Global Golf Post - September 26, 2011

Rick Tenbroeck, of Evergreen Park, Ill.
There were 129 players in the field who
were competing in the U.S. Mid-Ama-
teur for the first time. Of those, 83 were
playing in their first USGA champion-
ship. There were 93 reinstated amateurs
in the field.

In the Women’s Mid-Am, the average age of the competitors was 43.48. The youngest player in the field was Paige Bromen, 25, of Stillwater, Minn. There were six other 25-year-olds in the field, all in their first year of eligibility. Deborah Anderson, 60, of Rancho Mirage, Calif., was the championship’s oldest competitor.

Jeronimo Esteve, 30, was diagnosed
with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma on March
28, 2011, the same day he won the club
championship at Indian Creek CC in
Miami.

On the day of his sectional qualifier in the Houston area for the Mid-Am, he teed off at 8 a.m., finished playing about 12: 15 p.m., and ran to the hospital to get his radiation treatment. After his treatment, he ran back to the golf course where he survived a five-for-four playoff to earn a place in the field.

The Puerto Rico native, who now
resides in Windermere, Fla., was two
weeks removed from his final radiation
treatment when he teed off in the first
round of the Mid-Amateur. He shot 149 in
stroke play qualifying but lost in the play-
off for the final three spots in match play.

Esteve wasn’t the only cancer survivor in the field. Virginia’s Michael Muehr, 39, won a battle with melanoma after being diagnosed in 2002. At the time, he was playing on the PGA Tour, but the cancer caused him to give up competitive golf altogether. He returned to the game in 2007 and regained his amateur status, and since then has turned in a number of impressive performances. He won the 2007 Crump Cup as well as the 2007 and 2009 Middle Atlantic Amateur titles.

Competing in his second Mid-Amateur,
Muehr advanced to the quarterfinals with
a 3-and- 2 win over Kris Mikkelsen before
going down to Engler, 3 and 2.
Josh Gregory, 36, of Dallas, served
as the head coach of the Augusta State
University men’s golf team that won
back-to-back NCAA Division I national
championships in 2010 and 2011. He
is now the head men’s golf coach at
Southern Methodist University. Gregory
advanced to match play and won a
match before losing to Aaron Hickman
in the second round, 2 and 1.
Jason Pridmore, 41, of Ventura, Ca-

Michael Muehr won his battle with melanoma
after being diagnosed in 2002.

lif., is a motorcyclist who was the 1997 AMA 750 Supersport national champion and the 2002 AMA Formula Extreme national champion and won the 2003 FIM World Endurance Championship. He qualified for the 2005 U.S. Amateur but was unable to play after breaking his leg in a race a day prior to the championship. He did not qualify for match play.

Joe True, 30, of Milwaukee, worked as an operations intern for the American Junior Golf Association during the summer of 2004. He was one of six recent college grads who drove around in one van pulling a 15-foot trailer more than 12,000 miles in 11 weeks to run 10 golf tournaments for the nation’s best junior golfers. He now serves as the director of development for athletics at Marquette University. True did not advance out of stroke play qualifying.

Nick Biestecker’s golf back story is
not unlike many others in the field for
the 31st U.S. Mid-Amateur Champion-
ship. He picked up the game at a young
age ( 8) and was influenced by a family
member (great uncle Roland Garmon);
played collegiately (Southern Methodist
University) and briefly as a professional
(mostly Monday qualifiers) before be-
ing re-instated as an amateur (October

2007); and is now enjoying success at the state and regional amateur level. But don’t expect to find Biestecker playing casual weekend rounds.

“I would probably like to bird hunt – whether it’s goose, duck or pheasant – than play (golf),” said Biestecker, who is a Ducks Unlimited committee chairman. “I’m not one to go out and play a four- or five-hour round on a Saturday morning. There are too many other things I like to do as much. But I like this competition and what it does to you.