Now the 16-year-old West High senior-to-be can claim to be the ruler of all Utah amateur golf.

Finau, who has already made a splash on the national junior golf scene with some huge tournament wins and performances in team events, recorded what he called his biggest golf accomplishment yet on Sunday in Utah's most prestigious event for amateurs. The 6-foot-3, 190-pound phenom won the 108th Utah State Amateur at Soldier Hollow Golf Course, stunning two-time champion Daniel Summerhays, a BYU junior, 3 and 2 in the championship match.

"I feel like a worthy champion," Finau said. "I think this will be a big boost for me to do well the rest of [my] golfing years. . . . I will eventually play professional golf, so this is big for me, a big confidence boost."

A field of nearly 295 golfers began the quest for the title on Wednesday, the largest field ever for the State Am. In the end, the second-youngest contestant in the group lifted the silver trophy in Soldier

Hollow's clubhouse, wet weather having forced the presentation indoors.

He was also perhaps the only golfer who spent a night in the hospital just two days before the tournament began. Diagnosed with walking pneumonia on Monday, Finau spent that night in Primary Children's Hospital.

"Tuesday, I was feeling horrible," he said. "I seriously considered not showing up Wednesday, but I felt a little better, so I did."

Good thing.

Finau, who turns 17 in September, is the hallowed tourney's third-youngest winner, behind Summerhays in 2000 and George "Gix" Von Elm, who won his first of three State Ams as a 15-year-old in 1917 before going on to capture the U.S. Amateur in 1926 with a 2 and 1 win over the legendary Bobby Jones.

A 40-minute rain storm having subsided as the match ended, the two players hugged each other after Summerhays conceded a short putt on the Gold Course's 16th green, their 34th hole. The stocky, 5-foot-9 Cougar looked up at Finau and said, "You are a talented player and you deserved to win."

Coincidentally, Summerhays was also 16 (by six months) when he won his first of two consecutive State Am titles in 2000, and he also beat a favored BYU golfer (Billy Harvey) that day at Oakridge Country Club. He just was not sharp on Sunday, though, and lost an early two-hole lead with a bogey on No. 10.

Having squared the match after the early deficit, Finau shot a 33 on the back nine in the morning to take a three-hole lead into the lunch break, and Summerhays never got closer than two holes the rest of the way. Rain pelted the players and about 100 onlookers - families of both players showed up en masse - from the 30th to the 34th hole, and Finau bogeyed the 31st, 32nd and 33rd holes, but Summerhays could only knock one hole off a four-hole lead.

"I was pretty disappointed in how I played, but I was satisfied with my effort," Summerhays said. "I was just a little bit off all day. . . . I hit some squirrely shots. It just wasn't my day."

Finau routinely drove the ball 75-80 yards past Summerhays, although the older golfer often used a three-wood or an iron off the tee. The champ won the Junior World tournament in San Diego a few years ago and some other junior tournaments in Florida, but said he began dreaming of winning the State Amateur when he was 10 and saw Summerhays win it.

"When I practice, it is not '30-footer to win the U.S. Open,' " he said. "It is '30-footer to win the State Am.' Daniel set the tone for me. I've been wanting to win this for a while."

Now Finau has another of Summerhays' milestones to shoot for, because the year after he won his first title, Summerhays repeated in 2001 at Wasatch Mountain State Park. Next year, the State Am returns to Thanksgiving Point, where Finau played in his first State Am - as a 13-year-old.

drew@sltrib.com