Chamberlin claims inaugural Mid-Am honor
2011 KGA Mid-Am Player of the Year
The Kansas Golf Association has been recognizing a Player of the Year since 1985 when Kansas City’s John Sinovic was its first honoree. In 1987, Wichita’s Charlie Stevens became the first KGA Junior Player of the Year and in 1990 Independence’s Dave Dennis became the 
Association’s initial Senior Player of the Year.
More than 20 years later the list of first-time POY winners has finally swelled to four as Wichita’s Tracy Chamberlin has earned the KGA’s first Mid-Amateur Player of the Year honors. The public course golfer won June’s KGA Public Links Championship at Lawrence’s Alvamar Golf Club and the Masters Division at late August’s High Plains Amateur at Southwind in Garden City. Those triumphs accounted for 225 of Chamberlin’s season-ending point total of 355 as he out-distanced area rivals in Wellington’s Derek Harrison and Wichita’s Aaron Sheaks in the final standings.
“To be honest I didn’t even think about Mid-Am Player of the Year at the start of the season…I didn’t really even know that was out there,” said Chamberlin, 48. “We went to the Public Links and I really didn’t have the expectation of winning that thing. I went up there and put two pretty good rounds together and ended up winning. (Steve Newman) told me about this and I started paying a little more attention to what I could do for Player of the Year. It intrigued me a little bit and I started looking at the (events) and the points I could get. About midway through the summer I kind of made it a goal and I’m glad I got it accomplished. To me it’s pretty cool.”
Harrison won the Mid-Amateur Team title in early October with partner Tyler Chapman as Chamberlin and Newman tied for second, five strokes back at Wichita Country Club. Harrison placed third to Chamberlin at the Public Links and added another third while defending his title at May’s Mid-Amateur Championship at Milburn Golf & Country Club in tallying 315.75 points for the year.
Sheaks, who joined both Chamberlin and Harrison on the Kansas Directors Cup team, tied for second in the Open Division at the High Plains. The former University of Kansas golfer tied Harrison for third at the Public Links and was 10th at the Mid-Am in totaling 305.5 points for the season.
Pub Links win jump starts season
With children through high school now, Wichita’s Chamberlin had more time to dedicate to tournament golf this summer. And, despite admittedly not playing well coming in, he claimed
the title at June’s Public Links Championship at Alvamar. Traveling with golfing buddy Newman, a two-time winner of the event, Chamberlin probably got plenty of good information on winning the title. He then went out and put together rounds of 70 and 71 for a two-shot victory on the public layout.
“It feels great; I haven’t been playing that well,” said Chamberlin, who works for Learjet in Wichita. “For me to come in here and win this thing…I really didn’t have expectations to win it. I just wanted to play well and I actually played pretty good.”
For Chamberlin, winning a KGA title in an event that is usually dominated by talented Kansas college players coming off busy spring golf seasons was all the more sweet and it came the first time he’d ever played in the Pub Links.
“That’s probably the most gratifying thing,” admitted Chamberlin. “…to know I was playing against guys playing in college. To come out here and compete with them makes you feel really good.”
Chamberlin turned at even-par 36 the final day and drained a 20-footer for birdie at the par-4 tenth hole to get back in red figures for the round. After a bogey at the par-4 11th, he made par at the par-3 12th, before hitting his approach shot to about 4 feet at No. 13 for another birdie. After a fine up-and-down par from behind the par-3 15th green, Chamberlin made his last birdie of the day from about 10 feet at the short, par-4 16th to get to four under for the championship.
Chamberlin’s two-putt par at No. 18 gave him a one-under 71 for the day and his two-day total of 141 was two shots ahead of Kansas State University golfer and 2011 Kansas Amateur finalist Kyle Smell.
Chamberlin, despite his lack of experience on the tricky Alvamar public greens, got off to a fast start on the front side and that led to an opening-round 70 to leave him just a shot off Harrison’s pace heading into day two.
“I played really good on the front yesterday. I had four birdies on the front and had a couple bogeys,” he said. “I had a birdie and a bogey on the back…pretty solid.”
It must have been a happy car ride back to Wichita in late August for Chamberlin as he enjoyed a High Plains Amateur Masters division victory with Newman, the event’s Senior division co-titlist. Chamberlin, who collaborated with Newman on a previous Mid-Am Team Championship win, came to Southwind for the first time in late August despite growing up near Dodge City and turned in rounds of 69 and 68 the two days. His five-under 137 total was four better than Holcomb’s Carlos Prieto, who had rounds of 70 and 71 to finish second at 141.
“That’s the first time I’ve ever played in it…I’ve just always been so busy in the summer with my kids,” said Chamberlin. “This is the first time in 15 years I’ve been able to play a lot of golf in the summer because I just graduated my last daughter. I’d just never played Southwind.”
Chamberlin opened the HPA with a sizzling three-under 32 on Southwind’s front nine in the first round, sandwiching a birdie at the par-5 fifth with birdies on the par-3 fourth and sixth holes.
“I played really good on the front…I was three-under. I was hitting the ball really good, putting good and feeling really good about it,” he said. “I got on that back side and I don’t know what happened. I lost a little bit of confidence off the tee box. I hit some bad tee shots that got me in trouble.”
Chamberlin ended up with a one-over 37 on the back nine and settled for an opening-round, two-under 69. That left him tied with Garden City’s Shawn Audrain, one shot ahead of Prieto and Kansas City’s Jeffrey Hanslick as those players made up the final grouping for round two.
With the Masters division going off Southwind’s 10th tee to start the final round, Chamberlin had an early chance to get some revenge on the course’s difficult back side. He did just that, making birdies at Nos. 11, 14 and 15 to shoot 33 and turn at five under for the championship.
Chamberlin, Newman place second at Mid-Am Team
The 2004 Mid-Am Team champions, Chamberlin and Newman worked themselves into contention at the 2011 event at Wichita Country Club in early October. Playing a course they see frequently during city tournaments, Chamberlin and Newman put together solid rounds in the shamble and alternate shots and had a final-round 68 in best-ball to get to 13-under 200 and finish five shots behind Chapman and Harrison. The tie for second with 2009 M-AT winners Pete Krsnich and Luke Trammell earned each player 60 points in their respective player of the year points races.
Moving up the board in the final round of the Mid-Am Team is not unusual for the pair. In 2009 at Terradyne, they had a nine-under 62 on day three and rose to a tie for sixth place.
“Steve’s one of the best; you know you’re not going to get a bogey,” said Chamberlin, who combined with Newman for their Mid-Am Team title in 2004 at another of the Sunflower State’s storied golf venues, Prairie Dunes Country Club. “So you just fire away and try to help him out when you can. He’s a good partner and fun to play with.
“We made the turn at (two under); we missed a couple on the front that could have helped us. I had three good looks on the back and didn’t get any of them…you’ve got to get them. Especially when your partner’s got the par, you have to make (birdies).”
Harrison and Chapman posted a 65 in the final round of the Mid-Am Team to go along with their eight-under 63 in the shamble of the first round and a 67 in day two’s alternate shot to post 18-under 195.
Chamberlin added a surprising 45 points to his season total with a tie for seventh at June’s inaugural Railer, Kansas Stroke Play Championship. He had three straight rounds of three-over 74 at Newton’s Sand Creek Station and finished eight off the pace set by eventual champion and KGA Player of the Year Hunter Sparks and the University of Oklahoma’s Michael Gellerman of Sterling.
“I probably played my best golf at The Railer,” he said. “They had the tees back on a lot of those holes and it was really windy all three days. On the first two days I started off bogey, double bogey…just killer starts for me. If you take those two holes away the first two days, if I could have parred them, I actually could have been right there in the hunt.”
Chamberlin added 25 points as a member of the Kansas Directors Cup Team which finished second to host Iowa at Glen Oaks Country Club in West Des Moines in September. The 2011 edition proved to be the overall closest competition in the event's history with each team finishing within two points of each other. Iowa came out on top with 26 points while Kansas had 24 and Nebraska tallied 22.
On the first day Kansas used a strong morning session of 8 ½ points combined with 5 points in the afternoon to finish day one in the lead with 13 ½ points. In morning four-ball play, Chamberlin and Sheaks teamed and earned two points for the Kansas side.
“I had a great time with all those guys, getting to know all eight guys up there,” Chamberlin said. “Spending time with those guys and the team-type thing was a great experience for me. I had a really good time with all of them. I probably played my worst golf of the summer up there. I didn’t perform very well. I wish I could have gotten a couple points in my singles match. When you lose a team deal by a couple points you look back at that and feel bad for the Kansas Team because I just feel like I should have got some points there and I didn’t do it.”
Glen Oaks proved to be the home course advantage as its strong back nine in the second day's singles play propelled the host Iowa squad to victory. Seven of the eight Iowa golfers won the back-nine point in singles, and that proved to be the difference.
