.

Yonke teams with Chamberlin this time, wins again
   2010 Kansas Four-Ball Championship

   Kansas State University golfer Curtis Yonke won the 2009 Kansas Four-Ball championship with brother Kyle. But the elder Yonke, who shares a Wildcat granddad named Jim Colbert with Curtis, turned to professional golf since their victory last June at Alvamar Golf Club in Lawrence.
   So Curtis went searching for another partner for the amateur event – one that might help

him defend the title. He didn’t have to look too far, selecting KSU teammate and longtime golfing buddy Chase Chamberlin of Lawrence. The tandem, which combined for a KGA Junior Team Championship back in 2008 at Emporia Municipal, found the magic again, defeating a team that also included another former Four-Ball champion, in winning the 2010 version earlier this month on the Alvamar public course.
   “It was an awesome match – it was one of the best, most intense, closest matches I’ve ever played. I know playing Zac Potter last year was pretty intense. This was a lot of fun,” said Yonke, 18, moments after he and Chamberlin edged 2006 Four-Ball champion Potter and KSU’s Jordan Smith 1 up in a title tilt that truly was as close as the final score indicates. “The first round I played well then the second round he played well. Then I played well one match; then he played well one match. I told him before this match…we were both going to have to play well enough to compete. Fortunately we both played well enough and got things to go our way.”
   Team success is something Chamberlin knows about. He won the KGA Junior Team with his old high school teammate Smith back in 2005 at Salina Municipal and they even reached the Four-Ball semifinals that year. Later he joined forces with Yonke and they won their Junior Team title.
   “It feels great. Curtis and I have had quite a bit success together in the past,” the 20-year-old redshirt sophomore at KSU said. “Curtis and I compliment each other pretty well as playing partners. Neither one of us get into big trouble off the tee. If one of us is in the slightest bit of trouble the other seems to pick up the slack for the other person... To have some success on a little bit bigger scale than we’ve had before is nice.”

Pressure cooker
   The tension building through the back nine at this year’s Four-Ball Championship became as thick as the humid, early-June air in Lawrence. Since the championship match had been trimmed to 18 holes due to rainy weather earlier in the week, each and every hole became

that much more important. Only Potter and Smith had enjoyed a lead during the match – and the margin was never more than one hole.
   When recent Wichita State graduate Potter hit his drive on No. 14 up against a concrete sanitation manhole, he took advantage of the Rules, dropping away from the obstruction and the cart path. His approach shot nestled 15 feet behind the hole on the sloping green. Potter read the right-to-left break correctly, sinking the birdie putt to put his team back in front and his “One Time!” just as the ball plopped into the cup broke the tension-filled silence.
   “That was huge – Jordan and I talk a lot about both of us staying in the hole and he hit a really nice chip,” said Potter, who won his 2006 Four-Ball title with former WSU teammate and later University of Kansas golfer Brandon Hermreck. “My putt wasn’t very easy at all and he made a really nice chip to give me a free run and I was able to capitalize.”
   Yonke, a former Kansas state champion at Blue Valley West who just completed his freshman season at KSU, missed a birdie putt to halve the hole but came right back at the 198-yard, par-3 15th hole. Yonke, who’d earlier putted it in from off the fringe for birdie to square the match at the par-3 12th hole, drilled his tee shot to about 22 feet on No. 15 and rolled in the putt to square things once again.
   “(Potter) got a good ruling on 14. It was a good break for him and he took full advantage of it,” said Yonke. “It was of those (putts) on 14 where I wanted it so badly. Once I missed that putt on 14, I was willing it in on 15.
   ”The two teams halved the 16th hole on pars by Chamberlin and Smith. They remained tied headed to the par-5 17th.
   But Smith’s drive caught the cart path and, uncharacteristically, bounced right into trouble.
   “I hit my tee shot and the wind’s blowing it. I tried to hit a little cut shot…it hits the edge of Curtis Yonke

