115th Trans-Miss Amateur Heads to Golden Bear Country
COLUMBUS, Ohio – To help commemorate the 60th anniversary of Jack Nicklaus’s first Trans-Mississippi Amateur victory, this year’s 115th playing of the championship travels to the Golden Bear’s hometown. From July 10-13, the 72-hole, stroke play event takes place at Brookside Golf & Country Club, a classic parkland course that promises to challenge the top amateurs in the country.
Nicklaus, golf’s all-time major championship winner with 18 Grand Slam titles, won the 1958 Trans-Miss Amateur at Prairie Dunes Golf Club, which happened to be the site of last summer’s championship won by Cameron Champ. Nicklaus won the Trans-Miss Amateur in ’59, too, when he outlasted Deane Beman at Woodhill Country Club. Beman went on to win four times on the PGA Tour before he became the tour’s second commissioner in 1974.
Nicklaus, of course, proceeded to pile up 73 PGA Tour wins and 117 professional victories worldwide, including a record six Masters wins.
Brookside, an old-school parkland course built in 1927 by Charles Lorms, will welcome an elite field that includes 27 players in the top 300 of the World Amateur Golf Rankings (WAGR). Just a short iron away from Jack’s celebrated Muirfield Village Golf Club, Brookside has a rich history as a testing ground and entry point for our nation’s oldest championship.
For 13 of the past 15 years, Brookside has hosted some of the strongest fields for U.S. Open sectional qualifying. On more than one occasion, the eventual U.S. Open Champion played his sectional qualifier at Brookside. Most recently, Lucas Glover won the 2009 U.S. Open at Bethpage Black after earning his way into the tournament through Brookside. Steve Jones did the same thing in 1996 when he punched his ticket into the U.S. Open at Brookside, and then won the national championship two weeks later at Oakland Hills.
Brookside also played host to the 2000 and 2012 Ohio Amateur Championship. Future British Open champion Ben Curtis won the 2000 version, just three years prior to hoisting the Claret Jug at Royal St George’s.
As the Trans-Miss Amateur continues to rotate to compelling venues each year, the championship’s reputation is likewise on the rise. In both 2016 at The Olympic Club and 2017 at Prairie Dunes, the Trans-Miss Amateur received WAGR’s “A” ranking for strength of field. In addition to the past two years’ elite ratings, WAGR also considered the 114th edition last summer as the seventh-best field of the 37 tournaments that received an equal ranking.
Further validating the event’s ascension, the 114th Trans-Miss Amateur at Prairie Dunes was dubbed 10th in the world and sixth in North America by the Scratch Player’s World Amateur Rankings. It’s collections of strong players such as the one that will gather at Brookside that drives these high marks.
“Our goal is to take the Trans-Miss Amateur to the best golf courses in the country in an effort to attract the absolute best amateur golfers,” Trans-Miss Golf Association Executive Director Rob Addington said. “The rankings our fields have received from industry experts in recent years validate our mission, and we hope to continue to raise the bar in terms of field strength and championship venues.”
Highlighting this year’s field is 2016 U.S. Mid-Amateur champion Stewart Hagestad, who is the 18th-ranked amateur in the world. The laid-back, lanky competitor from Newport Beach, Calif., was the Low Amateur at the 2017 Masters. In doing so, he became the first mid-amateur to make the cut at the Masters since 1987. Hagestad also was a member of the triumphant 2017 U.S. Walker Cup team.
LSU sophomore Jacob Bergeron, the 38th-ranked amateur in the world, also is in the field at Brookside. Like Hagestad, Bergerson qualified for and played in the 118th U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills. So, too, did his college teammate Philip Barbaree, who carries the 199th spot in the WAGR. Barbaree, an LSU junior, won the 2015 U.S. Junior Amateur and was runner-up that same summer at the 112th Trans-Miss Amateur at Flint Hills National.
Duke senior Alex Smalley, who won the 65th Sunnehanna Amateur in mid-June, is also set to play at Brookside. He currently holds the 30th position in the WAGR.
These standout amateurs and the rest of the talented field will go up against a stern tournament-tested layout that demands accuracy off the tee. Brookside’s fairways are tree-lined and edged with thick bentgrass rough. The tees, fairways and greens are all bent, too, and the 91-year-old course tips out at 7,259 yards.
“You really have to drive your golf ball,” said Brad Zeitner, who is in his 15th year as the club’s Head Professional. “It’s a parkland-style course. There is a lot of rough off the fairways and around the greens. There’s a lot of length to the course, too. You really have to drive your ball to set up your second shot.”
The routing unfolds like a three-act play. Birdies are available early, for example. The first and third holes are shorter par 4s, and the second and fourth holes are gettable par 5s. On the fifth tee box, however, things change.
“The meat of the golf course is right in the middle,” Zeitner said. “Holes 5-15 are where the golf course really heats up. You get a series of good, hard, long par 3s, and the rest are a bunch hard par 4s.”
After navigating that difficult middle portion, the 148-yard par-3 16th and 402-yard par-4 17th offers two more birdie opportunities. Brookside finishes on the brutish, 462-yard par-4 18th that typically plays into the wind.
“It’s an old-school classic with smallish greens that are well-bunkered,” Zeitner said of the golf course.
As an added bonus for the competitors in the field, 2019 U.S. Walker Cup Captain Nathaniel Crosby will be in attendance and plans to speak during the July 9th Player’s Reception on the eve of the first round. This year’s championship also will feature four days of competition, a change from previous years when the final 36 holes were played on one day.
For more information on the 115th Trans-Miss Amateur, click here.