even though he was bounced, 4 and 3, by Matthew Perrine of Austin, Tex., on Thursday afternoon, in a windblown match where the only birdie was Mitchell’s, on the first hole.
That lead was short-lived, but Mitchell’s experience will stay with him.
“Making it to the Sweet Sixteen here at Olympia, it being so close (to Bloomington), it’s really the perfect place for it to happen,” Mitchell said. “I don’t really know how it happened. I’m disappointed with the way it finished; I didn’t give him a match at all. He just kinda had to stay out of his own way. I was unable to bring anything to the table.
“That said, I’m extremely proud of where I stand and where I finished. It’s a big accomplishment to do that.”
Mitchell said the only reason he tried to qualify for this year’s U.S. Am was because it was at Olympia Fields. He saw it under every condition: wet, dry, windy, and calm.
Thursday’s wind blew out of the west at 22 mph much of the day, with gusts to 31 mph. More than one player eyed the starched-out flags atop the clubhouse’s famous clock tower with disdain before picking a club on holes coming back home.
“The wind blew the entire time (Thursday),” Mitchell said. “These golf courses are hard for the best players in the world when you have not much wind, and then you have something like this, it makes it even more difficult. To have five mid-amateurs make the cut and then be the last man standing, it means a lot.”
Mitchell had beaten Ryan Ruffels of Australia, 3 and 2, in the morning, which gained him entry into the third round. But his game all but left him at lunchtime. Mitchell bogeyed six straight holes, then double-bogeyed the ninth, and was fortunate to only be 3 down at the turn.
That’s because Perrine had two bogeys on those holes and also doubled the ninth. He blamed the wind.
“There were a lot of holes where you feel it’s dead into the wind, then we’d get up there and hit our tee balls, and they’d go straight for 100 yards and all of a sudden, just veer off,” Perrine said. “We both got into some sticky situations a number of times.”
Perrine was better able to come away with a par save when needed. His par on the par-4 14th moved him 4-up, and while Mitchell won the next hole with a bogey when Perrine four-putted, Mitchell’s bogey on the 15th ended the match. Perrine was 7-over, Mitchell 11-over, with the usual concessions.
Mitchell still had the Illinois Mid-Amateur and U.S. Mid-Amateur qualifying ahead this summer. But first?
“I don’t even know if I’m going to hit balls next week,” Mitchell said.
The three other players with Illinois connections – including Belgium’s Thomas Detry, a key member of the Fighting Illini squad – fell in the morning round of 32. Detry fell to Japan’s Kenta Konishi on the 19th hole, Konishi making a five-foot birdie putt to close out the match.
Illinois teammate and CDGA Amateur winner Alex Burge dropped a 2 up decision to Kyle Mueller of Watkinsville, Ga. Mueller, who knocked off medalist Brett Coletta on Wednesday, rolled in a 60-foot putt with six feet of break on the 18th hole to seal the victory. That’s the same green – usually the ninth in member play – that Jerry Barber made a similar putt on to force a playoff with Don January in the 1961 PGA Championship.
“That putt that kid just made!” Burge said. “But hey, I had my chances and couldn’t get them to go. It’s done.”
Detry and Burge will be back at Olympia Fields soon for the Illini Invitational.
“My confidence is good; I feel my game has taken a turn and mentally I have, which is the biggest thing,” Burge said. “It’s nice to know you don’t have to play incredible. Just solid golf will take care of a lot of things.”
Finally, David Cooke, who prepped in Bolingbrook and is a senior at North Carolina State, dropped his morning match to David Oraee, 2 up.
That meant the end of the summer golf season for the Illinois Open winner, and the start of his senior year at North Carolina State.
“I definitely had some positives this summer, had some confidence-building events,” Cooke said. “Being able to hang with guys out here and winning the Illinois Open makes me believe I’m doing the right thing. It kinda motivated me to turn pro after my college career.
“It was a good tournament. I played well for three days and got some good experience out here.”
Cooke lost a 1-up lead when Oraee birdied the eighth hole and fell behind when he triple-bogeyed the ninth hole, Oraee winning it with a double-bogey 6. Cooke squared the match with a par on the 13th, but his bogey on the 16th put him 1 down. A 12-foot comebacker for par on the par-3 17th forced the match to the last, where Oraee’s approach stayed on the green despite hitting the flagstick. Cooke failed to make birdie to force extra holes.
“I played some good holes out there, and I definitely played some bad ones,” Cooke said. “It was a good match.”
Friday’s Quarterfinal Matchups
12:45 p.m.: Kenta Konishi, 21, Tokyo, Japan, vs. Matthew Perrine, 19, Austin, Tex. Born in Hiroshima, Konishi has played since he was 3. Perrine is a sophomore at Baylor who made match play in the U.S. Junior Amateur two years ago.
1 p.m.: Derek Bard, 20, New Hartford, N.Y., vs. Jon Rahm-Rodriguez, 20, Barrika, Spain. Bard is a junior at Virginia, winner of this year’s Sunnehanna Amateur. Rahm-Rodriguez, a senior at Arizona State, was last season’s Ben Hogan Award winner and tied for fifth in the Phoenix Open.
1:15 p.m.: Paul Dunne, 22, Greystones, Ireland, vs. Bryson DeChambeau, 21, Clovis, Calif. The feature match of the day pits Dunne, the co-leader of the British Open after 54 holes – the first amateur to do so since Bobby Jones in 1927 – against the NCAA champion from Southern Methodist. Previous NCAA-U.S. Am double winners in the same year: Jack Nicklaus, Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods and Ryan Moore.
1:30 p.m.: Austin James, 19, Bath, Ontario, vs. Sean Crocker, 18, Westlake Village, Calif. James, a junior at Charleston Southern, won the Canadian Junior last year. Crocker, Zimbabwe-born, is a sophomore at Southern California with dual citizenship and thus eligible for the Walker Cup team.
Around Olympia Fields
After Sunday’s title match, there’s no USGA visit to Illinois on the calendar, the first time in memory nothing’s been scheduled. Said Mitchell, “People across the country say some of the best golf in the country is here. There are some clubs here that are extremely good, extremely difficult, and could host. I’ve played a lot of the places in the area, and I don’t know that there’s any place better than Olympia Fields. It’s extremely demanding and they know how to set it up right.” ... For once, it was sunny all day, and the grounds crew was able to put in a full grooming of the North Course. The greens ran at least a foot faster, said more than one player.
– Tim Cronin