Amateur Jake Kneen of White Lake played what he called one of the grittiest round of his life, overcame a triple-bogey bite from the Bear’s 16th hole, and held on to win the 101st Michigan Open Championship at Grand Traverse Resort and Spa.
The 22-year-old amateur shot 75 Thursday in the final round for an 8-under 280 for a two shot-win over mini-tour player James Holley of Howell (72).
“Wow, I think I had six birdies, six bogeys and a triple (bogey),” he said. “Man, it was up and down today. I just kept my head down and kept fighting. I knew I still had the lead even after the triple at 16. I just kept telling myself, ‘you are still ahead, just make some pars and steady out the round.’ Fortunately, I was able to do that.”
Kneen – a former Michigan Junior Amateur champion who just this spring was the Horizon League Golfer of the Year for Oakland University – becomes just the 6th amateur to win the state Open championship, and just the 2nd in the last 43 years. Tom Werkmeister of Grandville, who became a professional this year at age 50, broke a streak of 38 wins by professionals in 2013.
“I means a lot, and just really validates a lot of the work that I’ve put in,” Kneen said. “This is one of the biggest tournaments of the year for me personally, and it also validates what I want to do. My dream is to be a pro and me winning a tournament like this shows that it is not outrageous that I want to do that.”
As an amateur Kneen won the maximum allowed of $750 in a golf shop certificate, and the $8,000 first-place check from the purse of $55,500 went to runner-up Holley.
“There you go,” said Holley, who moved to Michigan four months ago with his fiancé and plans to go to Web.com Qualifying in the fall.
“Not bad. I just had to put an air conditioner in our house last week and it cost a lot of money. This will help with that.”
Kneen, who started the day with a 3-shot lead on Eric Lilleboe and five on Holley, had a lead as big as six shots after birdies on Nos. 9 and 10, but Holley said the Bear doesn’t lend itself to a golfer pressing the issue.
“The big lead he had at the end of the day helped him,” he said. “On a course like this you can’t get too aggressive. I had to stick to my game plan and that helped me. He played good golf. He probably wants to forget about hole 16. If he made pars the whole week on 16 he probably would have won by 20.”
Former PGA Tour players Tom Gillis, awaiting age 50 and the PGA Tour Champions in five weeks, closed with a 70 for 283 and third place.
Mini-tour player Michael Nagy of Manistique, and Andrew Walker of Battle Creek, a Michigan State University golfer, shot 68s for 284 and a tie for 4th.
Mini-tour player Eric Lilleboe of Okemos, who shot 77, and Saline amateur Ian Martin, who shot 68, tied at 285.
Kneen, who starting Tuesday will play in the Michigan Amateur Championship at Country Club of Detroit and turn pro in the fall, reasoned while he had anxious moments coming down the stretch in the final round, he would prefer leading over chasing.
“I mean, if you can make a triple and still lead, that’s a good thing,” he said.
SCORES: Complete results can be found at michiganpgagolf.com
