SAM MIGDAL WINS 1 UP AFTER 36 HOLES
Missouri Amateur Final Recap by Tom Loeffler
2016 Missouri Amateur Championship Match Play Final Round – Jefferson City Country Club, Jefferson City, MO
2016 Missouri Amateur Championship – Finals by Blake Henderson, PJ Boatwright Intern.
The 36-hole championship match of the Missouri Amateur Championship began today at Jefferson City Country Club. Hunter Parrish, a recent graduate of Columbia College, took on Sam Migdal, the 2015 NCAA Division II Individual National Champion.
The morning session began with the two both making birdie on the Par 5 second hole. The match continued to be all square through the fourth hole where both players bogeyed. Hunter Parrish won the first hole of the day on the fifth hole after Sam Migdal made bogey after failing to get up-and-down out of the sand.
Parish pushed a drive right on the par 5, seventh and would later concede the hole to fall to all square. The next change in the match world come on the following par 5, twelfth where Parrish would once again find trouble off the tee. On his second shot, while trying to punch out into the fairway his ball ricocheted off a tree and into the hazard. Parrish then conceded the hole and fell to one down.
On the par 5, fifteenth Migdal would lose his tee shot left out of bounds. Parrish would take the hole to even the match. On the following hole, Hunter made a fifteen foot putt up the hill for a par to keep the match at all square. The match would remained tied after the conclusion of the morning 18-hole session.
The afternoon session began under ominous looking skies as the rain and lightning approached from the northwest. Hunter Parrish birdied the second hole for the second time of the day, taking a 1UP lead in the match. Sam Migdal fought back on the sixth, sticking his approach close and making birdie.
On the very next hole, Parrish birdied to take back the lead 1UP. Fighting right back, Migdal birdied the par 3 eighth to even the match. The two then won one hole a piece via the other’s mistakes, and the match remained all square.
The rain and lightning arrived on the 12th hole, play was suspended at 3:09pm. After a three hour delay, the action resumed with both men making par on the hole. Migdal then birdied the 13th after a great approach shot up the hill from under trees to go 1UP. That’s all Migdal would need to secure the championship. After Parish made a par putt to extend the match to 18, he missed a birdie putt to even the match. Migdal then made his final putt for par to win the championship 1UP.
After a long grueling week of fierce competition both men should be applauded for their strong effort. Both players withstood the varying weather conditions, a difficult golf course, and an exceptionally strong field.
Congratulations to the 2016 Missouri Amateur Champion, Sam Migdal! The Missouri Golf Association is a non-profit organization whose purpose is to promote the best interests and true spirit of the game of golf throughout the State of Missouri.
2016 Missouri Amateur Championship Match Play Round of 32 and Round of 16 June 24, 2016 – Jefferson City Country Club, Jefferson City, MO
by Tom Loeffler, Loeffler’s Link
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — The medalist curse continues, the defending champion is out, and a valiant run by a former Missouri Tigers quarterback has come to an end.
Just another day at the 109th Missouri State Amateur.
We’ll start with the marquee matchup Friday afternoon, as Wayne Frederick ousted medalist Luigi Botta 1 up in a tightly-fought battle during the Round of 16 at Jefferson City Country Club.
Botta (Columbia) is the latest victim of this trend — the tournament medalist, who also earns No. 1 seed in stroke play, has now failed to win the championship in 13 of the past 15 years.
Nobody ever said being No. 1 was easy, and Fredrick (Springfield) knows this all too well. Just last year, he was the No. 1 seed, but lost to the No. 64 seed in the first round.
“You’re always going to have one round in this deal when you don’t play well, and you’ve just got to get through that round,” Fredrick said. “I just happened to not play well in the first round last year.
“It’s such a hard tournament to win. Until you’ve won it, you don’t realize how hard it is to win this thing.”
After last year, did this win feel especially good? No and yes.
“That didn’t bother me, but this still feels good,” Fredrick said, “because this is the 20th anniversary of when I won it.”
