Lowenstein, Buege Overcome Ragged Start, Win State Four-Ball Title

By Mike Fermoyle (mikefermoyle@gmail.com) 

CHASKA -- Like just about everyone else who played in the Minnesota State Four-Ball Championship at Chaska Town Course this week, Tyler Lowenstein and Colton Buege started the tournament with the intention of playing as a team.

Five holes into the project, that wasn't working. They were 2 over par. So they decided to play "as opponents." It might sound like an odd strategy, but it worked like a charm. The two University of Minnesota teammates played the remaining 31 holes of the tournament in 18 under par.

They closed the deal on Wednesday. In a round that was interrupted by a 3 1/2-hour rain delay (it was really more of a lightning-alert delay), Buege and Lowenstein matched the best score of the day with a 7-under 65, which gave them a 36-hole total of 128 and a two-stroke victory.

Adam Arola and John Pavelko saved their best for the last eight holes, which they played in 5 under on the way to a final-round 66. Their late charge propelled them all the way up to second place with an aggregate of 130.

Gopher recruit Jon DuToit, who capped off his high school career at Chaska this spring by tying for first in the Class AAA portion of  the state tournament, combined with his older brother Michael to close with a 68 -- despite making a double-bogey 6 at the 11th hole -- and they finished third with a 131 on their home course.

Former two-time champs Chris Baas and Phil Schmidt found themselves in the hunt once again, and their 67 put them at 133, which earned them a tie for fourth, along with Brad Deyak and Steven Sari (68-65).  

For Buege and Lowenstein to have won seemed like an upset over the omens, which were all bad early on. 

"I wasn't even his first choice," Lowenstein noted. 

Buege conceded the point, explaining: "At first, I asked (Lowenstein's former Wayzata High School teammate Kyle) Beversdorf. He said no." (Beversdorf, who spent one year at Northern Iowa, will join the Gophers this fall.) 

Undaunted, Buege asked his fellow sophomore-to-be Lowenstein. He said yes.

That was fine, but once the tournament started on Monday, nothing went right.  

After saving par from behind the green at No. 10, their first hole, they bogeyed 11 (453 yards, par 4) and made another bogey at 14 (217, par 3). At 15 (496, par 5), they both hit less than stellar drives. 

"We'd both hit bad shots," Buege recalled Wednesday. "So I said: 'We need to play against each other. We'll play match play."

He didn't mention what the stakes were. 

Lowenstein agreed to the new game, and promptly made a birdie. Buege evened the match two holes later when he birdied the 481-yard, par-4 17th, and he chipped in for an eagle at the 547-yard, par-5 18th.

At that point, Buege was 1 up in the match -- but not for long, because Lowenstein proceeded to torch the front nine. He birdied No. 1 (415, par 4), birdied 3 (287, par 4), had a slight hicup with a bogey at the par-3 fourth (Buege parred it), but bounced back with a vengeance, going birdie-birdie-eagle at the fifth (351, par 4), sixth (187, par 3) and seventh (521, par 5).

The former state high school runner-up (he tied Beversdorf for second place in Class AAA in 2010) caught his breath with a par at No. 8 and then capped off the round with a birdie at 9 (560, par 5).

"Once we started the match-place game," Buege said, "we were 11 under for the next 13 holes."

The resulting 63 had them in a three-way tie for first when the final round began on Wednesday, and they picked up where they left off. Lowenstein hit an 82-yard wedge to 8 feet on the first hole and made the putt for a birdie. 

Lowenstein hit his tee shot just over the green at the drivable third hole, but his chip was overly ambitious and ran across the green into the fringe on the far side. Buege then made his par putt from just inside Lowenstein's ball and on a similar line. 

Taking advantage of the free read, Lowenstein chipped in for a birdie. A three-hole par lull followed, but both birdied the par-5 seventh, and Buege birdied the eighth (403, par 4). 

Although they neglected to birdie the par-5 ninth, they were 4 under for the day and 13 under for the tournament and tied for the lead with the DuToit brothers, who had finished the front nine with a flourish of three straight birdies at 7, 8 and 9.

Then the rains came, or didn't come. Mainly, it was the threat of lightning in the area that kept the players off the course from 12:30 p.m. until 4.  

One group ahead of the DuToit brothers and Lowenstein and Buege, Arola and Pavelko were on the 10th green looking at Arola's 8-foot birdie putt when action was suspended. 

"We were only 1 under for the day at the time," Arola said later. "But I was thinking if we could just make that putt for birdie on 10 and then get to 14 or 15 under, we'd have a pretty good chance. When they let us back on the course, I just kept practicing 8-foot putts, one after another. But when the time came, and I actually putted it, I don't think it made it halfway to the hole. It was pathetic, and totally demoralizing."

