Jeremy Ranch • In the morning chill and the afternoon wind, home-course knowledge became important Tuesday in the first round of the State Amateur at Jeremy Ranch Golf & Country Club.
The top three players going into Wednesday’s final round of stroke-play competition include two former Park City High School teammates and a golfer who lived at Jeremy Ranch in his grade-school years.
University of Utah golfer Mitchell Schow’s 6-under-par 66 was good for a one-stroke lead over Justin Shluker, his prep teammate, and BYU’s Cole Ponich. After the second round, the field will be reduced to 32 golfers for match play, with the cut coming at about 1 over par.
If not for the COVID-19 pandemic, Schow would have completed his Ute career this past spring and moved to PGA Tour LatinoAmerica, having advanced through qualifying. “Five, six months ago if someone had told me I’d be playing in the State Am, I’d have told ’em they were crazy,” Schow said.
With the international tour on hold and the NCAA extending golfers’ eligibility, Schow chose to return for another senior season – whenever that begins.
Schow played in the more difficult conditions of the afternoon, making seven birdies and becoming Tuesday’s biggest story in the absence of two-time defending champion Preston Summerhays, who’s playing this week in The Junior Players Championship in Florida. Carson Lundell, Ponich’s BYU teammate and a contestant in the round of 16 in the recent U.S. Amateur, also is notably missing. Lundell thought he had entered the State Am, but his electronic submission was not received.
Jeremy Ranch was the site of Schow’s first tryout round as a Park City freshman, when Shluker was a senior. Shluker, who’s 25 and a recent graduate of Sonoma State in Califiornia, started playing at Jeremy Ranch when he was 10, instructed by head professional Jake Hanley. “I know this course really well … I was able to take advantage of that,” said Shluker, whose only bogey came at the par-3 No. 8, his 17th hole of the day.
When Ponich said, “I used to play out here when I was younger,” he meant much younger. By age 8, he already was a two-time junior club champion in the 9-under division. Playing a recent practice round “brought back some good memories for Ponich, whose family later moved from Jeremy Ranch to a home adjacent to Oakridge Country Club in Farmington.
Ponich failed to qualify for the Utah Open in August, so he had not made a tournament appearance since competing in the Korn Ferry Tour’s Utah Championship at Oakridge in June. He looked sharp Tuesday, overcoming the shock of missing a 2-foot par putt on his first hole (No. 10) with a 30-foot putt on No. 11 and a chip-in on No. 12 for two of his seven birdies.
STATE AMATEUR
First-round scores
66 – Mitchell Schow. 67 – Justin Shluker, Cole Ponich. 69 – Kirk Siddens, Daren Johnson, John Owen. 70 – Hayden Banz, Brock Stanger, Tyson Shelley, Simon Kwon, Hayden Christensen. 71 – Luke Crapo, Dan Horner, Lucas Schone, Kurt Owen, Nik Parcell, Nick Killpack, Blake Tomlinson, Noah Schone. 72 – Carsen Dopp, Ryan Brimley, Landon Anderson, Steven Croft, Hunter Howe, Braxton Weatts, Greg Slack, Willard Richards, Colton Tanner, Thomas Young. 73 – Tristan Mandur, Elijah Turner, Kelton Hirsch, Boston Bracken, Jake Vincent, Davis Heslington, Andy Hess, Derek Penman, Brandon Robison. 74 – Cameron Tucker, Kihei Akina, Brock Nielson, Kurt Jamison, Tanner Telford, Gary Smith. 75 – Brandon Hargett, Ali Hameed, Scott Nielson, Eric Loveland, Patrick Horstmann, Tristan Fuller, Jon Wright, Adam Whitt, Tyson Lund. 76 – Rich Tripp, Keanu Akina, Cole Ogden, Caysen Wright, Jackson Holman, Preston Cheney, Jacob Marx, Chase Lansford, Randy Hicken, Peyton Hastings. 77 – Nathan Nyman, Spencer Dunaway, Carl Jensen, Devin Tovey, Peter Ouimette, Jack Sargent, Guy Child, Darrin Overson, Dylan Chugg, Tyson Tanner, Matthew Lyons, Jeff Appelbaum, Dan Ihler, Denny Job.