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Highlands Today

Cup Bounces Back To Pros

MARK PINSON/Highlands Today

Professional Val Paterini of Hardee chips onto the green Sunday during the 2007 Highlands County Ryder Cup, which was won by the pro team.

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By BRIAN GJURGEVICH

Published: October 1, 2007

As head golf pro at Highlands Ridge North, Mike Lamere does most of the heavy lifting when it comes to putting on the annual Highlands County Ryder Cup.

And though he relishes the chance to compete, in the end, Lamere said, the annual event is set up for the amateur team to experience everything a serious golf competition has to offer.
Everything, of course, but the trophy.

The professional team won nine singles matches on Sunday, broadening its five-point lead heading into the final day and capturing the 14th annual Ryder Cup, an annual meeting between the county's top professional and amateur golfers, 17-8.

"This is really all for the amateurs, because we want them to come out and compete," said Lamere, who defeated Keith Foster 4 and 3 Sunday during the match-play round. "But the pros still like to compete a little bit, as well."

The pro team – made up of current and retired golf professionals living or working in the area – won or halved all but five matches over the weekend re-gain the Cup, which the amateur squad won last year by one point.

Amateur co-captain Mike Wells, one of three red-shirted amateurs to win a singles match on Sunday, said his team was still "licking its wounds" as the pro team posed with the polished silver trophy, though there is one number the team can still look at with pride.

"At a time like this, it's nice to be able to point to the overall record," Wells joked, noting the amateur team's 9-3-1 historical advantage over the pros. "I think we must have upset them a bit last year, because they came out for revenge."

The pros took a three-point lead (4 1/2-1 1/2) after the morning best-ball round on Saturday, netting victories from Pete DuPriest and John Vickers, Jason Laman and Marty O'Hora, and Mike Lamere and Jason Beatty.

In the afternoon alternate-shot round, the pros picked up four more points from the teams of Dave Schumaker and Vickers, Bill Newman and John Dean, Lamere and Beatty and Val Patarini and O'Hara, while the amateurs picked up their first full points of the day with wins from the team of Mike Wells and Dave Foster, as well as Mike Browning and Rick Haas.

That gave the pros a five-point advantage (8 1/2 to 3 1/2) heading into Sunday's deciding singles matches.

With the wind kicking up from the north, the pros hunkered down and won nine of the 13 matches, with just three amateurs – Wells, Scott Mauck and Mark Pinson – managing singles victories.

"It was probably the best I'd ever played in this kind of wind," said Mauck, who defeated Vickers 1-up thanks to two stellar gap-wedge shots on the back nine. "It was all about trying to save par and keeping yourself out of trouble. We were scrambling more than we were playing up."

Schumaker, who defeated Ken Maloney 5 and 4 in his singles match, said the Bermuda greens were rolling as true as the bent-grass putting surfaces he honed his game on in Indiana, where he was a head pro at Stone Henge Golf Club for 19 years. He said he still gives lessons now and again now that he's living in the area, though he kept his swing thoughts to himself for much of the weekend.

"I was trying not to say anything," Schumaker smiled. "In match play, you tend to be a little more worried about what the other guy's doing, so I try to play a little safer and just par every hole. If you do that, you have a pretty good chance."

The event will likely see some minor changes next year, namely the establishment of a Ryder Cup committee to tweak qualification standards and set parameters to ensure registered players follow through and compete through the weekend.

"We had a couple players who didn't continue playing after one match, and that's a situation that doesn't work out to the advantage of the amateurs," Wells said. "And by looking at the score, we need every advantage we can get."

He added: "We're civilized people, and, for the most part, it's a civilized game. So I think we can resolve any issues."

Mauck agreed, noting the event stands alone when it comes to class and preservation of the game's traditions.

"These guys are all a cut above," he said. "You get to some of these scramble tournaments and you see some of the stuff people pull, then you come out to something like this and see people who have integrity and want to play the game purely and honestly. It makes it that much more of a positive experience."

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