Even though he had never seen the Country Club of Lincoln, much less played it, Scott Willman toured the historic course like he was a longtime member.
KEN HAMBLETON / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Tuesday, July 22, 2008 7:00 pm
Even though he had never seen the Country Club of Lincoln, much less played it, Scott Willman toured the historic course like he was a longtime member.
The Nebraska golf recruit from Prairie Village, Kan., posted a 4-under-par 68 Wednesday to take a one-stroke lead after two rounds of the 100th State Amateur Golf Championship.
Willman’s 139 total at the halfway mark is one shot better than former champion Knox Jones, who shot 71-69, and athletic trainer Jayson Brueggemann, who had back-to-back 70s.
“I purposefully didn’t even look at the scoreboard when I started today because I had heard about this course and thought I better concentrate on that rather than the scores,” said Willman, who finished some five hours after Brueggemann and Jones.
What Willman had heard about the course was accurate — very narrow fairways and fast greens with long rough.
He parked his driver in the bag for all but three holes and counted on his 3-iron off the tee most of the day.
“The idea is to keep it in the fairway and out of the trees … and make some putts,” he said. The senior from Shawnee Mission East High School scored a birdie 2 on three of the par-3 holes.
Willman chose Nebraska for a golf scholarship last fall.
“My parents both went to Kansas State and I grew up hating Nebraska, but that changed a couple of years ago, and when I visited here, I just liked the setting,” he said.
First-round leaders David Easley of Lincoln and Blake Giroux of Omaha both shot even-par 72s and are tied for fourth. John Hurley, who now plays at Texas A&M, is lurking two strokes back after back-to-back 72s.
Willman said his primary goal is to beat Husker golf coach Bill Spangler. Spangler is seventh at 147.
Jones, the 49-year-old who won this tournament in 2001, is playing competitive golf for only the second time since finishing second in 2002.
“This is a one-time gig,” Jones said. “I’m still just playing for the club and for the fun of it and there is no pretense of thinking I have to tear it up and win this, although I wouldn’t mind that.”
Jones said he played much better than his first round, when he was saved by a series of putts.
“I figured I couldn’t hit the ball worse and score pretty well than I did the first day.
“I really don’t know most of these kids, but I’ll get a chance to play with some of them now,” he said.
For Brueggemann, the tournament is a break from his daily duties as a trainer at the North Shrine Bowl football team at Nebraska Wesleyan.
“I just show up and battle the course and hopefully, I’ll be in contention at the end of it all,” he said. “I played a solid round and was 5-under at one point. But I gave it up for a bogey on No. 15, missed a 15-footer for par on No. 16 and threw away a shot over the green for a bogey on 17.
“But it was so much more consistent than my first round,” he said. Brueggemann posted just four pars in a 2-under 70 Tuesday.
Easley, a local businessman and assistant golf coach at NWU, said he did not hit off the tee as well as he did in the first round.
“I kind of heard the out-of-bounds fences on the right of some of those hole talking to me and went way left a couple of times,” he said. “But I think local knowledge helped, because I was hitting those low-running shots to get in position out of the trees and on the green a number of times.”
The field of 144 was narrowed to the low 54 players and ties for the final two rounds Thursday and Friday.
Reach Ken Hambleton at 473-7313 or khambleton@journalstar.com.