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Geubelle outlasts wind, rain, lightning and a Jayhawk
   2010 KGA Public Links Championship

   By his own account, Kansas State golfer Ross Geubelle has had a roller coaster ride of a golfing career for the Wildcats – plenty of ups and downs.
   So it was fitting the Lakin player would survive just that kind of ride in outlasting Kansas

University’s Jeff Bell in the heat, wind, rain and lightning at Manhattan’s Colbert Hills in winning the 16th KGA Public Links Championship last month. Geubelle, who recently earned his Marketing degree at KSU, parred the third hole of a playoff as Bell suffered a three-putt bogey and the Wildcat finally was able to put his hands on a championship trophy.
   “If you can put yourself within a couple feet for par, I’ll take my chances on the other guy making birdie,” the 22-year-old Geubelle said of the playoff. “I’ve got to think in that situation, in a two-man playoff, the par is going to win the majority of the time and I tried to do that. I did let a couple swings slip during the playoff holes, but I played those last three playoff holes like I’ve been trying to do the last 14 months. It doesn’t matter how many times you get knocked down, it’s how many times you get back up.”
   And the resilient performance that led to his first KGA championship put a nice cap on a college career for Geubelle. It also gave him a pause -- to think about the confidence boost he’ll get with a tournament victory, the hard work he put in to get it and the vast support he’d been given during his time at K-State.
   “It feels really good and (KSU Men’s Golf Coach Tim Norris) put it best, he said ‘It’s a big day for you when it all comes together.’ Because the biggest part of this game, as everybody knows, is between your ears,” said Geubelle, who’s now enrolled in the MBA program at KSU. “And that’s almost kind of where it has been for me. This is going to increase the confidence a lot and help the mental side. It’s nice to see that all the hours I put in this winter and in the spring start to pay off.
   “The last 12, 14 months have been really hard for me. I think I traveled to one or two tournaments the last year. It was a fight. It was a struggle and with a lot of support and encouragement from Coach Norris, my teammates and my family it’s led to now.”

No. 10’s temptation too much
   After nine holes of the final round it appeared Geubelle’s wild ride would be more of a stroll in the park on the scenic, if not gusty, holes of Colbert Hills. He’d played the opening nine of the second round in two-under 34 and was in “cruise mode.” He was besting those in his group, which included Bell and Prairie Village’s former K-Stater Jeff Spradlin, by four shots. Jeff Bell

   “I felt really confident – it couldn’t have been much worse than two under,” Geubelle said of his front nine that saw him make birdie at the par-5 first and add another four-footer for birdie at No. 6 to get to red figures for the event. “I missed some pretty short (birdie putts). But I felt really good.”
   But the temptation of the par-5 10th hole was just too much for Geubelle. Though the pin was on the back right shelf and he led by four shots on a difficult day, the veteran of countless rounds on Colbert Hills just had to go for the flag in two from more than 250 yards.
   “At 10, I was fighting it,” he admitted. “I could hear Coach Norris right now saying ‘If you ain’t feeling it, put it on the left side.’ But I’d hit that three wood…I was just lacing it. I had 260 to the flag and that little guy in the back of my mind was telling me ‘this is a little too thin to hit it.’ But I’d been hitting it good the last day and a half so I went ahead and hit it, and the rest is history…”
   History will record a double-bogey seven for Geubelle and a whole new tournament as Spradlin reached the green in two and two putted for birdie to get back within a single shot. At the par-3 11th, Geubelle missed the green short and that led to a bogey. Suddenly the comfortable margin was gone as he and Spradlin were tied at two over.
   But Geubelle righted the ship with par at No. 12 and a nice up-and-down for par at the 13th hole. He made birdie at the short, par-4 14th by driving the green and two putting from about 40 feet.
   “(No. 15) is when the nerves started shaking,” Geubelle admitted. “I haven’t been on the leader board or in contention in so long; 15 is when I felt the nerves and that second shot on 15 was pretty bad.”
   His approach on the par 4 plugged in the greenside bunker and it took three more shots to get the ball on the green. The resulting double bogey gave the lead back to Spradlin at two over par.

