Can a Goodman win again at North Shore?

Writing from Glenview, Illinois

Friday, August 4, 2023

Ninety years ago, Johnny Goodman won the U.S. Open at North Shore Country Club.

Saturday, another fellow named Goodman – different family, same fine golf game – has a chance to win the 121st Western Amateur on the same course.

Johnny Goodman became the most recent amateur to capture the National Open with 36 holes on a sweltering Saturday. Drew Goodman, of the University of Oklahoma golf team, will need to go 36 holes, more or less, to lift the George Thorne Trophy.

“It would be kind of cool to have the same name up there on the board,” Goodman said. “But there are two more matches tomorrow.”

Goodman played his way into position by knocking off the world’s No. 2 amateur, Michael Thorbjornsen, the 2021 Western Am winner, in 20 holes in Friday morning’s Sweet Sixteen match. Then he made much quicker work of Jimmy Zheng of New Zealand and Duke in the afternoon. That 5 and 3 dispatching allowed him to leave North Shore for a pizza dinner well before sunset.

“I felt I drove it well in the first round, like I have all week,” Goodman said. “It was ugly (in the afternoon). Besides the first few holes, I was kinda running out of gas. Driving it all over the place. Jimmy kind of gave it to me at the beginning and led me get a lead.

“I made a good birdie on No. 7 and a really, really good par (save) on No. 8. After that, he gave me No. 10.”

After that, it was a matter of maintaining the lead. Goodman’s birdie on No. 14 closed the match.

Goodman faces Christian Maas of Pretoria, South Africa and Texas in the semifinals. Kazuma Kobori plays Matthew McClean, a 30-year-old optometrist from Belfast, Northern Ireland, and last year's U.S. Mid-Amateur winner, in the other semifinal.

At No. 21, Maas is the highest-ranking player remaining in the knockout competition.

“I’m still rusty from winter back home,” Maas said after a 3 and 2 dispatching of Nick Dunlap in the quarterfinals. “But there are a lot of positives. I kind of know where the golf ball’s going and I’ve been putting well.”

That combination will take you a long way at North Shore, where the rough is up and the greens are slick. Maas also closed his morning match out on the 16th hole, beating Wenyi Ding of Beijing 3 & 2 as well.

Local favorite Mac McClear of Hinsdale and the Iowa Hawkeyes fell in 20 holes to Kazuma Kobori of Rangiora, New Zealand in the Round of 16. They traded the lead back and forth across the first 16 holes until McClear tied it with a birdie at the par-4 17th. They halved the next two holes. Both players needed three strokes to reach the green on the 505-yard par 4th, but McClear missed from six feet and Kobori made from three feet, prompting a handshake.

McClean because the last mid-amateur standing after Gustav Frimodt knocked off 32-year-old finance expert Stewart Hagestad, 4 and 2, in the Sweet Sixteen. Hagestad still has hopes for the U.S. Walker Cup team, and McClean could have enhanced his chances to make the Great Britain and Ireland team.

– Tim Cronin

Sweet Sixteen

Carson Bacha d. Brendan Valdes, 19 holes

Kazuma Kobori d. Mac McClear, 20 holes

Gustav Frimodt d. Stewart Hagestad, 4 & 2

Matthew McClean d. Preston Summerhays, 2 & 1

Drew Goodman d. Michael Thorbjornsen, 20 holes

Jimmy Zheng d. Caden Fioroni, 5 & 3

Nick Dunlap d. Cole Sherwood, 3 & 1

Christiaan Maas d. Wenyi Ding, 3 & 2

Quarterfinals

Kobori d. Bacha, 2 up

McClean d. Frimodt, 5 & 4

Goodman d. Zheng, 5 & 4

Maas d. Dunlap, 3 & 2

Saturday’s Semifinals

Kobori vs. McClean, 8 a.m.

Goodman vs. Maas, 8:12 a.m.