Stenzel, Youngquist Are Playoff Winners in Twin Cities Championships

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BLAINE --  Golf in the 21st Century is more of a power game than ever. Just ask Matthew Fitzpatrick, a recent convert to the Church of Swing Speed and Driving Distance who used his added length off the tee to win the U.S. Open last week.

But the longer hitters don't always win. That was certainly the case in the Twin Cities Junior Championships on Thursday at Victory Links, where Samantha Youngquist was spotting the 2019 champ, Madi Hicks, roughly 20 to 30 yards off the tee, yet she won the playoff between them for the Girls 16-18 Division crown. 

What's more, she won it with a birdie on a par 5, albeit a shortened one. 

Last year, Youngquist, who had just concluded her junior year at Chaska High School, finished second in this tournament with an 82. What a difference a year makes. On Tuesday, she and Hicks -- both left-handers -- shot matching 71's.

Youngquist, who had played Victory Links three times previously, bogeyed the first hole, birdied the second and then made three consecutive bogeys at the third, fourth and fifth. But the Minnesota State-Mankato recruit birdied the par-3 seventh and, even though she says that she hardly ever birdies par 5's, she birdied the 436-yard, par-5 12th and the 425-yard, par-5 16th.

She got to 1 under for the round with a birdie at the par-3 17th but bogeyed the 18th to finish at even par. 

Hicks was No. 4 in the State High School Rankings at the end of the regular season (the Chanhassen senior won 12 tournaments this spring), and that was where she finished in Class AAA at the state tournament last week. On Tuesday, she got off to a good start, with birdies at the second and third holes, but she bogeyed the other par 5 on the front nine, No. 5, and she doubled the 121-yard par-3 eighth, where she had a plugged lie in a bunker.

She was 2 over for the round after a bogey at the par-4 13th (376 yards), but she birdied each of the three remaining par-4's on the way to the clubhouse (Nos. 14, 15 and 18), and bogeyed the 17th. 

Hicks, who will be a freshman at North Dakota State this fall, was longer (250 yards plus) and straighter off the tee on the first hole of the playoff, the 399-yard first. She hit an 8-iron second shot onto the green, but she was still 40 feet away from the cup. Youngquist missed the green left with a 5-wood, and as a result, had a chip shot that wanted to run away from her. But she managed to keep it within 4 feet of the hole. Hicks had a par putt of almost exactly the same length, and they both made them.

"That's the first time I've ever parred that hole," Youngquist noted afterward. 

On the par-5 second, which was actually 2 yards shorter than the par-4 first (397 yards), it was Youngquist in the fairway and Hicks in the left rough. Hicks' tee shot took a bad bounce, farther left, and she had to stand on the cart path for her second shot, because there was no place for her to take relief (she would have had to drop her ball in a native area, with grass more than a foot high). Youngquist hit her 5-hybrid to the front fringe. Hicks hit a pitching wedge from a less-than-great lie and pushed it a few feet into the rough just short of the green.

It was a thick lie, and her chip shot came out hot, ending up 12 feet away. Youngquist's first putt left her with a tap-in for birdie. Hicks missed her birdie attempt, and the title belonged to Youngquist. 

There was one other playoff in the Twin Cities Junior Championships on Tuesday, in the Boys 16-18 Division, and that one, too, was won by the shorter hitter, Carter Stenzeld, a Chanhassen senior to be. 

He and Sam Hart of Eastview both shot 71's, just like the girls in the 16-18's. Neither of them got off to a great -- or even good -- start. Stenzel birdied the second hole (445 yards for the boys), but then bogeyed four of the next five holes, including three in a row at the third, fourth and fifth.

His back nine was an entirely different story, featuring three birdies in a row at the 13th, 14th and 15th holes. 

"The 13th hole was really tough today," Stenzel said. "I was 200 yards from the green after my tee shot, and I hit a 4-iron to about 7 feet and made the putt. That 4-iron shot was the thing that got me going. I pretty much stiffed my shots into the greens on the next two holes."

He missed a chance for four birdies in a row at the par-5 16th, and instead, wound up with a bogey there. (Stenzel, who hits his driver "not that far," meaning in the 275-to-285-yard range, says he doesn't hit a lot of par 5's in two.) But he made a 15-footer for birdie at the 394-yard, par-4 18th to finish at even par. 

Hart, like Stenzel, was 3 over after seven holes. He started his turn-around with a birdie at the par-3 eighth. A bogey at the 10th didn't exactly help his cause, but he reached the green at the 498-yard, par-5 12th in two and nearly made his 15-foot eagle putt. He made two more birdies, at the 14th and 18th to reserve his spot in the playoff.

