Sunday, July 14, 2002
Kornowa's back-nine run gives him Ohio Am title
By RUSTY MILLER
AP Sports Writer
SYLVANIA, Ohio — Kevin Kornowa picked the right time to start target practice with his irons. Kornowa shot a closing 68 Friday — the lowest round of the day — to force a playoff with Michael Sabo, then won the 96th Ohio Amateur Golf Championship with a par on the first hole.
“I hit it good all day, then I just started hitting it close,” said Kornowa, who caddied at Sylvania Country Club years before he won the biggest tournament of his life on the course.
He is the second Toledo-area native since World War II to win the event. Alan Fadel won the 1995 Ohio Amateur.
Between rounds of 68, he shot 70 and 74 to finish at 8-under-par 280.
Sabo shot a 69 but made bogey on the first playoff hole.
“I have to take my hat off to Kevin. He played a pretty nice back nine there,” Sabo said. “I can't dwell on the playoff.”
Jason Gerken, the Princeton-bound 17-year-old from Logan, was just a shot off the lead until he bent the shaft on his putter and had to putt with a 2-iron the last five holes. He had two late birdies but fell short because he three-putted for a double-bogey on the first hole he used the 2-iron.
Unlike many of the 20-somethings who contend in the state amateur, Kornowa has no immediate plans to become a pro. Out of athletic eligibility to play golf at the University of Toledo, he has been promised a job when he completes his coursework at Toledo and said he would be happy staying close to home and playing in amateur events while building a career in business.
Kornowa won with a stirring back nine surge. He started the day four shots behind leader Justin Collins and was seven shots off the lead as he teed off on the 10th hole.
He hit to 3 feet on the 11th hole, 3 feet at the 13th, 4 feet at the 15th and chipped to 12 inches at the 16th hole, each time following with a birdie putt.
At the 484-yard, par-5 17th hole, he hit a big drive, then nailed a 4-iron shot that came to rest 15 feet from the pin. Kornowa rolled in the eagle putt to get to 4-under for his round and 8-under for the tournament. He closed with a par on the 72nd hole.
Meanwhile, Ohio State's Collins, Gerken and Sabo, a St. Louis native who played last year at Miami University, traded the lead back and forth.
Collins parred the first six holes to remain at 8-under, but Gerken followed an early bogey with three birdies on the next seven holes for a one-shot lead.
Sabo rolled in a twisting 30-foot birdie putt on the ninth hole and holed another long putt at the 11th to pull into the lead.
Then Gerken all but eliminated himself from the chase. He hit his approach on the par-3 14th hole short and left on the hole, then chipped 30 feet past the pin.
After exchanging his wedge for his putter, he walked up to the green, holding the putter by the head and tapping the end on the ground and as he walked. By the time he got to the green, the club was damaged and unusable. An Ohio Golf Association official told him he had to play with the clubs in his bag.
Three putts later, he was back in the pack.
“I was just fooling around. That is totally unlike me to do that,” Gerken said.
Sabo didn't pull away, playing the last seven holes in even-par.
Collins — who had 16 pars and two bogeys — never got back in the race after a bogey at the 16th hole.
“I didn't make enough putts,” Collins said. “You can't win if you don't make any birdies in the last round, can you?”
Gerken birdied both the 16th and 17th holes but missed a spot in the playoff when he came up short of the green with his approach on the par-4 finishing hole and had to settle for a par.
In the playoff, Kornowa hit a long 3-wood off the tee on the No. 1 hole, with Sabo drilling a 2-iron to just behind Kornowa's ball.
Sabo's sand-wedge approach jumped left off his club and ended up on the downslope of a hill some 45 feet from the pin.
Kornowa's sand wedge ended up on the green but short, 15 feet below the hole.
Sabo chopped out from the rough, and his ball ended up on the first cut of rough 18 feet away. His par putt rolled two feet past the hole, with Kornowa rolling his birdie putt to about the same distance, then hitting the par putt to clinch the championship.
Gerken's closing 72 left him at 281 and alone in third. Collins, from Ironton, shared fourth place with 37-year-old Westerville banker Michael Kelley at 282. Collins shot a final round 74, and Kelley had a 73.
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Kornowa's back-nine run gives him Ohio Am title
