Ohio's Golf Magazine June 2009 : Page 12Senior PGA Championship Roundup (continued from page 9) with World Golf Hall of Famers Hale Irwin and Greg Norman. Gibbons played in the 1989 PGA Championship but was making his first appearance in the Senior PGA Championship. He held his own, shooting a 75 in the third round to go with a pair of 73s for Norman and Irwin. “You can’t dream up playing with Norman and Irwin in a Saturday game,” Gibbons said. “The situation was a little different than I am used to. The first tee was really kind of tough. But after that I tried to stay calm and just go through my routine and tried to hit it in the fairway, tried to hit it on the green.” Gibbons finished at 13-over par (71- 73-75-74—293) to tie for 59th. This year, 40 PGA club professionals were in the 158-player field by virtue of finishing top-35 at the 2008 Senior PGA Professional National Championship or getting in as an alternate. Ten of the club professionals made the cut. One of the alternates, Chris Starkjohann, a 53-year-old PGA teaching professional from Cardiff by the Sea, Calif., got word at 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday that he would be filling in for Jim Dent. With his wife, Traci, serving as his caddie, he posted the best finish among the club profession- als (T-5) despite never carding a round better than 74 or making the cut in his previous two Senior PGA Championships. Starkjohann (71-72-68-70—+1) won the crystal trophy for being the low club professional on the strength of his putting. He finished second in number of putts per round. “I didn't think about it (being low club pro) because I know James Blair is a good player, Bill Britton,” Starkjohann said after his final round. “I had some guys behind me and if I didn't play solid I was going to let it slip away. So I told my wife, I said, ‘You know, I missed the green on No. 2, and I'm the leading putter this week, why am I just not trying to hit the green?’” Starkjohann won the 1998 St. Louis Golf Classic on the Nationwide Tour and has played in a handful of events on the Champions Tour since 2006, but playing professionally has mainly been a second job. 12 JUNE 2009 • WWW.OHIOSGOLF.COM Tom Herzan Hits Tee Shot at Par 3 9th. He is hoping the $65,500 check from the Senior PGA Championship might provide some momentum for his playing career. “I'm going to try and play Des Moines next week and Austin and then I was going to look at the schedule and see where we were financially and all that,” Starkjohann said. “We still got our business at home; we have a tee time service, so that still has to be done. But the goal is still to play. Always has been. Just work gets in the way sometimes.” Rematch John Cook and Mark O’Meara played in the same threesome in the first and second rounds, a rematch of sorts of their pairing in the championship of the 1979 U.S. Amateur that was held at Canterbury. O’Meara defeated Cook 8-and-7 in that 36- hole championship match. Cook, the defending U.S. Amateur champion, had just won the national championship at Ohio State and was riding a hot streak entering the tournament 30 years ago. “I had a real good summer in ’78 and then I had a real good summer in ’79, won every tournament that I played in that summer,” Cook recalled before the Senior PGA Championship. “So I definitely felt probably the favorite coming in.” Cook said he was tired from some tough early-round matches in the U.S. Amateur, but he ran into a buzz saw in O’Meara in 1979. “I got off to a fast start, but I kept pressing the gas pedal and nothing was coming out,” Cook said. “I was done, I was Publication List |
