BRIDGEHAMPTON, NEW YORK |
Nasty
weather turned the last two days of the
U.S. Mid-Amateur into a golf marathon
for finalists
Nathan Smith
and
Tim
Hogarth
. They played 45 and 47 holes
respectively on Wednesday and then
their 36-hole final Thursday.
This year’s championship marked
the first time that co-medalists had
ever met in the finals.
The 1996 U.S. Amateur Public Links
champion and a health food distributor,
Hogarth carried his own bag throughout
the tournament. And he talked about
how a new training regimen based
on Muay Thai kickboxing has
increased his stamina. “You
kick the bag for an hour
and walking around the golf course
doesn’t seem like anything,” he says.
Jason Robertson
, 27, could have
been forgiven if his mind wasn’t com-
pletely on his game during stroke-play
qualifying, where he failed to advance
to match play. That’s because his wife
of two years,
Carol
, was playing at the
same time in the U.S. Women’s Mid-
Amateur in Wichita, Kan., 1,300 miles
away. Reinstated as an amateur earlier
this month, she made it to the finals,
losing 2-down to
Meghan Stasi
.
Thirty-three-year-old
Tim Mickel-
son
, younger brother of
Phil
, made it
into match play by prevailing in a playoff
among a dozen players for the final five
spots. Then, he knocked off co-medalist
Mike McCoy
in the first round, going
5-up after seven holes and then holding
on to beat one of the pre-tournament
favorites 2 and 1. Mickelson kept playing
well and made it to the quarterfinals,
before losing to
Todd Burgan
5 and 3.
Four former professional baseball
players competed in this year’s tourna-
ment:
Erik Hanson
, an All-Star pitcher
for the Boston Red Sox in 1995;
Mark
Mulder
, who pitched eight years in the
big leagues, for the Oakland A’s and St.
Louis Cardinals;
Todd Mitchell
, once an
infielder in the New York Yankees farm
system; and
Peter Smetek
, who played
minor league baseball for the Tampa
Bay Rays and Houston Astros.
Mulder retired from baseball last
February, and ended up withdraw-
ing from the Mid-Am Saturday with a
shoulder injury.
Martin Rifkin
, of Fort
Wayne, Ind., who flew in via private air-
craft just in time to make his 12: 25 p.m.
start, replaced him in the field. He had
been at home reading the newspaper
and getting ready to work out when the
call came from the USGA.
The field included 264 competitors,
of which 125 were playing in their first
Mid-Am. The average age was 37.83, and
91 contestants were reinstated amateurs.
The oldest was
James Saivar
, 65. A real
estate developer from San Diego, this
marked the first time he had qualified for
a USGA championship after 20 attempts.
Tri-medalist
Scott Harvey
, who made
it to the quarterfinals, is a driving range
operator from North Carolina. He is also
the son of
Bill Harvey
, a member of the
North Carolina Golf Hall of Fame and a
veteran of 18 U.S. Amateurs.
The younger Harvey has now played
in three national Mid-Amateur champi-
onships. His 2010 run was another good
showing in a big tournament for the Tar
Heel this year, coming after he qualified
for match play in the U.S. Amateur at
Chambers Bay and finished second as a
member of the North Carolina A
Wales wasn’t the only place plagued by heavy rains last week.
The practice area seen here at the Atlantic Golf Club flooded
thanks to a heavy downpour.
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