Golfers are bunched up at the top of the individual divisions, while one Aberdeen family is off to a fast start in the team division after the opening round of The Am Presented by Western at Moccasin Creek Country Club on Friday.
Jonah Dohrer leads his brother Micah, and Kyley Wirebaugh by one stroke in the Overall Gross Division after a round of 67, with Rich Crow Eagle and Bryn Stock four shots back.
Micah Dohrer, Wirebaugh, Tanner Martin, and Jay Gellhaus all have the same total in the Overall Net Division.
The Dohrer family of Chris, along with his children Jonah, Micah and Emma, own a six-shot lead in the team division. The tourney concludes today.
Crow Eagle finished his round with a flurry making two birdies and an eagle in his last five holes on the way to round of 71.
“I’m getting better,” Crow Eagle said. “I haven’t played much in the spring, but getting better.”
The Sisseton man said he was concerned where is round was headed before finishing up strong.
“I was getting worried there for a minute,” he said, “because the putts weren’t falling, but they started to, so that helps.”
Crow Eagle said he was “ecstatic” with his first round performance.
“I ended up scabbing out, chipped in for an eagle on 15,” he said. “That helps the score.”
Crow Eagle was a standout basketball player for Todd County, where he was an all-state player and finalist for Mr. Basketball in 1998. He also qualified for five state golf tournaments. He went on to play basketball for Huron College for two years before finishing his college years by golfing for Dakota Wesleyan.
He is currently a teacher and the athletic director at Tiospa Zina.
“I hardly get to play, so playing here is a treat,” Crow Eagle said. “Greens are pretty fast.”
RETURNING HOME
The tournament no longer features professional golfers like it has for more than 30 years, but it does have a hall of fame member in the field. Former Aberdeen resident Roger Legge, who now resides in Texas, came back to play in the tourney and visit many of his friends.
“That’s why I do it, to see our friends,” Legge said, “because we moved away a few years ago to Texas to be with our grandkids.”
Legge, who was inducted into the South Dakota Golf Association Hall of Fame in 2008, is no stranger to the Moccasin Creek course. He was the one who originally started the annual Pro-Am tournament, and knows the course like the back of his hand.
“I’ve played it for 30 years, so it hasn’t changed much,” Legge said. “I know the course well. Everything looks in good condition this year.”
Legge played his round in the morning on Friday and will switch to an afternoon tee time today.
“We played OK. It wasn’t great today, but it was a nice day,” he said. “It wasn’t too hot this morning, so that helped.”
Now in his 70s, Legge said that while he still wants to play well, the competitive desire isn’t quite as important as it used to be.
“It’s just been fun to be back and see everybody,” Legge said.
NEW LOOK TOURNAMENT
This year’s tournament has a different name, look, and scoring method. After 34 years, the annual Pro-Am tournament was replaced by this year’s tourney which features all amateurs who are using the Stableford scoring system.
“The Dakotas Tour was kind of dying off the last couple of years. I think they’re down to five events this year. I was on the committee that kind of made the changes for the tournament,” said Aberdeen’s Max Pfeiffer. “We just decided it was time to do something more for the amateurs. The pros were a lot of fun. We had a lot of great Pro-Ams, but the pros would get their paychecks and leave, so we had a better budget this year for entertainment, food, so we decided to make it more about the people sponsoring and the people that stay in Aberdeen.”
The new scoring system also takes some of the pressure off the golfers, because once they miss a putt for bogey, the hole is over.
“It’s definitely more relaxed,” Pfeiffer said. “If you have a really bad hole, you just pick up and you restart on the next hole, so I would say it just feels like we’re playing with our friends on a normal Wednesday or Friday. It didn’t feel quite like a tournament.”
Pfeiffer said the tourney still features a competitive element, it’s just a bit more forgiving than an event with regular scoring.
“We were trying to hit good shots and score,” Pfeiffer said, “but in a regular stroke play event, you hit it out of bounds twice and make an 8 or a 9, your tournament’s over. Where now you just pick and regroup on the next hole.”
Pfeiffer enjoyed playing with the other golfers in his group.
“I didn’t finish very good, but it was a fun day,” Pfeiffer said. “Different format this year. Our group had a lot of fun, but the golf wasn’t great.”
GOLF PROVIDES ULTIMATE CHALLENGE
There wasn’t a sport that Jared Hannigan couldn’t play while growing up in Aberdeen.
The Central graduate was an all-state football player, an all-state basketball player, was the Mr. Basketball award winner in 2010, and won three state championships in the long jump while competing in track and field.
He also played baseball for a while, and now has gotten into golf.
“I enjoy it. It’s competition and it’s fun to compete and play well,” Hannigan said. “It takes you back to the early days of playing and wanting to be good.”
While Hannigan dominated the competition in other sports during high school, golf has presented some challenges, both physically and mentally.
“Golf is a frustrating sport as everybody knows. I’ve always wanted to be good at something. It’s tough to be good at golf,” Hannigan said. “It’s a mental game. It’s pushed me a lot over the last couple years. … I play a lot and sometimes on the course it doesn’t look like I play a lot.”
Still, golf is something that allows Hannigan a chance to fill that competitive void from sports he isn’t able to play anymore.
“It’s fun to play this sport and still compete,” he said. “You look for a little bit of that still in life.”
And regardless of the final outcome, Hannigan is getting a chance to be around his friends out on the course. He put his first day total in perspective.
“It was a solid round. If you recap it, you always find some of those missed shots that you want to score points on, the par 5s that I didn’t play very well today,” Hannigan said, “but it’s golf and its fun to be around a lot of the good guys that I get to play with, so I had an enjoyable day.”
To see complete first round results, click on the following link:
