Groom pushes to victory in tight race
2011 KGA Senior Player of the Year
The KGA’s 2011 Senior Player of the Year race was a tight one with its top challengers getting 
a lot of face time as they came down the stretch this summer and early fall. When all was said and done, and final season point totals tallied, Raytown, Mo.’s Steve Groom had amassed 411 and edged Wichita’s Steve Newman by a mere five points.
Srixon Golf’s Groom dominated KGA senior team events in 2011, opening the year with a third straight victory with partner Andy Smith at the Senior Four-Ball Championship at Tallgrass Country Club and closing it out with a second-place showing at the Senior Team at Lake Quivira Country Club with Bill McDonald. Groom tied Newman for top honors in the Senior Division at the High Plains Amateur at Southwind Golf Club in Garden City and was one position behind him in the top 5 at the Senior Amateur Championship at Topeka Country Club.
It’s the first KGA Senior Player of the Year title for the 53-year-old Groom, who joins fellow Missourians and golfing friends Don Kuehn and Smith as winners of the honor.
“It’s very gratifying,” said Groom, playing out of Fred Arbanas Golf Course at Jackson County, Mo.’s Longview Lake. “The best senior player in the state of Kansas is (2009 and 2010 Senior Player of the Year) Bryan Norton and he always will be. If he chooses to play in as many events as the rest of us he probably wins this every year; he’s just that good and a really good guy. I did play a lot and it’s very gratifying. I wanted to get my name in the history books with the names of the past winners.”
Groom trailed in the standings for much of the year, but his late-season push got him the points lead.
“It was a goal and I was watching,” he said. “Sometimes when you’re trailing, you may play a little better or you see where you need to get to. Not that that makes it easier, but (winning senior POY) was what I was wanting to do.”
Newman finished with 406 points for the year. His second-place finish at the Senior Amateur netted 110 points and his tie with Groom at the High Plains added another 67.5 points for the
two-time KGA Public Links champion. Newman also had a second-place finish with 2011 KGA Mid-Amateur Player of the Year Tracy Chamberlin at October’s Mid-Am Team Championship at Wichita Country Club.
Phillipsburg’s Doug Kaup placed third at 396.93 points. Kaup’s summer included a win with partner Charlie Schorgl at the KGA Senior Team Championship at Lake Quivira Country Club in September and a triumph in the Senior Division at the inaugural Railer, Kansas Stroke Play Championship at Newton’s Sand Creek Station in June. Kaup also tied for first in the Senior Division at the Public Links.
Perfect partner
When it comes to KGA senior team golf, there is no better partner than Steve Groom. The Missourian paid homage to Phil Jackson’s Chicago Bulls with a “three-peat” of his own as he and Smith won May’s Senior Four-Ball Championship at Tallgrass Country Club in Wichita. Kansas City’s Smith and Groom had rounds of three-under 68 and two-under 69 for two trips around the links of Tallgrass and that was a single shot ahead of two teams. It gave the formidable duo its third straight title in the event after wins in 2009 at Spring Hill’s Sycamore Ridge and last year at Salina Country Club.
The team, now 3-0 in the event, was coming off a long weekend of golf in a tournament in Poplar Bluff, Mo., and the familiarity the two talented players have gained through golf travel served them well in a KGA championship yet again. The win by Groom and Smith was the first “three-peat” for a KGA entrant since Garden City’s Sean Thayer won the High Plains Amateur from 1997-99.
“We played in a tournament together over the weekend. We’ve just become good friends. We travel together and we’re pretty compatible when it comes to that,” said Groom. “We pretty much know each other’s golf game. He just let’s me do my thing and he just goes with the flow. When I’m in trouble he just picks me up every time.”
The 56-year-old Smith, who won his KGA Senior Player of the Year honors in 2007, was like a teenager waiting for his first love to turn old enough to date as Groom approached the magic age of 50.
“I couldn’t wait until he turned 50…I asked him when he was about 48,” Smith said. “We have two personalities that are not alike, but they mesh together really well.”
With Groom bombing it down the fairway, then hitting to the green first when he had a good look at the flag, their strategy seemed to work on a challenging Tallgrass course neither had ever seen.
“I feel like it takes a little bit of the pressure off me because I know I’ve got him back there,” Groom said. “No matter what I do, he’s going to cover it. I can count on him so it makes my shot a little easier.”
Last year’s KGA Senior Team champions, Topeka’s Mark Elliott and Baldwin City’s Mike Grosdidier, finished a single shot back of Groom and Smith at this year’s Four-Ball.
“(Groom and Smith) are just too tough…that’s all there is to it,” WIBW Radio’s Elliott said.
With Smith out due to a business commitment, Groom turned to Topeka’s Bill McDonald for September’s Senior Team Championship at Lake Quivira Country Club and that would be a wise selection.
“This is the first time we’ve teamed up,” Groom said. “I’ve played with Bill a couple times, loved his game and thought we’d be a perfect match…and he was available at the last minute.”
Their first round together turned out to be a seven-under 64 that had Groom and McDonald three shots out of the lead after the opening day.
“We had seven birdies and no bogeys…we had, I call them scoring chances, where we had 110 to 50 yards-in eight times and we only got it up and down once for birdie,” Groom recalled. “So I kind of thought we could have gone lower. We sensed there was a low score out there and there was, so we were three back (but) in good shape.”
