Whaley Ends Dooley's Reign as Mid-Amateur Champion

By Mike Fermoyle (mikefermoyle@gmail.com)

BLOOMINGTON -- Tom Whaley hadn't played in an MGA tournament in so long he couldn't even remember when the last time was, and he hadn't played that much recreational golf in the last couple of years, either. So it wasn't as if he'd been working hard on his game.

Nevertheless, as the deadline for entering the State Mid-Amateur Championship approached, he began thinking about playing in it, and eventually -- on the last possible day -- he submitted his entry on-line.

"I thought it would be fun," he said.

A lot of guys say that when they're asked why they play in tournaments, and they do probably think it -- until they get to the first tee. Then the nerves kick in, at about the same time that all the thoughts of potential disasters and humiliations begin crowding into the brain. Not long after that, the bogeys and double bogeys begin. And suddenly it's not that much fun anymore. 

The harsh truth is this: For the vast majority of golfers, playing in tournaments is fun only in the abstract. When the reality of actually playing in the tournament hits them -- and they're struggling just to shoot a respectable score, or torturing themselves as the score climbs toward 80 -- it's an ordeal. 

Do you think that golfers spend all that time during tournaments beating up on themselves -- for example, Woody Austin banging the shaft of his putter against his head --  because they're having "fun"? Hardly.

What's unusual -- you might even say remarkable -- about Whaley is that he genuinely thinks that tournaments are fun, even while he's playing in them. And that, more than anything else, was probably the secret to his victory in the State Mid-Am. 

The 45-year-old entrepreneur (he owns Aloe Up, a sun and skin-care company that does business in 60 countries) shot a 1-over-par 74 at Minnesota Valley Country Club in Wednesday's final round, and his resulting 54-hole total of 212 (6 under) was one better than that of two-time defending champion Adam Dooley.

"I really wasn't nervous," Whaley said afterward. "It's just a game. Why worry about it? I worry about my business, because I've got a family that's depending on me, along with more than 400 employees. I take my responsibilities (as a business owner) very seriously. But golf is another matter entirely. If I have a bad round, who cares? No one's going to suffer. So why not just go out and have fun."

Dooley had led wire to wire in his Mid-Am victories in 2007 and '08, and he was trying to do the same thing this year. He led by four shots after opening with a 7-under 65 at Montgomery GC, and he was one up on Whaley with a 137 after a second-round 72 at Minnesota Valley. 

But his putter wasn't much help for most of the week, and it was essentially no help at all on Wednesday as he shot 76 to finish the tournament at 213.

It all came down to the 600-yard, par-5 18th hole, which was a kind of microcosm of the round.

Whaley led by one as he teed off, and just as he had all day (and all week), he hit his driver into the fairway, about 270 yards. The prodigiously long-hitting Dooley pull hooked his drive, and it hit well up in a pine tree, about 285 yards from the tee. It bounced clear of the tree, but his position ended any thoughts he might have had about going for the green in two. So both players laid up with their second shots.

Dooley went first in the contest of wedges, and from 90 yards he hit a pretty good shot, but to the wrong side of the hole. It landed 15 feet past and left, and spun back to 8 feet.

"I wanted to hit it to the right of the hole," he explained, "because the slope would have taken it from there right back down to the cup. But I hit it left, just like every other shot I hit the last couple of days."

Whaley hit a variation of the shot that Dooley wanted to hit, from about 85 yards.

"I didn't want to spin it," he said. "I just wanted to keep my hands soft and hit a shot to the right of the pin that would land and take one hop forward, then stop." Which is exactly what he did. His ball finished 12 feet to the right and just short of the cup, leaving him an uphill right-to-left breaker.

"I hit a pretty good putt, but a little too high and just a little too hard," he said. "But the main thing I wanted to do was get it really close to the hole, and make sure I could make the next one."

The putt ended up no more than 10 inches from the cup. He had a tap-in from there.

Which meant that Dooley had to make his 8-footer for birdie to create a tie and force a playoff. But the putt was low almost as soon as it left the putter face. 

"I hadn't made anything in two days," the MGA's 1999 Player of the Year lamented. "So why should that one have been any different." 

Ben Poehling, the 2008 Mid-Players (Mid-Am Match Play) champion, finished in third place, five behind Whaley at 217. He started the final round inauspciously, with a bogey at the 498-yard, par-5 first hole. After that, he played solidly, making only one bogey, but he made no birdies on Wednesday and wound up with a 75. 

"We hardly made any birdies in our group," said Poehling, who was in the last threesome, along with Whaley and Dooley. "It was tough, because the greens were quick, and you were on the defensive with most of your birdie putts." 

Joel B. Johnson and Jesse Bull started the round tied, and they ended up tied, for fourth place at 221. Both shot 74, tying Whaley for the fourth-best score of the day.

