Waggoner birdies way past the cut

Ryan Craig, 15, of Huntley makes a face Wednesday while watching his shot land during the second day of the IJGA Illinois State Junior Amateur Championship at Makray Memorial Golf Club in Barrington. (Hollyn Johnson - hjohnson@nwherald.com)

E-mail this story

Print this story

Share

BARRINGTON – Luke Waggoner’s situation Wednesday was a near carbon copy of the one he found himself in last year.

Makray Memorial had bemused the Marian Central senior not unlike it did Tuesday during the first round of the 42nd Illinois State Junior Amateur Championship, tricking Waggoner into thinking it was less challenging than it actually is.

The 79 that Waggoner shot Tuesday duplicated his 2010 first-round score, so if history stood, Waggoner figured he’d find a 1-under-par 70 lurking somewhere on Makray’s undulating fairways and lightning-fast greens Wednesday.

Three bogeys offset three birdies to keep Waggoner from shooting the same score in both rounds for two consecutive years, but his 2-over 73 Wednesday helped Waggoner make the cut for today’s championship round and the hunt for the Slovitt Cup. Waggoner will enter tied for 15th place with a 10-over 152, nine-shots off the lead.

Huntley junior Ryan Craig was the only other local golfer to make the cut. Craig’s 5-over 76 helped him squeak in with a 159 – the cut for today’s final round.

Lake Forest’s Ian Mankoff and Buffalo Grove’s Doug Ghim are tied at the top of the leaderboard with 1-over 143. Ghim shot 78 on Tuesday and rallied Wednesday with a course record-shattering 65 to move to the top of the standings.

“You were getting a lot of run on the fairways today,” Waggoner said. “It was a good day out there. I feel like we fed off one another a lot, and it was a really relaxed group to play with. We had a lot of fun.”

Waggoner played in a threesome with Mount Prospect’s Derek Leeney and New Lenox’s Evan Berna. Leeney shot 74 and is tied for 12th heading into today’s round, while Berna shot 82 and is tied for 44th.

Waggoner bogeyed holes No. 1 and 2, but birdied Nos. 5 and 8 to shoot par (35) on the front nine. He added three bogeys on the back, but birdied No. 15 and nearly birdied 18, just missing the hole on a putt from about nine yards.

Waggoner didn’t double bogey any holes, though, which hurt him Tuesday.

“That’s a key on this course if you want to shoot in the low 70s at all,” he said.

Craig shaved seven strokes off his game Wednesday to make the cut, also saving himself by getting away from the double bogeys.

He couldn’t avoid one, shooting a six on the par-4 fifth hole, but birdied the par-4 eighth and the par-5 15th to complete a much better outing.

“I had a little more confidence out there than I did [Tuesday],” said Craig, a junior at Huntley. “[On Tuesday] I was a lot more tense with all the people there and everything, but today it was more about playing as well as I could and seeing what happened.”

Craig’s younger brother, Trent, did not make the cut, shooting an 85 on Wednesday for a 26-over 168. Jacobs junior Sean Kozak also missed the cut after finishing Wednesday at 36 over par.

“It was a good experience,” Trent Craig said. “I just missed a couple par putts here and there, and it was hard to get going on the front nine.”