The boys playoff started on the back nine, and the 358-yard 10th hole was playing into a 20-mile-per-hour wind. Hart hit a pentrating, low tee shot that went 270 yards. Stenzel's tee shot got up in the wind, and he had a 130-yard second shot, whcih ended up 40 feet from the cup. But he lagged his first putt to within a foot, and made a stress-free par.

Hart hit wedge from 90 yards to slightly inside 15 feet, but didn't come all that close with his birdie putt. 

The 11th was playing 172 yards, also into the wind. Hart hit another penetrating shot, this time with a 7-iron. You could say the shot was too good. It flew the green and came to rest in low area 10 yards behind the green. From there, he couldn't get any closer than 15 feet.

Stenzel hit an 8-iron on the 11th hole during his round, "and it came up way short."

So he was planning to hit a 6-iron there in the playoff -- until he saw Hart's shot -- and he switched to a 7. That was the right club He hit the tee shot to 30 feet, and this attempted birdie putt was even better than the one he hit at 10. It fell in, and he was the winner. 

It was a pretty good day for the Stenzel family. His younger brother Cameron shot 70 and finished third in the Boys 13-15 Division.

"That's what I shot last year," he pointed out, "and I finished fourth."

Luke Thompson won the division with the lowest score of the day, a 65. (The Boys 13-15's played Victory Links at just under 5,600 yards, which made it a little more than 1,000 yards shorter than it played for the 16-18's.) Jimm Abdo took second place, two strokes behind Thompson. 

The St. Louis Park soon-to-be freshman had a clean scorecard -- five birdies and no bogeys. HIs birdies on the front nine came at the second and third holes, and he made three in a row on the back nine (14-16), befored capping off his round with a birdie at the 18th. 

This was his lowest score -- so far -- but he couldn't really relax on his last couple of holes. 

"I knew there was that other score (the 67) out there," he said. "So I had to keep hitting good shots, if I wanted to win."

Payton Anderson, who will be an eighth-grader at Maple Grove in a couple of months, won the prize for worst start by a winner on Tuesdy. She made a triple-bogey 7 on the first hole.

Things got worse for her before they got better -- a bogey at the third, birdie at the fifth, followed by two more bogeys at the seventh and eighth. But she played her last 10 holes in 1 over, with bogeys at the 13th and 18th that were partly offset by a birdie at the 15th. When she was done, it added up to 77.

That was 2 better than the second-place tab of 79 by Carly Hamman, who capped off her eighth-grade golf season last week by helping Maple Grove finish second as a team in the AAA portion of the state tournament.  

She was second in this tournament last year, with an 83. It looked as if she might beat that by 10 or more this year when she started birdie-birdie. But in addition to her three birdies and eight pars on Tuesday, she tossed in four doubles and three bogeys. She concluded her round with three pars, however, from 16 through 18, and with that secured another runner-up finish. 


2022 Twin Cities Junior Championships

At Victory Links Golf Course

Par 71

Blaine

Final results 

Girls 16-18 Division

1. Samantha Youngquist           71 (won playoff -- par-birdie)

2. Maddie Hicks                         71

3. Lily Vincent                             77

T4. Amelia Morton                      82

T4. Waverly Yang                       82

6. Victoria Woytassek                 82

7. Emma Lai                               85

8. Taylor Ullen                             86

Boys 16-18 Division

1. Carter Stenzel                         71 (won playoff -- par-birdie)

2. Sam Hart                                 71

3. Luke Maas                              73

4. Cullen Ryan                            75

T5. Johnny McClees                   76

T5. Alex Venne                            76

T7. John Arvig                              77

T7. Blake Northagen                    77

T9. Daniel Gabrio                         78

T9. Jimmy Sukalski                       78

11. Noah Wallerich                        79

Girls 13-15 Division

1. Payton Anderson                       77

2. Carly Hamman                           79

3. Selena Oiao                                81

4. Abby Stendahl                             82

5. Ellie Sticha                                   85

6. Emerson Soderberg                     89

7. Joey Koth                                     90

Boys 13-15 Division 

1. Luke Thompson                           65

2. Jimmy Abdo                                 67

3. Cameron Stenzel                         70

T4. Owen Segna                              71

T4. Leo Vincelli                                 71

T6. Zac Beddor                                 74

T6. Preston Miller                             74

T8. Luke Myers                                75

T8. Viraj Taneja                                75

10. Jack Weber                                 78