One behind them, in sixth, was Steven Steen, another 74-shooter.

Jesse Larson was one of only three players to break par (and no one equalled par). He shot a 71 to finish at 223, in sole possession of seventh place. 

The low score was a 69 by John Wiederholt, who tied Tim Peterson and Marc Baumgartner for eighth.

Wiederholt must have been wishing that the Mid-Am had been a 72-hole tournament. He started the week with a 79 at Montgomery, but came back with a 76 in his first go-round at Minnesota Valley, and then clipped six strokes off that number with his score on the final day. 

He made four birdies and no bogeys in a round that could be taken as a warning by all the MGA senior players, because Wiederholt will turn 55 this fall and be joining them during the 2010 season.  

The other player to better par, besides Larson and Wiederholt, was Chad Bisson. He made the cut on the number at 157, but his 72 on Wednsday elevated him to a tie for 20th place at 229.    

This was Whaley's first MGA title, and he certainly wasn't expecting it when the week began. But once he got into the race, he wasn't afraid to win.

"I've played a lot of sports all my life," he says, "and I love to compete."

Golf has probably never been his No. 1 sport, however.

When he was a senior in high school, he was the No. 1-ranked junior player in the Connecticut Section of the U.S. Tennis Association, and one of his regular doubles partners was Patrick McEnroe.

He also played football (quarterback), and he was an all-state guard in basketball.

Whaley picked Georgia as the place he wanted to go to college, and he made the tennis team as a walk-on. But at the time, Georgia had one of the best teams in the country, right up there with Stanford (the Bulldogs' top four players were all future touring pros), and he wasn't able to work his way into the regular lineup.

So after two years there, Whaley headed for Vail, Colo., and began working as a ski instructor.

"I've always skied," he sayd, "and it's still my first love."

But being a ski instructor wasn't necessarily the best way to make a living, and after getting married and moving to Minnesota (his wife is from here), Whaley went to work as a sales rep for a company called Aloe Up. 

Nine years later, in 1995, he bought the company. 

It was at about that time that he began showing up on leaderboards in MGA tournaments, and he had his share of top-10 finishes, including one at the 1999 State Amateur, which Dooley won, at North Oaks. 

Whaley shot the low score of the second round in that tournament, a 67, and ended up tied for sixth place.

The Mid-Am this week resembled that '99 State Am in a couple of ways. First of all, just as he had at North Oaks, Dooley played a great first round and grabbed the initial lead. Then, just as he had in '99, Whaley posted the best score on Day 2. 

After a 2-under 70 at Montgomery, Whaley put on a four-birdies-in-seven-holes blitz on the front nine at Minnesota Valley while shooting a 5-under 68, which put him within a stroke of Dooley going into Wednesday's final round.

"I did everything well in that round," Whaley said, "and especially on the front nine." Which was his second nine that day, because he started at No. 10.

He hit all nine greens, and it was the equivalent of hitting 10 greens out of nine, since he hit the green at the par-5 first in two. A two-putt there gave him a quick start. He had chances at the second and third holes, but didn't convert.

Whaley did birdie the fourth, from about 10 feet, and he hit another of those one-hop-and-stop wedge shots to within a couple of feet of the cup at the par-5 fifth.

The only really difficult putt he made in his front-nine birdie spree on Tuesday was a 15-foot curler at the seventh.

It was a pretty impressive performance for someone who was playing in only his 15th round of the year.     

Through 10 holes on Wednesday, nothing had changed. Both players were even par for the round, and Dooley was still 8 under for the tournamen, one ahead of Whaley. But Whaley pulled even when he parred the 230-yard 11th and Dooley bogied it.

Whaley then went ahead when Dooley made another bogey at the 14th (411 yards, par 4).

The only major mistake Whaley made on the final nine was hitting his third shot over the green at the 556-yard, par-5 15th hole.

"I hit a wedge 145 yards," Whaley said, slightly amazed. "Since when do I hit my wedge 145 yards."

The flier wedge put him in an essentially impossible position behind the green. From there, he hit a pretty good flop shot, but there was no way to keep it from sliding down the slope and away from the hole. He two-putted from 30 feet -- and was tied with Dooley once again.

Whaley went ahead for good at the 17th, with a routine two-putt par.

Dooley bogied the hole, and once again, it was pull hook that got him in trouble. His tee shot wound up under a pine tree, about 18 inches from the trunk. There really wasn't anything he could do except chip out into the fairway, and try to save par with his wedge and putter.

He hit the wedge to 15 feet, and was surprised it didn't spin back more than it did. The putt was more of the same. It started exactly on the track he intended for it, but burned the edge, putting him one behind with one hole to go.  

For complete results, and hole-by-hole scoring, go the the MGA website homepage.