Boys golf: ‘One of those days’ for Valpo at state
By Mike Hutton 648-3139 or mhutton@post-trib.com June 12, 2012 11:12PM
Valparaiso's Logan Bertalan tees off on the second hole during state championship at the Legends in Franklin Tuesday, June 12, 2012. | Erik A. Markov~For Sun-Times Media
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Updated: July 14, 2012 6:40AM
FRANKLIN — Bobby Jacobs’ white pants, splotched with specks of half dried mud as he walked off No. 18, told the story.
Valparaiso was playing from places that, in some cases, were more appropriate for small fresh water animals than golf balls.
That made the state finals turn into a long, forgettable round for the Vikings. They finished with a team score of 329 — their worst 18-hole round as a group. The Vikings finished 19th.
A bedraggled Valparaiso coach Wayne Lichtenberger didn’t have any prescient insight into the breakdown.
“It’s frustrating,” he said “As well as these guys have played this year and as well as we played at regionals at Beechwood, which I think is a tougher course than this and to do this, is hard.”
There was a plausible explanation for some of the poor play.
The wind was absolutely brutal. No player from Valparaiso wanted to use it as an excuse but the scores in general were sky high. Last year, the last team to make the cut shot a 297. This year, the top first day team, Columbus North, shot a 303. Lichtenberger said the wind and the dry conditions made the course play as hard as he has ever seen it play.
The Vikings and any team that had an afternoon tee time got the worst of the conditions. The wind blew harder after lunch than it did in the morning.
Jacobs’ struggles on No. 15 were emblematic of the problems the team faced all day.
He dropped his approach on the par 5 in the pond from 100 yards out. Then he tried to advance his fourth shot from the mud and he didn’t get it out. His fifth shot flew the green. His consolation was he was able to get it up and down for a seven. That was one of nine scores either double bogie or higher for the Vikings. Jacobson finished with a battling 80, going 41-39. He was even par on the back until he got to 15.
“It was just one of those days,” he said.
There were more tales of woe.
Andrew Gariup, who came through with a clutch 77 at regionals last week, blew up with an 89.
Gariup was cruising along relatively well at 3-over through eight holes until he took a dreaded nine on No. 9 after he dumped three balls in the water in a Tin Cup moment.
Gariup admitted it was hard to soldier on after that.
“You got to try to keep your head up but it was hard to keep it together after that,” he said.
Logan Bertalan was fairly solid — except for an eight on No. 4. He finished with an 82.
The best score of the day predictably came from Kyle Meihofer. Meihofer shot a 79. It was an uneventful 79 — seven bogies and one birdie.
Meihofer knew it was going to be tough when he teed off. All the players had watched the morning wave of teams return with high scores.
Meihofer just never could get comfortable with the conditions. He tried to block out the conditions but they were oppressive.
“I just wanted to play my game and not think about it, “ he said. “I just didn’t do that well.”
Lichtenberger can take some consolation from this fact. His whole team, except Bertalan, returns next year.