It is indeed, as Fredrick beat Don Bliss 3-1 in the finals at Hickory Hills in Springfield in 1996 — and denied what would have been Bliss’s record fifth championship.
“From that standpoint,” Fredrick said, “that makes it feel better.”
Botta, who turned 21 on Thursday, led 1 up after nine, before Fredrick rattled off three straight birdies on 10-12 to take a 2 up lead. He never trailed again, but the lead was only 1 up on 17 when Fredrick faced a 12-footer for par, with Botta already in for par.
Fredrick nailed it.
“That was the key,” he said. “It was a hard match, he’s a very good player and a very nice kid.”
Fredrick didn’t offer anything profound to Botta when it was over … one disappointed medalist to another.
“I just told him, ‘Nice match,'” Fredrick said. “I’m out of profound things, I’ve got nothing.”
In this day and age of youth dominance in the game, Fredrick certainly offers the older generation some hope. He’s 54, so a championship on this 20th anniversary would really be something, especially when you consider the age of the last four champions — 22, 20, 20 and 19.
“I’m trying my best,” Fredrick said with a smile, “to represent the seniors.”
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FREDERICK IS ONE OF THREE former champions who’ve advanced to the Elite Eight.
Mitch Mather (Lebanon) isn’t one of them, however, as the defending champion was knocked out in the Round of 16 by Chase Hanna (Leawood, Kan.) 3 and 1.
But Joey Johnson is one of them, as the 2013-14 champ is looking to put together the second-best short term success run in the history of this grand, old event — winning three titles in four years.
The only better stretch? One player captured four crowns in five years, 1968-69 and 1971-72.
The player was Tom Watson, so Johnson has a chance to join elite company, indeed. Johnson’s only loss the last four years was to Mather in last year’s finals.
Brad Nurski, the 2010 champion, also moved on to the quarterfinals, which will be held Saturday morning. The semifinals start at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, while the 36-hole final will get underway at 9 a.m. Sunday.
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KIRK FARMER’S GREAT TOURNAMENT RUN came to an end Friday afternoon, after he’d beaten Matt Echelmeier 1 up in the Round of 32 on Friday morning.
What made this run so improbable? The former quarterback of the Missouri Tigers, and an All-State golfer and football player with the Jefferson City Jays, seldom plays in a competitive tournament, at least not on this level.
And other than hitting a few balls to warm up, he never practices. Rest assured, he was the only one still alive in the Sweet 16 who could say that.
His match with Sam Migdal was even after nine, before three crucial shots helped decide the match on the back nine — one that Farmer missed and two that Migdal pulled off.
On 10, Farmer — who had missed a 3-footer for a hole-winning birdie on No. 7 — had a violent lip-out on 2 1/2-footer for par to give Migdal a 1 up lead.
“I’ve got a new putter,” Farmer, 36, said, “and I’m not too confident with it right now on the short putts. I just needed a few of them to drop.”
The shot of the day came on the par-4 13th after Migdal’s second shot came up about three feet short of the green.
Playing from thick rough, with the green sloping straight downhill and little green to work with — the pin was only about 13 feet from his ball — a shot within five or six feet would have been quite good.
“I honestly didn’t think I’d be able to stop it,” said Migdal, who won the 2015 Division II individual national championship while playing for the UCM Mules. “I thought it was definitely going to roll past the hole.”
Instead, Migdal almost made it, somehow making it stop next to the hole for a conceded par to halve the hole.
He looked at Farmer, shrugged his shoulders and smiled.
“That’s part of it,” Farmer said. “He hit a nice, little floppy … he hit a great shot.”
On 15 — and with the match back to all square — Migdal holed a chip shot for birdie to go 1 up with three to play.
“I figured I either had to clip it perfect or make it,” Migdal said, “and I did both.”
Migdal also won 16 with a birdie to go 2 up, before winning 2 and 1 when both players parred 17.
“It was kind of ugly to begin with (both shot 37 on the front nine), but the back nine was a really good match,” Migdal said. “Kirk’s a really good player, he plays here and has the local course knowledge … I knew it was going to be a tough match.”