The tandem went four under for its second nine (Lake Quivira’s front side) during their alternate shot round and turned in a 67 for the second day. Their two-day total of 131 left them five off the lead entering the final round. But Groom hit it close twice early as they got it to three under through their front nine and moved steadily to the top of the leader board before falling just a shot short of winners Doug Kaup and Charlie Schorgl.
McDonald, a former USGA Public Links champion, birdied the par-5 seventh hole and Groom nearly holed his tee shot at the par-3 14th leading to another. McDonald would then roll in long birdie putts on the final two holes to get the team to the day’s low round of 65 and the clubhouse lead at 17-under 196.
“Steve started out by hitting it in there to about 2 feet at the first hole. So he started out beautifully and then he birdied the second hole,” said McDonald, 67.
Senior POY challengers square off
Groom got a first-hand look at his top Senior POY challenger when he, Newman and Norton were in the final grouping for the final round at September’s Senior Amateur Championship at Topeka Country Club. Norton, who won the first of his two Kansas Amateur Championships in 1980 on the very same Topeka Country Club course, used his hot putter and second-nine surges both days to hold off Newman and Groom and repeat as champion.
Norton, Newman and Groom each entered the second day of the 36-hole Senior Am tied at one-under after opening-round 70s. But a string of solid play by Newman, including his birdie at the par-3 fourth hole from about 6 feet, combined with Norton’s three-putt bogey at No. 3 and double bogey at the par-3 sixth when he missed the green, had the Wichita golfer leading the final group by three shots.
Newman, a MacDonald Park golfer who turned 50 earlier this year, settled for a second-round 71 and finished in solo second place at 141. Groom made long birdie putts at Nos. 1 and 9 during his second round, but suffered double bogey at No. 14 when his tee sheet caromed off the edge of a cart path and wedged behind a giant oak tree. He finished his up and down day at one-over-par 72 and claimed third at 142.
“I had a great time on a great golf course,” Newman said. “Watching Bryan and Steve play was really impressive.”
Groom made three of his four first-round birdies on the back nine en route to his one-under 70 the first day while getting himself in contention at yet another Senior Am.
“The first day you just try not to shoot yourself out of the tournament,” said Groom, owner of two top-5 finishes in previous Senior Ams. “You can’t win it the first day but you can certainly lose it the first day. I had the score of 70 in mind and didn’t think you could shoot any higher than that. You want to be in the last group so I accomplished all those goals.”
Groom and Newman also found themselves at the top of the Senior division leader board when the smoke cleared at August’s High Plains Amateur at Garden City’s Southwind. Each finished two trips around the challenging southwest Kansas track at two-under 140 and shared Senior division honors.
“We’ve known each other, but two weeks ago at Topeka Country Club was the first time we’d played together,” said Groom “We’d just never gotten paired together. But a really nice guy… a solid player who hits it straight and doesn’t make any mistakes. It looks like he has the whole game. I figured he was the guy to beat, he or Andy (Smith)…”
Groom, who won his third High Plains Senior division title in four appearances, overcame a double bogey at his final-round nemesis, the par-4 seventh hole at Southwind, by birdying his final hole of the championship to finish at even-par 71 for his second round. Groom hit a 126-yard pitching wedge to about 8 feet on No. 9 and sank the birdie putt to finish at two-under 140.
“I kind of sensed (the birdie) was for the win or to get in a playoff…that’s what I felt like,” said Groom, who had a second-place Senior division finish in his other HPA appearance and opened this year with a two-under 69 after making three birdies and shooting 32 on Southwind’s front nine. “I’m very comfortable (at Southwind). I’m kind of built for the heat. The heat doesn’t bother me. I’ve gotten a lot more comfortable with the golf course. My lines off the tees have gotten better and each time I play it I get a little more comfortable with it.”
Newman reversed Groom’s scores at the High Plains by shooting an even-par 71 the first day and then putting together a 33 on Southwind’s front nine the second day to post a 69.
“I was pretty impressed at Topeka with his length off the tee,” Newman said of his rival “He still gets some pretty good length on his tee ball. He’s a really good putter too. He reads the greens well and had really good speed. We both use the long putter…a little bit different method. But he’s a good putter and a good guy too.”
Groom picked up an additional 100 POY points by reaching the quarterfinals at this summer’s Kansas Amateur Match Play Championship at Hallbrook Country Club. Groom had rounds of 76 and 74 to grab the 57th seed for match play. In the first round he knocked off University of Nebraska golfer and No. 8 seed Scott Willman 1 up. He downed No. 25 Conrad Roberts 2 up in the second round and upended No. 9 Don Walsworth 3 and 1 in the third round. Eventual finalist and Kansas State golfer Kyle Smell ended Groom’s run with a 3 and 1 quarterfinal triumph.
Groom was a dominant entry in 2011 Senior Series events with three victories in five outings. The long-hitting Groom topped the Series field at Mayetta’s Firekeeper, and at Garden City’s Southwind and Buffalo Dunes the week of his HPA win.
“All three of those courses kind of suited my game,” said Groom, who tied for seventh at two other Senior Series events and placed eighth at the season-ending Championship at Falcon Lakes. “Firekeeper, though it was the first time, is fairly open and you could drive it a little crooked and get away with it. It was pretty long. Two of the three (wins) were on bentgrass which I like playing on.”
Groom, who said he benefited from an improved short game and the development of cut/hold shot to keep from going left this season, also tallied 30 Senior POY points with a fifth-place finish in the Senior Division at May’s Mid-Amateur Championship at Milburn Golf & Country Club in Overland Park.