the cart path and just shoots straight right into the creek,” Smith said of his drive at No. 17 that led to a bogey. “Even if it kicks right and goes right up against the trees I can at least pitch out and hit over the water.”
   Potter admitted he felt uncomfortable over his third shot. His approach on the par 5 flew over the green and his par putt just slid by the hole. That allowed Yonke and Chamberlin to go 1 up headed to the home hole.
   “That was the one time they slipped up as a team,” Yonke said. “Each hole they had awesome birdie putts. That was the one hole that neither one of them had a birdie putt.”
   Potter did have a 12-foot birdie putt at No. 18 but it just missed. Chamberlin two putted from about 30 feet for par and Yonke nearly holed a par chip from the back of the green. Those efforts secured a 1 up victory and kept the drama from continuing to extra holes.
   “You can’t put a price on what the match was like,” said Chamberlin, who played his high school golf at Olathe South. “The emotion range that you felt throughout the match with Jordan making probably a 60-foot eagle putt on two, both of us stabbing it in there pretty close on (No. 3) and then Potter dropping his birdie putt right before we even had a chance to putt at it. The way this went back and forth it was like a heavyweight bout.”
   Neither team ever had more than a 1 up lead the entire match, and Yonke and Chamberlin Chase Chamberlin

never led until No. 17 on the pressure-packed back nine.
   “We were one or two putts away – we got the 1 up lead and were just one or two putts away from the match being pretty much over,” said Smith, a 21-year-old red-shirt junior this fall at KSU. “If one of those birdie putts falls that puts all the pressure back on them.”
   Smith’s long eagle putt at the par-5 second gave his team a 1 up lead it would hold until the par-4 sixth. Chamberlin hit another huge drive at the sixth and pitched to tap-in birdie range to square the match. Both Yonke and Potter made birdie at the par-5 eighth hole. Potter made it back-to-back birdies with a 10-footer at No. 9 giving his team back its 1 up margin. The Shocker had good looks at birdie putts at Nos. 10 and 11, but did not convert and Yonke got the match square again with his “unexpected” birdie from off the green at the par-3 12th.
   “You come to expect that in four-ball…,” Potter said. “…especially with guys that are that good. They’re going to make shots that other guys aren’t going to make. That was a really good putt. We had our opportunities we just didn’t do it.”

Lucas, Grosdidier repeat in Masters
   While Yonke was enjoying a repeat title in the Open Division at the 2010 Four-Ball, Masters Division competitors Gary Lucas and Mike Grosdidier were going back to back as well. The State Farm Insurance agents, Lucas of Topeka and Grosdidier of Lawrence, knocked off 2008

Masters Division champions Mark Elliott and Craig Colboch of Topeka 3 and 2 in a division that has been dominated by those two teams the three years of its existence.
   “It’s always fun to win – I’ve done this interview when you’re second and it’s not nearly as much fun,” the 55-year-old Grosdidier said, referring to his team’s 1 up championship loss to Colboch and Elliott in 2008.
   The duo, which started playing competitive team golf clear back in 1995, made sure they wouldn’t fall again to the Topekans with a three-birdie stretch at mid-round, turning a 1 up advantage into a comfortable three-hole margin. It started when Colboch and Elliott couldn’t get up and down for birdie a No. 8, while Lucas did.
   “That was probably the turning point,” said Lucas, 44. “Because we had a 2 up lead after (No.) 6, and then we bogey (No.) 7. Then they’re in great position to birdie No. 8. That was kind of a pretty good turning point in the match.”
   Lucas pitched to six feet on the reachable, par-5 eighth and made the birdie putt. Grosdidier then drained an important 10-foot birdie putt at the ninth to match Elliott’s birdie effort and keep Lucas and himself in front by two holes.
   “I knew I was going to have to make that for a halve, because I just had a feeling Mark was going to make his,” said Grosdidier, a veteran of the Alvamar greens and their subtleties having walked them hundreds of times both as a player and as a part-timer on the maintenance crew. “So I just wanted to make sure I got it to the hole. (I) put a good roll on it and it went right in the hole. The greens could not have putted better. This might be the best I’ve ever seen these greens roll.”
   Topeka Country Club’s Lucas then rolled in another birdie at the par-4 10th hole. He had an Mike Grosdidier

