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online: May 14, 2006 11:22 PM
Print publication date: May 10, 2006
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Brian Soucinek, knowingly or not, may have picked up a new nickname Sunday.
Despite miserable weather conditions, Soucinek was like a mailman, delivering on the golf course en route to the Hawthorn Ridge Amateur title. The win in the 2006 National City Bank Amateur Tour's debut event was the 37-year-old Moliner's first on the tour in almost two years.
Soucinek (71-71--142) ended up running away with
the crown, topping
"It's a great way to start off the first tournament of the year," said Soucinek, the NCBAm Tour's reigning Player of the Year.
After sharing the first-round lead in the 36-hole event, Soucinek figured his best plan for Sunday's round was to attack the much more forgiving front-9 and play smart on the back. But Mother Nature threw a serious curve into those plans. In the rain, he settled for pars on the first nine holes, hitting all nine greens in regulation by his count.
In a constant drizzle, he birdied No. 11 and bogeyed No. 14. Playing his last four holes in a drenching downpour, he birdied No. 15 and finished par-par-par.
"I was pretty solid," said Soucinek, who last won the 2004 Quad City Amateur. "Thank God for rain gloves; my tiny little hands (he wears cadet small gloves) couldn't hold the club without them. ... I had them on both hands the last four holes."
In the rain, Soucinek was the only player to avoid trouble. He held off Kevin Kilstrom (71-78--149, T6) and Brian Hall (71-79--150, 9th), with whom he was tied after the first round.
Hall, 2005 runner-up to Steve Schwabe, hurt his chances with a 4-over 40 on the front side. Kilstrom birdied No. 9 to go up one, but gave that back when Soucinek birdied No. 11. Kilstrom was still in the race until a quadruple bogey on the par-3 13th when he pulled his tee shot into a tough thicket left of the green. Another pulled tee shot on 14 ended his title hopes.
"I wasn't paying attention to where anyone else was," said Soucinek. "I figured that if I got in even par that was going to be pretty hard to beat."
It was.
For Soucinek, the tour's Player of the Year three of the last five years, the weekend win was more of a relief than a message sent that he again might be tough to catch this season.
"There were a lot of good players here, but there were a lot of good players who didn't show up," said Soucinek of the Mother's Day weekend conflicts and predicted poor weather. "It's not me vs. anybody else out here. I just know that if I play well, I can have a shot any week we play. This really gives me the confidence."
-- Senior title to Dalziel: Dan Dalziel successfully defended his Hawthorn Ridge senior title,
but needed a birdie on the second playoff to do it. Both he and fellow