Conzemius and Hickey Cruise on Final Day to Win 57th MGA Amateur Four-Ball

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By Nick Hunter
nick@mngolf.org
 
 
  HOPKINS, Minn. – Opening the 57^th Minnesota Golf Association Amateur Four-Ball Championship with a round of 64 to earn a share of the lead Monday at Oak Ridge Country Club, Joe Conzemius and Will Hickey posted a final-round 62 Wednesday to earn a three-stroke victory over the team of David and Michael Christensen.
 
Conzemius notched his first win since his victory at the 2017 Minnesota Public Golf Association State Public Links Championship on his home course at Dakota Pines Golf Club, while Hickey claimed his first amateur victory in the state.
 
 “You hear it all the time that you lose a lot more in golf than you win, but it’s opportunities like this where you really enjoy it,” Conzemius said Wednesday. “I was watching the scores and coming up 18 I knew we had it locked up, so it was fun to play that last hole knowing we had it in the bag.”
 
“I’ve been really close in a lot of events, so this is definitely a good win for me and to do it with somebody I respect and I admire like Joe, it was fun to do,” Hickey said.
 
After 36 holes of play, four groups shared the lead heading into Wednesday’s final round. The team of Jim Lehman and Jerry Rose, the twosome of Burleson and Austin Eaton, as well as the duo of Trey Fessler and Cody Stovall each fired rounds of 6-under par 64 to open the championship with a share of the lead, but Conzemius and Hickey pulled away from the field during the final round, helped by a string of six birdies in a seven-hole span to cruise to a three-stroke victory Wednesday.
 
“Between our practice round and the two rounds we played, we had one bogey in three rounds,” Hickey said. “If you can do that and keep the ball in play, there wasn’t a lot of stress during those rounds.”
 
“I thought after the first day, seeing where the scores came in, I thought if we could shoot another 6-under that we’d be close,” Conzemius said. “We got off to a slow start with a birdie at two and a bogey at three. We played four sloppy and then from there got it going.”
 
Conzemius rolled in a 4-footer for birdie at the par-4 second before the two carded their lone bogey at the third to drop back to 6-under for the championship. Conzemius quickly got his squad back on track by sinking a 12-footer for birdie at the fifth and added a 4-footer for birdie at the eighth, moving the two to 8-under.
 
With Conzemius in for par at the eighth, Hickey putt a good stroke on his birdie look from 12 feet and found the bottom of the cup before Conzemius sank a 10-footer at the ninth to put the twosome at 10-under with nine holes to play.
 
Carrying momentum to the back nine Wednesday, Conzemius blasted his tee shot next to the green at the 10^th, getting up-and-down for birdie, while Hickey chipped in for birdie at the 11^th as the two were cruising at 12-under. Conzemius thinned a wedge that stopped 12 feet below the pin at the par-4 13^th, but he would sink his birdie chance and Hickey added one final birdie to the scorecard at the 14^th, rolling in a 6-footer to put the pair on top of the leaderboard at 14-under, three shots ahead of the field.
 
“This is our first time getting out and playing together as partners in a four-ball tournament. We’ve known each other for a while, so it was a very comfortable pairing,” Hickey said Wednesday. “We came out here Sunday and played really well and it continued the last couple of days.”
 
“I think our personalities really mesh well on the golf course,” Conzemius said of the chemistry between his team this week. “We never got too high, we never got too low. For me, I hit my tee ball as well as I’ve hit it in years. I was hitting it far and pretty straight and on a course like this, if you can hit it far and keep it in play, you’re going to have a lot of birdie chances.”
 
Hickey has a pair of second-place finishes in team events to his credit and has notched nine top-10s since 2013. His best individual performance came at the 2016 MGA Mid-Amateur Championship at Medina Golf and Country Club, where he finished third.
 
Conzemius won his first championship last season, claiming the MPGA State Public Links Championship after claiming eight top-10 finishes dating back to 2009. In July, Conzemius finished fifth at the Minnesota State Open at Bunker Hills Golf Club.
 
Playing together for the first time since 2011, cousins Michael and David Christensen entered Wednesday’s final round two shots off the lead thanks to an opening-round 66 Tuesday. The two rolled in four birdies over their first nine holes, but ran out of steam on the back after taking bogey at the par-4 15^th and would card a final-round 63 to finish three shots back.
 
“I originally thought if we could get to 11 or 12, that would be the number that had a really good chance. We’re happy—the golf wasn’t perfect, but it was a good best-ball for both of us. We ham and egged it a bit,” Michael Christensen said. “We don’t get enough opportunities to play together. This is a fun format—very rarely do you have this caliber of an event and have a teammate, so it’s fun, especially when it’s your cousin.”
 
“Today we played better in the fact that we had a lot of opportunities where we were both putting for birdie. Not crisp, but we played well. Yesterday we didn’t play well throughout the round,” David Christensen said.  
 
The twosome of Kirk Eilertson and Rob Kimlinger fired a 6-under par 64 Wednesday to finish in a tie for second with Lehman and Rose at 9-under par 131.
 
 
 
THE 57^TH MGA AMATEUR FOUR-BALL CHAMPIONSHIP
OAK RIDGE COUNTRY CLUB
HOPKINS, MINN.
6,612 YARDS, PAR 70
 
 
WEDNESDAY’S FINAL RESULTS
1. Conzemius/Hickey, 64-62—126
2. Christensen/Christensen, 66-63—129
T3. Eilertson/Kimlinger, 67-64—131
T3. Lehman/Rose, 64-67—131
T5. Gustafson/Ryan, 67-65—132
T5. Polk/Schmitz, 66-66—132
7. Burleson/Eaton, 64-69—133
T8. Aldrich/Threinen, 67-67—134
T8. Fewer/Frazier, 66-68—134
T8. Goss/McKean, 67-67—134
T8. Jacobson/Quesnel, 67-67—134
T8. Fiedler/Larson, 66-68—134
T8. Tomaszewski/Wohlers, 68-66—134