opening to the green on his approach shot from the left rough and the ball stopped some 20 feet from the hole. He made the putt to give his team a 3 up lead.
   “I finally make a decent long putt…I struggled with those long putts all day today,” Lucas admitted. “But I kind of saw the line and happened to hit it on the line once. It was kind of nice to see that one go in.”
   The margin ballooned to 4 up when Elliott and Colboch each three-putted the slippery 13th green from long range.
   “If you don’t hit it close you’re not going to make birdie putts and it got tough on the back nine with the wind blowing and where some of the pins were,” said Elliott, 50 and a sports broadcaster for WIBW Radio, who Colboch hired several years ago. “You know you have to give yourself another birdie chance and you don’t want to give them a hole by making another bogey. It was just a harder day to hit it close, a harder day to play. Once you get behind you have to try and force it in there because you know they’re not going to make bogeys. We just didn’t play good enough. Gary played great all day and Grosdidier played solid like he always does.”
   The leaders did make bogey at No. 14 and Elliott’s par was good enough to win that hole and move the team back to just 3 down. But Grosdidier and Lucas parred the next two holes and secured their 3 and 2 victory and another Masters Division title.
   And with a new KGA logo on the prize it’ll give a new look to his trophy case.
   “It was a lot fun especially since the KGA hardware has changed -- we have a new look on there,” he said. “But it was a good day for me.”

Playoff survivor upends No. 2 seed
   It took about two and a half days to get two rounds of stroke-play qualifying completed this year at the Kansas Four-Ball Championships. Heavy rains during the second round forced Gary Lucas

suspension of play late on day two. Eight teams for the Masters Division bracket had been determined, but the 32-team Open Division was yet to be determined.
   When the second round was completed the following day, Overland Park’s Kyle Smell and Korbin Kuehn stood atop the leader board as medalists with rounds of 68 and 65 for a nine-under 133 and the top seed for match play. That was one shot better than first-round leaders Michael Elafros and Wes Nichols of Overland Park at 64-70—134. Included in the three teams another shot back at 135 were Open Division finalists Potter and Smith (65-70) and Yonke and Chamberlain (67-68).
   Topeka’s Colboch and Elliott, 2008 Masters Division champions, earned the top seed in this year’s Masters Division bracket with rounds of 67-71 for a four-under 138. Also at the figure were Lawrence’s Thomas Rainbolt and Mike Rack (71-67). Defending champions Grosdidier of Baldwin City and Lucas of Topeka were seeded third after rounds of 68-72.
   “I played well the first day of stroke play. I had three birdies which you have to have in this and we played pretty solid,” said Colboch. “I didn’t play well at all the second day. Mark played solid like he always does and we kind of hung in there. The key was we didn’t make a bogey until the matches started.”
   Three teams stood tied for 31st in the Open Division at one-over 143 and faced a playoff for two spots. Those entries included Hutchinson High players Thane Ringler and Evan Holcomb, Topeka’s Ben Moser and Tecumseh’s Tyler Harper, and Bartlesville, Okla.’s Shawn Barker and Nathan Hughes.
   The playoff started on the par-4 10th hole where Harper, who teamed with Moser at Kansas City, Kansas Community College, sank a gutsy 10-footer for par to keep his team alive. That allowed Moser to hit a fine approach shot close for birdie at the 11th hole, playing as a long par-4 for the championship. The putt gave the team the 31st seed for match play.
   “I had about 220 to the flag and hit a little three-quarter hybrid and it just worked out perfect,” said Moser, now attending Washburn. “I had about five (or) six feet and made that. That was really nice; it got the weight off my shoulders.”
   That left Ringler and Holcomb to battle Barker and Oklahoma University freshman golfer Hughes for the remaining spot. At the 173-yard, par-3 12th, Barker, 50, hit his seven-iron to about 16 feet and made the birdie putt to secure the 32nd seed.
   “Last night, that was the last hole we played before the rain delay…,” Barker said. “And I hit a seven-iron in the rain and hit it to the exact same spot and I made the putt. So when I got to the green and saw my ball sitting there, I was like ‘That’s exactly where we were last night, so let’s just go make it again.”
   Moser and Harper continued their magic into match play, upending second-seeded Elafros and Nichols 4 and 3 in an opening-round match. They then knocked off No. 15 Elliot Soyez and Michael Gellerman 3 and 1 in the second round, before falling in the quarterfinals to Ben Kimminau and Craig Johnston 3 and 2.
   Barker and Hughes faced top-seeded Smell of Kansas State and Kuehn of UMKC in the opening round of match play and fell 4 and 3.