Arola revived his spirits -- and his team's chances -- by making a 15-foot birdie putt at No. 11, the hardest hole on the course (never mind that No. 2 is the No. 1 handicap hole).

Pavelko, a former Chaska star (he won conference and section championships when he played for the Hawks) who will begin his senior year at DePaul in a couple of weeks, ran in a 25-footer for birdie at the 13th. At the par-5 15th, Arola bombed a drive and hit a 5-iron second shot to within 30 feet of the hole. He missed his eagle putt, but tapped in for a birdie, and he made another biride with a 15-footer at the 16th. 

The 17th hole played into the wind on Wednesday, and from the tee the green -- nearly 500 yards away -- looked like a two-day march. Arola and Pavelko both flaired their drives to the right. But Arola, the 2011 Keller club champion (he lost the club championship in a playoff this year), saved par by hitting a remarkable, 260-yard second shot out of a muddy lie and a deft chip to within 4 feet.

"That chip was probably my best shot of the day," Arola speculated. "The green was so fast that even though the ball was basically stopped when it got the hole, it still rolled another 4 feet."

At the 18th, Pavelko supplied one last birdie, and that got the Arola/Pavelko partnership to minus 14. 

DuToit & DuToit nearly got the minus 14 with eight holes to go, however, when Jon's putt for birdie at the 10th hole burned the edge of the cup. But the 11th hole turned out to be the DuToits' undoing. 

Michael, who is 26 years old and has a 0.3 Handicap but doesn't play many tournaments, hit his tee shot into a neighbor's yard, out of bounds. Jon hit his drive to the right, which meant that trees blocked a direct route to the green.

He tried to cut a 6-iron around the trees from a hook lie (the ball above his feet) in the rough. Instead, the ball came out knuckling and basically went straight, ending up in the water hazard to the left of the green. For the second hole in a row, Jon singed the cup, but this time the missed putt meant a double bogey, not a par.

When Jon missed a birdie putt from 8 feet at the 13th (381, par 4), and Lowenstein made one from 6 feet, Buege and Lowenstein had a three-stroke lead over DuToit/DuToit and Arola/Pavelko.

The clincher for Buege and Lowenstein was the 15th. Lowenstein hit a hybrid second shot just over the green and then chipped in for an eagle -- his second eagle of the tournament and the third for winning team.

Although it didn't really matter, Buege and Lowenstein both came close on birdie putts at the 16th, and Lowenstein hit a gorgeous hybrid shot to 20 feet, which assured him of a 4 at the intimidatingly long 17th.

Jon DuToit had burned the edge of the cup with putts at 10, 11 and 13, and Michael just missed from 5 feet at the 15th. They finally got something to fall when Jon hit the pin with a pitch at 16, and the ball stopped 2 feet away.

He would have made another bridie from 3 feet at the 18th, except that Michael beat him to it. He drained a 20-footer for birdie before Jon had a chance to putt his, and that got the DuToits back to 13 under, which was where they had started the final nine. 

As for the match-play competition between Lowenstein and Buege, how did that turn out? 

"We tied today," Buege said, "but he beat me on Monday. When a guy goes 7 under in 11 holes, it's pretty tough to keep up with him." 
 

MINNESOTA GOLF ASSOCIATION

State Four-Ball Championship

At Chaska Town Course

Par 72, 6,817 yards

Final results

1. Colton Buege/Tyler Lowenstein                63-65--128

2. Adam Arola/John Pavelko                          64-66--130

3. Jon DuToit/Michael DuToit                         63-68--131

T4. Chris Baas/Phil Schmidt                           66-67--133

T4. Brad Deyak/Steven Saari                         68-65--133

T6. Jordan Hawkinson/Jesse Larson           66-68--134

T6. J.T. Johnson/Geoff Klein                          67-67--134

T6. Tommy Smith/Joe Conzemius                69-65--134 

T6. Mike Baldwin/Philip Ebner                       68-66--134

T6. Michael Oberg/Freddy Thomas               69-65--134

T11. Sean Larson/William Tucker                  67-68--135

T11. Robert Bell/David Haley                         68-67--135

T11. Ben Clymer/Jesse Polk                          67-68--135

T11. Tony Krogen/Chad Michaelson           69-66--135

T15. Kane Bauer/Sammy Schmitz                63-73--136

T15. Dave Carothers/Eric Kolkind                69-67--136

T15. Joe Larson/Keith Piotrowski                 67-69--136