Men's World Amateur Rankings -- Nov. 20
November 20, 2024
HASTINGS -- On hot, windy days like Monday, tournament golf courses usually get progressively more difficult the later it gets. Greens get firmer, which makes them harder to hold, and they also get faster, which makes them tougher to putt.
That didn't seem to be the case on Monday at Hastings Country Club in the opening round of the MGA State Amateur Championship. Scores weren't really any higher in the afternoon session than they were in the morning.
However, if the course didn't get any harder as the day wore on, it didn't get any easier, either.
Jesse Bull, who was in the first group off the 10th tee (which is normally the first tee; the nines at Hastings are reversed this week for the State Am), played to greens that were as receptive as they were going be, and he took advantage of the situation.
The former University of North Dakota hockey star made four birdies and only one bogey (with an asterisk) while shooting a 3-under-par 68.
Bull, who produced the low round of the 2010 State Am at Dacotah Ridge (he had a 6-under 66 on the final day, which earned him a sixth-place finish) got into red numbers on his third hole Monday, as he birdied the 525-yard, par-5 12th.
He made his only bogey at the 465-yard 16th. It's a par-4 this week, but it's a par-5 for the members, and it played like a par-5 in the opening round, dead into a 15-to-20-mph wind. Bull responded with birdies at each of the next two holes, the 437-yard, par-4 17th, and the 160-yard, par-3 18th.
On his second nine, he made eight pars and a birdie, which came at the shortest par-5 on the course, the 482-yard 16th.
No one else broke par. David Christensen, a former State Am champ (1997) who is now in his second incarnation as an amateur (he was a pro and played on the web.com -- formerly Nationwide -- Tour, among others), and Nicholas Forsberg, who just graduated from Staples-Motley High School, are tied for second place at 71.
Matt Schneider, who was Forsberg's age when he first played his way into contention at the State Am, in 2006 (the same year he won the State Junior Boys Championship, posted a 72, and he's tied for fourth, along with 2010 Junior Boys champ Thomas Strandemo and Frederick Van Rooyen.
Van Rooyen, who is from South Africa, was the University of Minnesota's No. 1 player from the beginning of the 2011-12 season to the end, and he has to be considered one of the favorites this week, especially in the absence of the 2011 champion, Donald Constable, a former Gopher star. Constable is in Niagra Falls, N.Y., this week playing in the Porter Cup.
Another notable absentee is Kyle Beversdorf. Like Christensen and Schneider, he's a former MGA Junior Player of the Year, and he will join VanRooyen in the Minnesota lineup this year, after sitting out a year of college golf following his transfer from Northern Iowa.
Beversdorf played in the U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship last week and made it all the way to the semifinals. He shot a 2-over 73 in the first round of stroke-play quallifying and was never over par again in six rounds at Soldier Hollow GC in Midway, Utah.
In his five matches, Beversdorf was a cumulative 14 under par, and he was 4 under for 17 holes in his semifinal loss to Kevin Aylwin (who then lost to fellow Floridian T.J. Vogel in the final). That was on Friday, and he had to drive back to Minnesota over the weekend.
Considering that he's got the State Open coming up Friday through Sunday and U.S. Amateur Qualifying next Monday, he decided that he needed to take a few days off from tournament golf and withdrew from the State Am.
If there were bookmakers putting odds on the competition at Hastings this week, the other betting favorite, in addition to Van Rooyen, would probably be Sammy Schmitz, the 2011 MGA Player of the Year. Schmitz is a former Division III All-American at St. John's who spent one year as a pro playing on the mini-tours, and since joining the play-for-fun set again in 2008, he's had more top-5's in state tournaments than any other Minnesota amateur. He's also won three state titles -- the MGA Mid-Am, Publinx Mid-Am and MGA Mid-Players' -- in the last 10 months.
On Monday, Schmitz shot 73, and he's tied for seventh place with Dan Moline.
Hastings isn't a long course, especially by modern standards. But it has tight fairways, lots of trees and crowned greens, which can be treacherous, depending on the speed of the greens and pin placements.
Schmitz said there was a big difference between the way the course played on Sunday during a practice round and the way it played in the first round of the tournament.
"I've seen that transformation before," he said. "When they had the State Open here (2009), the greens were fairly soft and slow the day before the tournament, but they were completely different the next day. So I wasn't surprised to see how much faster they were today.
He cited the green at No. 6 (195-yard par-3) as an example.
"I had to hit the putt 90 degrees away from the hole," he said, "and it wound up right next to the cup. The greens were fast, but they were fair."
Nevertheless, the scores were high. It would appear, based on the first-round scores, that the cut (the top 60 players and ties after 36 holes) will be somewhere in the neighborhood of 158.
MINNESOTA GOLF ASSOCIATION
State Amateur Championship
At Hastings Country Club
Par 71, 6,730 yards
First-round results
1. Jesse Bull 68
T2. David Christensen 71
T2. Nicholas Forsberg 71
T4. Frederick Van Rooyen 72
T4. Thomas Strandemo 72
T4. Matt Schneider 72
T7. Dan Moline 73
T7. Sammy Schmitz 73
T9. Jon Dutoit 74
T9. Brent Jacobson 74
T9. Alex Kolquist 74
T9. Tommy Smith 74
T9. Jack Holmgren 74
T9. Jack Teal 74
T9. Beau Hanson 74
November 20, 2024
.jpg)
November 18, 2024
.JPG)
November 11, 2024
Contact Us
Have a question about the Minnesota Golf Association, your MGA membership or the contents of this website? Let us help.
