Posted Online: Posted online: June 24, 2007 11:26 PM

Posted Online: Posted online: June 24, 2007 11:26 PM
Print publication date: 06/25/2007

Peters wins Short Hills Am

By Tom Johnston, tjohnston@qconline.com

Most golfers are familiar with, or at some time or another have uttered, the line that "it's not how, it's how many" in regards to their score.

That saying was so fitting at Sunday's Short Hills Amateur event on the National City Bank Amateur Tour. Ben Peters couldn't agree with it more. After all, he lived it on the final hole.

Without seeing the fairway on the par-5 9th finishing hole of the 27-hole, rain-shortened event, the 33-year-old made two great shots to save par and the victory that nearly slipped away from him. Peters hit a punch 9-iron from under a tree in the right rough to about five feet and made the par putt.

Steve Schwabe, not sure where his score stood in relation to Peters, couldn't navigate the break on a 20-foot birdie putt that could have tied Peters and forced a playoff.

"He just went about it a different way," Schwabe said of Peters' golf heroics. "That's why you don't have to draw pictures, just put down a number."

Peters had another description.

"Lucky," said the former St. Ambrose University graduate who posted the low round of the opening 18 holes with a 4-under 68.

As it turned out, those two were also playing for much more than the Short Hills Am crown. They were battling it out for the second spot the NCBAm Tour has in the PGA Tour's John Deere Classic Monday qualifying tournament. Peters will join Brian Soucinek, defending NCBAm Tour Player of the Year, in the field playing for four spots in the July 9-15 JDC.

Despite accruing points in only three events, Peters' victory leap-frogged him into second place in the season points race with 1,950 points and into the four-spotter ahead of Schwabe (1,822.5 points). Soucinek (71-39--110) had already secured the first spot, but also leads this year's points race with 2,225 after tying with Joe Irwin (74-36-110) for fourth on Sunday.

Dusty Drenth, a St. Ambrose University sophomore and former Bettendorf High School prep, was third with a 73-36--109 total. He is not an NCBAm Tour member this summer.

The grind of the day wore on Peters and his game. Admittedly exhausted, Peters gave Schwabe hope with bogeys on holes 6, 7, and 8. Then there was the adventure on No. 9 that could have turned into a disastrous bogey, too.

"That's the worst place in the world to hit it," Peters said of his drive. "At that point, I was (resigned) to the fact that I was going to have to get it up-and-down for par. Luckily, I had a one-shot cushion at the time."

With few options and no safe out, Peters ripped an iron off a downhill lie straight toward the green that again caught lumber. So did his third shot. Than came salvation with his fourth that just rolled past the cup and had a chance of falling.

"When I hit it, I thought it could be good," he said. "I was just trying to get it on the green to give myself a chance to make a putt for a 5."

He did just that and secured his second victory on the NCBAm Tour this year, backing up last month's Quad-City Am title.

-- `Beke' a winner: East Moline's Marc VanDerBeke won the Short Hills Am Senior title, knocking off Carlos Salaber on the third playoff hole. Both players shot 1-over 73 for the opening 18 holes and then 37s on their third 9s. Fred Lukasik, Dan Dalziel and Davey Waugh tied for third with 111 totals, a shot back.