McCain Nearly Flawless in 5-Shot Win at Southview

WEST ST. PAUL -- It's not easy to play with the lead in the final round of a golf tournament. At least that's what everybody says. 

But it sure didn't look that way on Saturday at Southview Country Club, as Andrew McCain shot about as stress-free a 5-under-par 66 as you could imagine in conditions -- mainly wind -- that weren't all that easy. The result was a five-stroke victory in the Minnesota PGA Foundation Pro-Am with a 36-hole total of 129. 

Josh Baldus finished second at 134. He played well, shooting a second consecutive 67, but never really got within shouting distance of McCain. 

Eric Rolland, the Augsburg University coach and newly turned senior, who will be playing in the U.S. Senior Open in a couple of weeks, had another nice round and shot 69. But he never did figure out the ninth hole. After making a double there on Friday, he bogeyed the 325-yard par 4 on Saturday. That was his last hole, and the valedictory bogey dropped him out of a tie for second and into a tie for third with Thomas Avant at 135.

Avant shot 68. 

This tournament is a slightly modified version of the Tapemark Charity Pro-Am, and a former Tapemark champion, Jeff Sorenson, tied for fifth at 136, along with Grant Shafranski, after they both shot 69. 

Andrew Israelson was the defending champion, having put together a spectacular 5-under-for-5-holes stretch on his final nine in a come-from-behind victory last year. He couldn't quite conjure up anything like that this year, but he shot 68-69--137 and tied Thomas Campbell and Zach Sklebar for seventh. 

And after he finished his opening 68, Israelson made a couple of comments about McCain, who was just starting his first round at the time, that turned out to be prophetic. 

 "He hits it better than anyone I've ever played with," Israelson the Younger said (Andrew's father, Bill Israelson, was a two-tiime Tapemark winner). "He's not a great putter, but he putts well enough, and he hits it so well that he doesn't have to be a great putter. He's just really fun to watch." 

There couldn't have been a better description of how McCain played on his way to the victory, which was worth $4,500. The 31-year-old teaching pro at Albion Ridges definitely did not win this tournament with his putter. He never made a putt longer than 10 feet in his opening round of 63 on Friday, and on Saturday he made only one birdie putt longer than 2 feet. That was a 15-footer for a 2 at the 205-yard, par-3 fifth hole. 

Other than that, he  pretty much two-putted his way to victory. Starting on the back nine, he made seven consecutive pars, then hit the par-5 17th in two, but three-putted for a disappointing par, missing a 4-footer for his birdie. (That was his only three-putt of the day, and of the weekend.)

He missed his 20-foot eagle putt at the 480-yard, par-5 18th, but not by much, and tapped in for the first of his five birdies. He had another 20-footer for eagle on the 355-yard, par-4 first hole, after driving the green, missed narrowly once again, and settled for a second tap-in birdie in a row. 

McCain parred the par-4 third, and at the par-5 fourth, he two-putted from 35 feet for another birdie, and followed it with the one-putt birdie at the formidable par-3 fifth. 

"The (7-iron) tee shot I hit there was the best shot I hit all day," he said. "So it was nice to make that putt." 

Then, after bombing a 310-yard drive into the wind -- and uphill -- at the sixth hole, he hit a gorgeous 8-iron second shot to within 5 feet of the cup. But he missed the eagle putt ("I misread it"), and was left with yet another gimme birdie, his fourth two-putt birdie in a bogey-free round.

"I missed some fairly short birdie putts," he conceded afterward. "But I didn't think I putted all that badly. I hadn't seen the course before yesterday, and I had been told by everyone not to be past the pin on these greens. The thing is, even if you're pin high, you can have a really tough putt with a 2- or 3-foot break. So you have to be careful. One of the things I try to teach when I give lessons is that you have to pay attention to details, and I thought I did a good job of that these last two days."

There wasn't anyone in the 188-man field at Southview this weekend who would have wanted to argue that point.