Despite the loss, what Farmer did — putting himself in the top 16 in the state’s most prestigious tournament — was quite a feat.
“I really enjoyed the competition, I always enjoy the chance to get out here and play with the best in the state. I’m happy with the way I played, overall, it just didn’t work out today.”
2016 Missouri Amateur Championship Match Play Round of 64
June 23, 2016 – Jefferson City Country Club, Jefferson City, MO
Story from Tom Loeffler, Loeffler’s Link
2016 Missouri Amateur Championship Round 2
June 22, 2016 – Jefferson City Country Club, Jefferson City, MO
The second day of stroke play for the Missouri Amateur Championship began under sunny skies and mild temperatures with no rain delays, following a two-hour rain delay on the first day of competition. The end of the day concluded with twenty miles per hour wind, which made play more difficult. Players that did not finish their round yesterday had the ball in the air at 7:30 this morning to resume their play. Normal morning tee times also started at 7:30 a.m. Luigi Botta fired in a six under par score of 66 to take the lead from Joey Johnson and Chad Niezing. Botta’s (pictured here) two-day score total was 140. Botta is the 2016 Amateur Medalists.
The afternoon round had a number of low scores as well. Derek Reynolds shot even par (72) to stay one-under for the two-day total (143). Past Amateur Champion, Brad Nurski, shot two-under for today to be two-under (142) total after the second round. Preston Fleenor is also two-under total after scoring three-under (69). At the end of today’s round, eleven people were tied at a total score of 154. There was then a playoff that consisted of the eleven players for seven spots. After the playoff was complete, these are the men that advanced to the Round of 64 tomorrow: Jeff Johnson, Chris Martin, Brad Dixon, Brady Dixon, Zachary Cutler, Devon Brown, and Jeremy Reidelberger.
After today’s round, there was a cut to 64 players to start Match Play on Thursday. There will be one round of match play tomorrow followed by two rounds of match play on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The champion will be declared on Sunday after the two finalists play 36 holes.
The Missouri Golf Association is a non-profit organization whose purpose is to promote the best interests and true spirit of the game of golf throughout the State of Missouri.
Missouri Golf Association can be found on all social media sites, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat at missourigolf. Live photos and videos will be posted throughout the week. Results for the tournament can be found online at mogolf.org.
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2016 Missouri Amateur Championship Round 1
June 21, 2016 – Jefferson City Country Club, Jefferson City, MO
Today began the 2016 Missouri Amateur Championship at Jefferson City Country Club. Play started at seven thirty this morning with a total of forty-nine groups to be sent off throughout the day. Morning showers caused a two and a half hour delay, pushing back the afternoon rounds for a late evening. As the rain and lightning settled, a quick warm up was given before play resumed at eleven thirty. It didn’t take long before the heat rolled in, but it led to a bright afternoon. However, the long morning delay caused the last tee time of the day to be pushed back to 4:41 p.m. Players rushed to get their rounds in before dark, but not all were successful. Those who did not finish today will tee off tomorrow morning before round two starts. Of those who finished the leaders are Joey Johnson, who won the Missouri Amateur Championship in 2013 and 2014, and Chad Niezing with a two under par score of 70.
Joey Johnson, Ozark
Chad Niezing, Manchester
Tomorrow’s second round of stroke play will resume at 7:30 a.m. and pairings will be the same as round one. The only change is that players with morning tee times will go off in the afternoon and vice versa. The course is in great shape and we look forward to seeing who will make the cut to 64!
The Missouri Golf Association is a non-profit organization whose purpose is to promote the best interests and true spirit of the game of golf throughout the state of Missouri.
Missouri Golf Association can be found on all social media sites: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat at missourigolf. Live photos and videos will be posted throughout the week. Results for the tournament can be found online at mogolf.org.
TO FOLLOW THE RESULTS OF THE AMATEUR YOU CAN FOLLOW THIS LINK
Missouri Golf Association
PO BOX 104164
Jefferson City, MO 65110
573-636-8994