Cole Ponich (Randy Dodson/Fairways Media Photo)
The sun peeked above Mount Ogden just as Cole Ponich teed off second in the final match of the 126th Utah State Amateur Championship. A distant train horn sounded in the historic railroad town.
The scene suggested what was about to unfold Saturday at Ogden Golf & Country Club. This would be Ponich’s day in the spotlight and BYU teammate/opponent Cooper Jones heard the warning.
Ponich proceeded to win the first three holes, playing almost perfectly. He maintained a healthy lead throughout the scheduled 36-hole match, taking a 2-and-1 victory.
Not even Jones’ double eagle could derail Ponich.
A 4-iron shot from 241 yards on the par-5 No. 6 created a “2” that is believed to be a match-play first in the State Am. That single swing changed the whole dynamic of the afternoon round, even though Ponich never lost the 2-up lead he had taken after two holes in the morning.
“Just made sure to not let it faze me,” Ponich said, noting that he told his caddie, Andrew Sampson, “We’re going to have to play some golf now.”
Clark Jones, Cooper’s father/caddie, joked that they tried to convince Ponich to convert the competition to stroke play, resulting in a major turnaround. In match play, the double eagle was merely worth one hole. It sure was memorable, though. The only known previous double eagle in State Am history was delivered by Eldon Richter on No. 2 at Valley View GC in 2014, when that venue was used for one round of stroke play.
Standing in the No. 6 fairway, with his opponent in trouble, “I couldn’t really mess that hole up,” Jones said. “If anything today, that was pretty cool.”
Jones kept applying pressure, but Ponich fought off the challenge with an 18-foot birdie putt on the par-4 No. 14, while Jones missed from just inside that spot. The result was a 3-up lead, and Ponich made it to the finish line.
Until missing a par attempt with a chance to extend the match, losing “just never crossed my mind,” Jones said.
Ponich earned an exemption into the U.S. Amateur at Hazeltine Golf Club in Minnesota next month. He also fulfilled some of the high expectations that have accompanied him ever since he visited the club and won the 10-under division of the Utah Junior Golf Association’s annual match-play event in 2010. He joins two-time winner Daniel Summerhays as a State Am champion from Davis High School.
Relaying what he had told himself Friday night, Ponich said, “I came to terms with, ‘Hey, it’s been a great week. You’ve taken a lot of confidence out of this. You’ve hit a ton of great shots under pressure. No matter what happens, it doesn’t change anything.’ ”
Having said that, Ponich was thrilled to win what he knew would be his final State Am appearance. He intends to turn pro next summer, following a sixth year of eligibility in BYU’s golf program. That opportunity is due to a combination of the pandemic and the injuries that knocked him off course. And that’s why the son of former Utah State quarterback Tom Ponich shared an emotional hug with his mother, Becky.
“She knows what I’ve gone through the last year or two,” Cole Ponich said. “It’s tough to go from being one of the better juniors in the country to a couple years of struggling, having some injuries.”
His back “got worse and worse to the point where it wasn’t fun for me to practice,” he said. “I lost a lot of motivation.”
But he recovered sufficiently to enter State Am qualifying at Sky Mountain GC in Hurricane, earn the No. 2 seed for match play in Ogden and win six matches. He needed 22 holes to outlast Caleb Norton in the first round, topped Dan Horner in the UGA veteran’s 50th career match and took everything Jones threw at him Saturday.
Clark Jones was hoping to become the first Utahn to caddy two sons to State Am titles, after Zac won at Soldier Hollow Golf Course in 2022. So the Hiskeys of Idaho remain the only family with sibling champions: Sonny in 1955 in Salt Lake City, Jimmy in Provo in ‘55 and Babe in Ogden in ‘62.
One way or another, BYU’s golf program was going to produce a sixth State Am winner in the past decade. Ponich followed Jordan Rodgers, Patrick Fishburn, Kelton Hirsch, Zac Jones and Simon Kwon, who was about to join the Cougars when he won last summer.
For the third straight year, the winner was 5 up at some point in the morning round and 4 up at the break. Zac Jones and Kwon went on to convincing wins. Cooper Jones didn’t allow that to happen, in the latest episode.
Ponich was credited with a stroke-play 63 in the morning, with six birdies, an eagle and a bogey. Jones, who won two holes, posted an unofficial 67 (occasionally picking up his marker after Ponich’s birdies).
Ponich joined a list of State Amateur champions in Ogden that started with the legendary George Von Elm in 1920.
The 127th State Amateur will be staged at Logan Country Club, with Eagle Mountain GC in Brigham City used for one round of stroke play, as announced by Colin Clawson, the UGA’s Director, Championships & Golf Operations.
ABOUT THE Utah State Amateur
Those who qualify, along with the exempt players,
will advance to a
36-hole qualifying. The low 64 qualifiers will advance
into match play.
There will be one round of match play on
Wednesday, two rounds of
match play on Thursday and Friday, and a 36-hole
championship
match on Saturday.
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