Unless you’re Tiger Woods, practically moving from the womb to wowing Bob Hope and Mike Douglas, there is a process to golf. One day, you’re toppling buckets of balls at the driving range, exasperating your parents, and the next, you’re standing on the tee at the 18th hole with a chance to beat a friend for the first time or perhaps win a club championship.
Or maybe you’re at Murphy Creek Golf Course in Aurora, playing for a national championship. Almost a month ago, in San Diego, Woods won the United States Golf Association’s highest prize, the U.S. Open. This week, 156 players will converge here for the Amateur Public Links, vying to be the next name added to the USGA’s honor roll.
“It’s weird to think about the possibilities,” former University of Colorado golfer Jim Grady said. “The USGA has three or four events for men every year. Tiger won one — it would be really, really cool to say you won one of the others.”
No cooler than perhaps cozying up next to the world’s No. 1 player on the range at Augusta National Golf Club. Whoever is left standing at week’s end following 36 holes of stroke play Monday and Tuesday and then six head-to-head matches, concluding with a 36-hole marathon Saturday, will gain a gold medal and possession of the James D. Standish Jr. Cup for a year. There will also be an invitation to play in the 2009 Masters, along with an assortment of qualifying exemptions into future USGA events.
The final pairing in Georgia for this year’s major, Brandt Snedeker and eventual winner Trevor Immelman, were both former champions of the Publinks; however, the tournament is not solely the domain of the burgeoning professional — it’s open to any amateur with a 4.4 handicap or better who doesn’t belong to a private club.
While its fellow USGA event, the U.S. Amateur, is regarded as the crown jewel of amateur play, the Publinks is highly esteemed in its own right. Grady has been attempting to make the field since his junior year of high school, finally breaking through on his seventh attempt by finishing third last month in a qualifier at Murphy Creek. Grady’s brother Patrick also qualified.
“This is the tournament I’ve wanted to play in the most,” Jim Grady said.
Perhaps the Gradys’ 2008 Publinks will mirror the experience that Cody and Brent Paladino had a year ago. In last year’s tournament in suburban Chicago, both advanced from stroke play into the final 64. In his first match, Brent beat defending champion Casey Watabu — who won his title a year earlier by beating current PGA Tour star Anthony Kim.
While Brent lost in his second match, Cody, then an incoming freshman at Baylor, kept going. In the semifinals, Cody beat Derek Fathauer, who qualified for this year’s U.S. Open. That put Paladino into the 36-hole final against Colt Knost.
In losing 6-and-4 to the current Nationwide Tour player, Paladino said he felt as much a spectator to Knost’s talents as the fans who are allowed to follow along behind the players as they walk the fairways. Knost, who also won the U.S. Amateur last summer, turned pro almost immediately after the latter event, giving up his spots in both The Masters and this week’s British Open.
Some might posit that Knost’s absence this year would bode well for Cody Paladino. Last year’s runner-up doesn’t share that thinking.
“Yeah, now that he’s not playing, I should just go out there and win it all,” Paladino said facetiously. “It’s not like I’m going out there and saying, ‘I’ve made the final of a USGA event and you haven’t, and so I’m better than you.’
“It’s not like that, especially because it’s match play. Had I played someone in the very first round who shot a 4- or 5-under-par, I probably would have lost and never had the chance to get to the finals.”
But he didn’t, which led to some very surreal moments for Paladino — like walking onto the driving range before Saturday’s final and finding two sets of balls spaced about 100 yards apart, one for him and one for Knost.
Or the knowledge that at that point, he was 36 holes away from playing in The Masters, surely one of the ultimate steps any golfer could make.
“It’s probably something everyone who gets to the tournament thinks about, but really only a select few have a real chance to win,” Paladino said. “But then again, it’s match play — Last year, Colt shot on the number and just made it to match play. I beat him in stroke play, but obviously, that didn’t matter.
“Once you get to match play, you have six people standing between you and Augusta. That’s kind of neat — beat six people and you play in the Masters. It’s really cool.”
Anthony Cotton: 303-954-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com
