Broce & Sowards Competed In 96th PGA Championship
*Updated with Jamie Broce interviews & Round 2 Scores* The Northern Ohio PGA would like to congratulate Jamie Broce, NOPGA Member and Bob Sowards, SOPGA Member on a job well done. Good playing this week! They both qualified to compete in the 96th PGA Championship at Valahlla Golf Club in Louisville, KY by finishing in the top 20 at the 47th PGA Professional National Championship in June.
Posted August 9, 2014 – Courtesy PGA of America/Randy Stutzman
Interview After Second Round with Jamie Broce – Ottawa Hills, Ohio
Second-Round 72
Q. Thoughts on your performance?
JAMIE BROCE: It was pretty good. I think I drove the ball as good as you could possibly drive it today. Had excellent chances. Hit a couple of fat irons from just the wet lies in the fairways a couple times and didn’t get the ball from some of the light fringe. It was tough chipping but I played really well. I gave it every heart and gut I had out there, so ended up missing the cut by three. It was a good effort.
Q. What were your feelings about the entire week and the experience?
JAMIE BROCE: Oh, you can’t compare it to anything I’ve ever been through before. Golf wise it was absolutely awesome and now I hope to try to get back again.
Q. How special was it for your family to get the VIP experience?
JAMIE BROCE: I think they had a lot of fun, being able to eat the food and come down by the range and see all the players. We got tons of autographs from all the guys. It was unreal.
Q. How about a recruiting tool; is this something you’ll be able to utilize going forward?
JAMIE BROCE: I hope so, especially with our guys, I had a lot of my own players out here, and I’ll be going over to the British Boys’ Junior in Scotland next week, so hopefully I’ll be making a few more connections and people will realize what we have in Toledo.
Posted August 8, 2014 – Courtesy PGA of America/Randy Stutzman
Interview with Jamie Broce – Ottawa Hills, Ohio
Opening-Round 74
Q. Fill us in on the great finish, first of all.
JAMIE BROCE: I played pretty good for 16 holes. I just my tee time was at 7:50, and I decided to start playing around 8:20 ish. So I started double double and was kind of worried about shooting 100 there. Hit a couple of good shots and happened to make a couple good putts, and the last hole was great to finish in front of everybody. I hit a nice drive and 6 iron in there to 18 feet or 20 feet and made one. So that was awesome.
Q. Was the 20 footer up on the plateau?
JAMIE BROCE: It was up on the correct tier, yeah.
Q. That gives you a shot at it?
JAMIE BROCE: Yeah, it does. It a left to righter, maybe broke about eight inches. Knocked it in.
Q. Talk about your first time experience.
JAMIE BROCE: You can’t really describe it. I was glad to go in the morning, because there weren’t as many people out here. You kind of get yourself centered a little bit, and figure out which way is up. Hit a good drive right down on 1, right out of the gate, and then had a wedge in the fairway, made 6 on the first hole.
It’s exciting once I started hitting shots and remembering what it felt like to compete a little bit.
Q. How were the nerves this morning and how long did it take you to finally just chisel down and play golf?
JAMIE BROCE: The nerves were high this morning. I was hitting it well on the range, which was nice. For the most part it’s still nervey out there. You are just trying to hit good shots. You are hitting irons into greens that are a little smaller than I’m used to with clubs that are a little bit longer. You have got to be precise.
A couple of times I missed greens and I wasn’t able to get them up and down. Like some of the PGA guys can just get those balls up and down a little easier. I hung in there today, so it was a lot of fun.
Q. What did you think of Valhalla, the way it since ’11, they have done quite a bit of work here on this golf course.
JAMIE BROCE: I didn’t know the changes beforehand but right now just an extremely fair golf course. You are going to find your best tee to green player having a chance to win at the end of the week. If you drive it well out here, you have got some short irons in your hand that you can take advantage of. The greens are receptive and they putt true.
7:50 am #1
37 37 74(+3)
Round 2
1:00 pm #10
35 37 72(146)
Round 3
MC
Round 4
MC
Bob Sowards tees off at 12:40 pm during Round 1 & 7:30 am during Round 2. Bob shot a First Round score of 35 40 75(+4). Sowards shot a Round 2 score of 75 and missed the cut.
