For only the second time since 1975, the Utah Men’s State Amateur golf tournament will be played at The Country Club of Salt Lake City this week, as a field of 156 chases the most prestigious title in the state for non-professional golfers.
Technically, BYU golfer Zac Jones is the defending champion, having won the event last year at Soldier Hollow Golf Club in Midway by downing Cal’s Simon Kwon in the championship match.
“I can see double digits over par making match play. I think 75-75 definitely gets you in to match play, easily. It is going to be really, really tough out there.” — Former Salt Lake City Amateur and SLC Open champ Justin Shluker on 125th State Amateur this week.
However, the champion when The Country Club last hosted the State Am in 2012 was commercial real estate broker Jon Wright, who just happens to be a member of the revered layout just north of Interstate 80 at the mouth of Parley’s Canyon.
So Wright is sort of the go-to guy this week for the 125th State Am, the guy who has all the answers, right?
The two-time champion (he also won in 2014 at Ogden Golf & Country Club), former University of Utah golfer and former professional golfer knows State Am history, and TCC, like the back of his hand.
The tournament begins Monday with the first of two rounds of stroke-play qualifying for match play, which begins Wednesday.
Unlike past years, the playoff to determine the last few of the 64 match-play berths won’t be held immediately after Tuesday’s stroke-play round, but on Wednesday morning at 7 am
The reason why is that the Monday-Tuesday rounds are expected to go until almost dark, with the competitors only starting on the No. 1 tee and the last threesome slated to go off at 3:44 pm both days.
So who is going to be the last man standing when the 36-hole championship match concludes Saturday afternoon?
While not discounting his own chances — thanks to a nice, acknowledged advantage of knowing TCC’s fairways and greens inside and out — Wright thinks it will probably be a future or current college golfer, as has been the case in the last eight State Ams.
“I would love to see all of the Utes in contention,” Wright said, sporting a polo with a Utes golf logo.
It is sort of their turn, after BYU’s Jones won last year to end the streak of Utes winning back-to-back — Martin Leon in 2021 at Alpine and Mitchell Schow winning in 2020 at Jeremy Ranch.
After Wright’s win in Ogden in 2014, BYU’s Jordan Rodgers, Patrick Fishburn and Kelton Hirsch won the next three championships before then-teenager Preston Summerhays — who is now at Arizona State — won back-to-back titles in 2018 and 2019.
A reinstated amateur, Rodgers is in the field this week. So is Leon, the Chilean who edged Utes teammate Blake Tomlinson in 40 holes two years ago.
Leon is transferring to Rutgers for his final two seasons of college golf, so this could be his Utah golf swan song.
Other past champions in the field are Jones, 2008 winner Dan Horner, 1998 winner Darrin Overson, 2002 champ Gregg Oliphant, 2007 champ Nick Nelson and 1992 winner Brad Sutterfield, another former pro who regained his amateur status.
“Everybody asks, ‘Do you have an advantage here?'” Wright said. “I feel that I do, but I am 52 years old, and I don’t hit it quite as far as some of these kids do. They are out there saying they don’t even carry a 3-wood because they hit a 2-iron that far.
“Course knowledge helps a lot with putting and pin placements — especially today when they were so severe,” he said after a practice round last week. “I was trying to tell the guys in my group, ‘Man, this one is fast and it breaks about 10 feet,’ so that is a big advantage.”
The Country Club is the Ute golf team’s home course, so consider current or recently departed Utes such as Farmington’s Braxton Watts, Sweden’s Jesper von Reedtz, Arizona’s Davis Johnson, Centerville’s Brandon Robison, Morgan’s Tanner Telford or Highland High’s Oscar Maxfield as de facto favorites.
Schow, the former Ute who won in 2020, is a pro now and obviously won’t be in the field, but he said Watts — who will be a junior at the U. this fall — is his favorite to win it all.
Of course, defending champ Jones, also a rising junior, has to be considered BYU’s best bet to contend, along with Cougar teammates Keanu Akina and Elijah Turner, who is moving on from the program.
Recent Skyline High graduate Peter Kim signed with BYU last November and has been playing well; He shot a 68 at TCC on Thursday when the course was set up similarly to how it will be this week.
Akina’s younger brother, Kihei Akina, who will be a senior at Lone Peak High this fall, made it to the championship match of the Manoa Cup (Hawaii State Am) last week and was in the Utah State Am field this week, withdrew on Sunday .
He will be replaced by alternate Mike Dadlani, a mid-amateur.
Among the more seasoned amateurs in the field, guys such as Jeff Jolley, Brady Stanger, Brandon Hargett, David Jennings, John Owen, Steven Croft, former pro Steele Dewald and Justin Shluker, who swept the Salt Lake City Amateur and Salt Lake City Open in 2022, are worth keeping an eye on.
Teenagers to watch include BYU-bound Lone Peak graduate Cooper Jones (Zac’s brother), recent Utah Junior Amateur champion Gavin Dosch (a La Salle signee) and Jack Summerhays, son of former PGA Tour and current Korn Ferry Tour player Daniel Summerhays.
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In 2012 at The Country Club, when par was 72, the cut for the 32-player match play field came at 8-over 152, which was the highest in the previous 19 years of the State Am.
Because the 3rd hole will be considered a par-4, instead of a par-5, this year par will be 71 for golfers in the tournament.
What will it take to make the 64-player match play field this year?
“If the wind is blowing and there are fast greens, I would say around 12- or 13-over-par,” Wright said. “… I am thinking between that and 156, which is 14 over par. That is probably reasonable considering how difficult these greens are.”
Easton Folster, new executive director of the UGA is guessing it will be around 10-over 152.
Kim, 18, the BYU signee, believes the cut will come at five-over 147 and the medalist will shoot around 11 or 12 under.
Oh, the optimism of youth.
Leon, the former Ute who had to survive a playoff to make match play two years ago before winning, declined to guess the magic number.
Shluker, who has battled through some injuries this spring and summer, shot a 78 Thursday and said the course is playing incredibly difficult.
“I can see double digits over par making match play,” he said. “I think 75-75 definitely gets you in to match play, easily. It is going to be really, really tough out there.”
Kwon, last year’s runner-up who lives just East of the No. 8 fairway at TCC and is the grandson of Hall of Fame Johnny Miller, said he’s in the transfer portal now and is leaving Cal after two seasons.
“Five or six over, something like that should get you in,” Kwon said. “Honestly, I am not going to worry too much about that. I am just going to play the golf course. I don’t worry about a number. I don’t think that is the right way to go about things.”