Grady Aims for One Last CGA Title
Stroke Play likely final major CGA tourney for CU senior
By Gary Baines
Colorado Golf Journal, Monday, August 11, 2008
Pat Grady will go for second Stroke Play title
Pat Grady owns four gold medals from the major Colorado Golf Association championships he’s won over the years. He proudly displays them on his mantle.
The Broomfield resident is sure he can make room for a fifth.
Grady, who will be a senior on the University of Colorado golf team, in all likelihood will be playing in his final major CGA event this week when he competes in the State Stroke Play Thursday through Sunday at Pinehurst Country Club in south Denver. That’s notable considering Grady is arguably the most successful CGA tournament player since the mid-1990s.
“I haven’t won anything (significant) all year, and I really want to do well,” Grady said Monday. “It’s not a huge tournament compared to the U.S. Public Links or something like that, but I really want to win because it’s my last CGA event. And I think I have a good chance.”
Barring the unforeseen, Grady plans to turn pro after the NCAA Championships late next spring. So this summer will end a remarkable run in CGA events.
Grady is the only person in history to have won each of the CGA’s biggest events -- the Stroke Play, Match Play and Publinks. And the only other player to have won three of those tournaments, in any combination, since 1995 is Kane Webber, who claimed the Stroke Play twice and the Publinks once. Webber is now a pro who ranks among the top 10 money winners on the 2008 Asian Tour.
Grady, 22, has had a good summer by most standards, having advanced to the final 16 at the U.S. Publinks in Aurora, and finishing as the low amateur in the HealthOne Colorado Open. But significant victories, per se, have been elusive for the player who won the 2004 CGA Junior Match Play, the 2005 CGA Match Play, the 2006 CGA Stroke Play and the 2007 CGA Publinks.
Grady would love to add to the indelible memories from his CGA championships -- the 38-hole title match win over Derek Tolan in 2005, when he set up his victory with a pitching wedge approach out of a divot to 6 feet from the cup; the eagle on the first playoff hole at the 2007 State Publinks, where he defeated CU teammate Michael Baird; and the State Stroke Play at Boulder Country Club, where he also beat Baird in a playoff.
“We laugh about that (last) one all the time,” Grady said. “I gave it a Tiger Woods fist-pump on the 72nd hole at Boulder Country Club, then I won on the first playoff hole. Michael still makes fun of me for that, but I won.”
Because of a scheduling crunch involving the U.S. Amateur, Grady‘s chances of a fifth major CGA victory are improved. Some key rivals -- such as Tolan, Steve Ziegler and Zen Brown -- will miss the CGA tournament because they’ll be traveling to another Pinehurst, this one in North Carolina, for next week’s U.S. Amateur. And Tom Glissmeyer and Riley Arp likewise aren’t in the CGA field. But Grady, the 2007 CGA Amateur of the Year, should be challenged this week by the likes of 2008 CGA Match Play champion Luke Symons, Zach Zaremba and Steve Irwin.
“If I play solid golf, I should be right there come Sunday,” Grady said.
GOLF NOTES
HARRINGTON LEADS U.S. MID-AM QUALIFYING: Michael Harrington of Colorado Springs shot a 2-under-par 70 at Antler Creek Golf Course Monday to earn medalist honors in qualifying for the U.S. Mid-Amateur.
Also advancing to the national tournament were Jon Lindstrom of Broomfield (71), Jason Rudquist of Peyton (71), and John Halverson of Steamboat Springs (71).
The U.S. Mid-Am will be played Sept. 6-11 in River Hills, Wis.
Harrington made the final 16 at the 2005 U.S. Mid-Am. Rudquist will be going to his second straight U.S. Mid-Amateur.
U.S. Senior Open qualifier David Delich of Colorado Springs earned the first-alternate spot with a 72. Matching that round were Steve Irwin, Pat Diaz, James Kurtenbach, Henry Bissell and Stephen Summers.
TOLAN FINISHES THIRD AT PAC COAST: CU golfer Derek Tolan endured a rough finish but still placed third at the prestigious Pacific Coast Amateur last week in Victoria, British Columbia.
Tolan was 11 under par through 63 holes, but played the last nine in 5 over to shoot a final-round 74 and post a four-day total of 6-under 274. He carded a triple bogey on the 17th hole the final day and finished three shots behind champion Jordan Irwin of Calgary, Alberta.
As for the rest of the Colorado contingent at the Pac Coast, Broomfield’s Steve Ziegler tied for 10th (276 total), while CU golfers Luke Symons (292) and Pat Grady (294) were 52nd and 60th, respectively.
SHERLOCK SOLID AT U.S. WOMEN’S AMATEUR: University of Denver junior Stephanie Sherlock, who finished fifth in the 2008 NCAA Championships, advanced to the final 16 last week at the U.S. Women’s Amateur in Eugene, Ore.
Sherlock tied for fourth in the stroke-play portion of the event, then posted wins in 19 holes, then 1-up in regulation. She lost in the round of 16, 6 and 5 to Spain‘s Belen Mozo.
In June, Sherlock won a tournament on the Canadian Women’s Tour.
MOODY’S COLORADO CONNECTIONS: Several decades after Orville Moody was stationed at the Fitzsimons military base during his 14-year Army career, they still talked about his feats at the Aurora course. The older golfers, especially, would often note that “Sarge” Moody did this, and Sarge Moody did that on the course that was long a mainstay for many of Moody’s contemporaries in the armed forces.
Moody, 74, died Friday in Sulphur Springs, Texas. He was best known for his one PGA Tour victory, the 1969 U.S. Open, but he later captured 11 titles on what was then known as the Senior Tour.
"We are all going to miss Sarge, who was a patriot first and a professional golfer second," said PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem. "He embodied a bit of golf's everyman that we could all identify with."
UPCOMING: Qualifying for the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur will take place Thursday at Columbine Country Club near Littleton. … The CGA’s Senior Stroke Play is set for Aug. 18-20 at Heritage Todd Creek in Thornton.
