By Tim Rogers, NOPGA Media
AKRON: One man had to work overtime. Another put in a full day’s work. A third got off a little early.
On a cold and windy day at Portage Country Club, the championships in the three divisions of the 51st Denny Shute Match Play Championships were enough to warm your heart. Terrific play, from exquisite shot-making to draining clutch putts can warm anyone’s heart, be they player or spectator.
The three matches were as characteristically different as a lie in the rough and were won in different fashions.
Five-time Section Player-of-the-Year Jim Troy needed 37 holes but thanks to a late rally he won his second Regular Division Shute Championship by defeating Randy Dietz, who has played through nagging knee issues all season and will require surgery next month but never once complained or used that as an excuse.
Gary Rusnak never trailed but had to go the distance before defeating Scott Pollack, 1-up, in their 18-hole Seniors final. The match was all square from the 10th hole on, until Rusnak went 1-up with a par on the 232-yard 16th hole. The match was even for 10 of the 18 holes with Rusnak taking a two-hole lead with a birdie on the 296-yard seventh, thanks to a marvelous chip to about three feet from just off the green.
Glenmoor Country Club Assistant Professional Kyle Buzaki, who appears to be one of the Section’s potential standouts, was one down after the first 18 to Chagrin Valley Country Club Assistant Professional Antonio Bodziony after the first 18 holes but quickly turned the tide to win the Associate Division with a 4-and-3 victory.
Troy was two-down after 32 holes in the 36-hole final and said he was mentally prepared to lose after the 14th hole. Instead, he staged a ferocious rally with birdies on three of the final four holes, including the 17th and 18th to force the one-hole playoff.
Troy, who last won this event in 2018, was two down when he stepped on the 15th tee and things looked ominous when Dietz – seeking a fifth Shute title – drove the green on the 314-yard dogleg and Troy left his tee shot short and about 40 yards wide left.
“I didn’t hit a good drive on 15 but I had a good lie in the rough,” said Troy, who had worked at the Dome until 8 p.m. after winning two matches on Tuesday. “Randy was lag-putting fantastically all day, so I knew he was going to birdie. Still, I felt I could get this up and down.”
He did. A well-placed chip shot rolled to within two feet and he matched Dietz’s two-putt birdie from about 30 feet.
With fatigue starting to creep into the game, both men hit great second shots on the demanding 232-yard 16th – Troy from the sand – and made par before things swung in Troy’s favor on the 377-yard 17th.
At that point Troy gave himself a pep talk.
“When we were on the tee at 17 I felt I was still in it,” he said “I just said, ‘Okay, let’s birdie the last two.’”
“Making that birdie on 17 gave me some mental energy.”
Dietz left his second shot short of the cup and two-putted for par. Troy hit his second to 10 feet and made a 10-foot downhill, right-to-left putt to cut the deficit to one hole.
“I read it right and got the right speed,” Troy said of his putt. “So, heading to 18 I felt I had the advantage and that gave me some mental energy.”
The 552-yard 18th, with sparse trees on the right and backyards on the left, can be a challenging finishing hole, especially in the heat of competition. Dietz salvaged par after hitting a tree off the tee and Troy hit his second into a greenside bunker. He blasted to six feet and made the birdie putt to even the match and send it to the first tee.
Both men found the middle of the fairway and Troy hit his second shot to about 15 feet behind the hole and two-putted for par. Dietz was wide left with his second and left his chip shot about eight feet short. The par putt failed to fall and Troy had his first Denny Shute title.
“Both of us played fairly average all day,” Troy said. “It was cold and damp and I thought the course played a lot different than the first two days. The greens were more firm and the ball skipped more so that changed a lot of what we wanted to do.”
Rusnak and Pollack have a work-play relationship as Rusnak is an instructor at Pollack’s 1899 Golf-Twinsburg facility.
In beating the boss Rusnak won his first Shute title but his third major event of the season in a match that was as well-played as it was even.
“I thought it was a well-played match,” he said. “I thought we both played well.”
Indeed. Rusnak had two birdies and one bogey and Pollack had two birdies and two bogeys. The bogey on 16 was the killer.
“That was a big swing, no doubt,” Rusnak said. “I hit it good all day, but I just couldn’t make anything in the 15 to 20 feet range. At all.”
When someone said it was hard to make big putts on the Portage greens, Rusnak said, “It must be hard to do on these greens because I haven’t found a way to do it. There are a lot of subtle breaks.”
It’s been a good summer for Rusnak, who will head to Florida next week to prepare for the National Senior Professional Championship at PGA Golf Club in Port St. Lucie, an event he qualified for by winning the Section’s event at Chagrin Valley in August.
“I am extremely pleased with the way I have played, especially the last two months,” he said. “At my age I am pleased with how I have played at the end of the year.”
Buzaki, making his first start in the Shute, took the lead for good with a birdie on the 525-yard second when he chipped to seven feet and made the putt.
“When we started the second 18 there was still a lot of golf to play,” he said.
Both reeled off four consecutive pars and both birdied the driveable seventh. Buzaki increased his lead to two holes by making a lengthy downhiller from behind the hole for birdie on the ninth after Bodziony suffered a violent lip-out on his birdie attempt from about 20 feet and made bogey.
“I thought nine and ten were the turning points,” said Buzaki, who had strong showings in the Assistants Championship at Oberlin and the Mitchell-Haskell Tour Championship. He also teamed with Bodziony to produce two points in leading their team to victory in the East/West Assistants Cup Matches at Sand Ridge.
Buzaki, 25, closed out the match with five pars, including a fortunate 15th hole when his drive up the right side hit a tree, only to ricochet onto the fairway. His approach rolled off the back edge but he got up-and-down to save par and win the match.
“This is awesome,” he said of his victory. “I have been building all year towards this event so it feels great. I felt pretty comfortable after the turn, and I didn’t want to give away any holes to Antonio by making bogeys.”
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