KANNAPOLIS — Captain Dirk was trekking in outer space here Friday, but the pro golfer
came back to earth.Dirk
Schultz of Hagerstown,Md., could have shot an 80 in the final round at Kannapolis Country
Club and still finished first in the PGA Tour/Nike Tour Qualifying Tournament. That’s
because he opened the day at 18 under par for 54 holes with a nine-stroke lead.
However, the tall, 34-year-old
club pro, played the early holes Friday morning as if he were trying to rally from
behind.His amazing first four holes went birdie 3, hole in one, birdie 3, birdie 4. At
that point he was 23 under.
“I hit my tee shot on (No. 1)
and thought I was in the middle of the fairway. It was almost in the hazard (lake to the
left of the fairway). Then we hit a little sand wedge underneath the hole and made the
putt. On the second hole (163-yard par-3), I pulled my 8-iron just a little bit. It took
two bounces off the bank, came down the hill and rolled back in the hole for a 1. Then I
hit it three feet on the third hole for birdie. Then I knocked it on (No. ) 4 in two and
two-putted. I was 5 under,” said the former college basketball player.
Then came the next 14 holes, which
he played in 5 over, leaving Schultz with a 72 for the day and an 18-under 270 for first
place — nine strokes ahead of the field.
He bogeyed the last two tough
holes on the front nine.
“I just kind of limped in
then,” he said. “I feel asleep there after we made a couple of bogeys. It’s
been kind of my nemesis in tournaments to get a lead, then forget what I was doing. But
this was a much better week.”
The 6-7, 250-pounder had made 20
birdies and only two bogeys through 54 holes.
John Kimbell of Summerville, Ga.,
Dennis Zinkon of Haines City, Fla., and Jay Patterson of Durham finished in a three-way
tie for second at 279, while Scott Rowe of Darien, Ill., was fifth at 280.
Kimbell finished well here for the
second straight year. He shot a 277 to tie for seventh in 1998.
Schultz, Kimbell, Zinkon and
Patterson plus 16 other qualifiers will advance to one of six second stage tournaments in
early November. Their final goal is the third stage at Doral Golf Resort & Spa in
Miami Nov. 17-22.
Zinkon was a first-stage winner at
one of those sites, Grenelefe in Haines City, Fla., with a 15-under-par 273 total last
year.
n
SUDDEN DEATH: The real drama took
place after the regulation 72 holes had ended. That’s because five golfers took part
in a sudden-death playoff for the final two spots to advance to the second stage.
Erik Ciotti of Barrington, Ill.,
got the 19th spot by making a birdie on the first hole, where Winston-Salem’s Brian
Sharp was eliminated with a bogey.
Then, on the par-3 second hole,
where Schultz had earlier made an ace, Chris Wollmann of Strongsville, Ohio, got a par but
was eliminated. That’s because both Tim Straub of Winston-Salem and Stephen Woodard
of Charlotte knocked in birdie putts.
Straub and Woodard then went four
more holes before Straub ended it with a 15-foot birdie putt on the sixth extra hole, No.
1.
The playoff format followed holes
No. 1, 2, 7, 8 and 9, then back to No. 1. It was six playoff holes Straub remembered well.
“I actually made it here in
the exact same thing, a six-hole playoff last year for the last spot. I birdied this hole.
Isn’t that amazing?” said the 1989 Atlantic Coast Conference individual
champion.
“I birdied the second hole in
the playoff, then birdied this one. I didn’t make any birdies this morning,”
said the native of Orchard Park, N.Y., a Buffalo suburb.
Straub also played on Wake’s
1986 NCAA championship team with future PGA pros Billy Andrade and Len Mattiace before
graduating in 1989.
His pro experience has included
two seasons on the Hogan Tour before it was renamed the Nike Tour plus TearDrop and
Hooters tour events. Now he is a step closer to getting back on the Nike Tour or making
the PGA for the first time.
Ciotti was elated to get the
birdie on the first hole of the playoff to wrap up a spot in the second stage. He’s a
recent graduate of Northwestern, where he was a member of a Big Ten championship team.
“I played great
today.Unfortunately, I bogeyed my last hole, 18. I was disappointed, but a buddy of mine,
Scott Rowe, a college teammate of mine, kept me in good spirits,” said Ciotti.
Rowe, who had already made it to
the second stage by finishing fifth in regulation, caddied for Ciotti on the extra hole.
n
LOCALS: Salisbury’s Elliot
Gealy and Kannapolis’ Brian Chapman failed to make it to the second stage, Gealy in
his first try and Chapman in his second.
Gealy got off to a fast start with
a 68 on Tuesday, but followed it up with two 75s before a 69 yesterday. That left the
former Clemson University golfer at 287 and in 28th place. He missed the playoff by only
two strokes.
Chapman, who made it to last
year’s second stage, finished 58th with a 302 on his home course.
n
QUALIFIERS: Also advancing to the
second stage were Jean-Paul Hebert of Cleveland,Oh., Patrick Sheehan of Orlando, Fla., Tee
Burton of Shelby and Jeremy Langley of Lexington,Ky., with 2812s; Hennie Walters of
Charlotte with a 282; Jeffrey Peck of Canandaigua, N.Y., and Dave Wettlauffer of Ontario,
Can., with 283s; and Curtis Boyer of Howey in Hills, Fla., Ray Franz of Mt. Pleasant,
S.C., Tetsuya Tsuda of Tokyo, Japan, Keith Nolan of Louisville, Tenn., Tim Weinhart of
Duluth, Ga., and Tom Sutter of New York City with 284s.
Sheehan, brother of LPGA golfer
Patti Sheehan, and Hebert advanced from Kannapolis to the second stage last year along
with Kimbell and Straub. |
Today's News