Four under in four holes
   And KU’s Bell, who’d hung in there all day, had begun a charge with back-to-back birdies on Jeff Spradlin

Nos. 13 and 14. He’d taken advantage of the short par 4s with a big drive and pitch to two feet at 13 and a two-putt birdie from about 30 feet at the 14th.
   “The back nine, there are a lot of holes you can score on…when you get to 13, 14, 15 and 16, they’re all reachable for me so you can have some eagle putts,” said Bell, a 21-year-old from Wichita who joined the Kansas golf team just this season. “We had a wait on 13 tee and I took some time and kind of figured out where everybody stood. I think I was five over and the other two guys were two over. It was downwind, like 340 and I just tried to hit it high and let it ride the wind. It got up around the green and I got up and down. It was the first birdie I’d made since I don’t know when. When Ross made double at 15, I picked up two there.”
   The par-5, 16th hole at Colbert Hills was playing downwind and easily reachable for the players. But Bell was the only one to knock his ball onto the green in two. The Jayhawk senior-to-be drained his eight-foot eagle putt and suddenly he’d taken over the lead by a stroke over Spradlin and Geubelle, who made a gutsy 15-footer for birdie on the hole.
   “I’d lost track…I really didn’t have time to figure out where I was in relation to them,” said Bell, who was tied for the lead at the 2009 Public Links at Sand Creek Station heading into the final round. “I hit the fairway and I hit five-iron. I was kind of worried it was going to come up short, but it got there. And that was the first putt of any length I’d made all day.”
   All three players made bogey at the par-3 17th hole and Bell managed to hold the tee for the home hole. Spradlin, who started the day two back after an opening 75, hit his tee shot on 18 into the water and his third into the gunch to take him out of contention. Bell lay back off the tee and his second found the left edge of the green some 50 feet from the cup. His first putt came up about 10 feet short and his par effort slid past the hole for bogey. Geubelle, Conrad Roberts

who nailed a perfect drive, had about 18 feet for birdie. The putt just missed and he and Bell posted 147. The Wildcat and the Jayhawk headed to No. 1 for a playoff.

Lightening halts playoff
   Both Bell and Geubelle parred the par-5 first hole, before Mother Nature intervened. An approaching thunderstorm and its lightening sent the two scurrying for the clubhouse. After about 45 minutes, they returned to the course and Geubelle would emerge victorious at No. 3 when Bell three-putted from about 40 feet.
   Both players shot one-over 73 in the opening round and two-over 74 the second day to finish at three-over 147. Their first-round scores were extremely impressive as howling winds saw no one in the field reach level par and only three players were at 75 or better.
   “Basically, whichever way the wind was blowing I assumed my ball would go that way no matter what swing I put on it,” Bell said. “Actually, I hit 15 greens and in that much wind that was pretty good. But I was never really near the hole. I two-putted a lot…I think I had like 36 Jack Courington

putts. I was one-over…pretty boring honestly.”
Lawrence’s Conrad Roberts turned in the low round of the second day with a two-under 70. The former University of Kansas player finished at 149 and tied for third with Missouri State’s Jack Courington of Wichita (77-72). Spradlin, who played at Wichita State and graduated from Kansas State, settled for solo fifth place with his second-round 77 and 152 total. That was a single shot ahead of Lawrence’s Chase Chamberlin (78-75) and Wichita’s Zach Driver-Heiland (77-76). Wichita’s Steve Newman, 2009 Pub Links champion at Sand Creek Station, was eighth at 154.
Olathe’s Brad Crosby had rounds of 79 and 72 to win the 26-49 net division at 151. Kansas City’s Don Kuehn took the 50 & over gross division at 80-80 160 and Bonner Springs’ Greg Johnson claimed the 50 & over net division with 79-71 150.