"IF YOU LIKE GOLF"
online golf column
by
Chris Dortch

August 1, 2009

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn.—It seems hard to believe, but 20 years have passed since The Honors Course first played host to the Tennessee Amateur.

Since that time, says no less an expert than former Tennessee Golf Association executive director Dick Horton, the grand old tournament has thrived, hosted by the state’s finest courses, which, following the lead of The Honors, have helped create an impressive rotation of venues both historic (Memphis Country Club, Chattanooga Golf and Country Club, Belle Meade Country Club) and modern (Golf Club of Tennessee, The Virginian, Black Creek).

“When The Honors accepted our tournament back in 1989, it almost immediately changed the whole landscape,” Horton recalls. “It had been becoming increasingly difficult to get certain clubs in the state to agree to host the tournament for five days. But The Honors invitation changed all that around. If the Amateur was good enough for The Honors, it was good enough for several of our other top courses.”

On the occasion of the third Tennessee Amateur to be played at The Honors on Aug. 4-7, it’s an appropriate time to look back at the first two tournaments played there and catch up with the players who won them.

1989—Rextar outlasts the field

As long as he lives, East Tennessee State golf coach Fred Warren won’t forget Yasunobu “Rex” Kuramoto. When Warren was hired away from Mike Holder’s staff at Oklahoma State in 1986 to revive a dormant ETSU program that had been inexplicably shut down three years earlier, the first player he signed was Kuramoto, a red-shirt freshman who was the 12^th man at OSU and in no danger of making the traveling squad in the foreseeable future.

Holder approached Warren about taking Kuramoto with him to Johnson City, but Kuramoto was reluctant at first.

“His first thought was he wanted to stay there,” Warren said. “But he thought about it some more. He eventually left a great program to come to a place where there was no program, so he had of faith in me. I’ve always appreciated that.”

The transfer worked well for Kuramoto—whose teammates dubbed him “Rex” because of his fondness for the old Rextar golf balls—and for ETSU. He earned honorable mention All-America honors in 1989 and 1990 and was the 1990 Southern Conference Player of the Year. And ETSU regained its prominence in the SoCon and nationally. Kuramoto was a pioneer recruit for Warren.

As the 1989 Tennessee Amateur approached, Kuramoto knew he wanted to play, but there was some question as to whether he would be eligible.

“It was a relatively controversial decision,” Horton said. “Fred Warren had gotten out ahead of the curve and asked if Rex would be eligible to play. We had always resisted calling college kids residents. But Rex met all the criteria—he had an apartment in Johnson City, was handicapped by [the TGA], had a Tennessee driver’s license. It was a very close vote by our board of directors, but what ended up swaying the decision was Rex [was eligible] to play in the U.S. Amateur.”

The Honors Course was a brutal host that week.

“In 1989, we used the [Tennessee Amateur] as a dry run for the U.S. Amateur [which The Honors hosted in 1991],” said David Stone, the only greens superintendent the course has ever had. “And so we wanted them to play it tough and pretty far back.”

The greens were extremely difficult, but they weren’t as fast as some people remember.

“I don’t think most of the players were used to playing greens that firm and fast,” Stone said. “People tell me they were the fastest greens they ever putted on, but the numbers don’t bear that out. But they were very firm.

“It was difficult if you missed a green, too. Back then, we had bluegrass rough around the greens, including right off the end. In the summertime, that stuff would get thin and you’d get poor lies.”

After two rounds, not many people were thinking about Kuramoto’s chances to win. He shot a 2-over-par 74 in the first round and trailed leader Pat Corey of Chattanooga by five shots. Corey fell off the leaderboard after a second-round 80, to be replaced by Jimmy Johnston, then playing for Georgia Tech, whose 74-72—146 was one stroke ahead of David Apperson and six in front of Kuramoto.

The third round was particularly brutal; of the top five players on the leaderboard, three of them—Johnston, Apperson and Corey—shot 77. Only Kuramoto’s ETSU teammate Chris Dibble, who led with a 54-hole total of 222, mastered the course in round three. He shot 70 and led by a shot over Johnston, whose 9 on the par-4 15^th left him shaking his head over what might have been.

Kuramoto’s shot 73 and was at 225 for the tournament, three shots back.

In the final round, Dibble dropped out fairly quickly after taking a triple-bogey 7 at No. 7. He would shoot 83 and finish in seventh place. Middle Tennessee State golfer Jeff Cook, who played high school golf at Chattanooga Notre Dame, found himself leading the pack on the back nine after Kuramoto took a triple-bogey at 15.

Kuramoto bounced back with an up-and-down par at the tricky par-3 16^th, but still trailed Cook by a shot.

The stroke that ultimately won the tournament for Kuramoto was a 25-foot birdie putt on the par-5 17^th that broke right to left about 10 feet. When he sank the putt, Kuramoto and Cook were tied.

After Cook skied his tee shot at 18, leading to a double-bogey, the tournament belonged to Kuramoto. He fed off his victory for a long time to come.

“Winning the state title gave me so much confidence,” Kuramoto said. “I won the Southern Conference the next year and the Japan Amateur.

“The [Honors] played so difficult. But I was surprised at how beautiful it was. And the conditioning was perfect. It’s the best course I have ever played.”

After college, Kuramoto played the European Tour and the Japan Tour. These days, he works for the Golf Channel, where he covers the European Tour and translates English commentary into Japanese.

“Working at the Golf Channel is quite an experience,” said Kuramoto, who ran into Warren, his old college coach, at the British Open at Turnberry last month. “It’s still nice to introduce myself as the Tennessee Amateur champion.”

1999—Long-hitting Nelson conquers the field

Chattanooga’s D.J. Nelson had long been known for his prodigious length off the tee, but it wasn’t until his senior year playing for the University of South Alabama that he realized he could really play.

“It was about halfway through my senior season,” Nelson recalls. “I realized I had a lot of shots other people don’t have, and that it was just a matter of hitting them when I really needed to.”

Nelson spent his college career searching for a validating big win that could give him momentum for a shot at pro golf, and he finally claimed it in the 1999 Tennessee Amateur. The Honors was a course perfectly suited for his game and a place with which he was very familiar.

“Growing up out at Creeks Bend [golf club], we used to be able to play The Honors in the junior match play championship at the end of the year. That was the goal, to get to play The Honors for two or three days. When you pulled through the gates, you just felt you were some place special.”

Just like it did in 1989, the Amateur championship resembled a college tournament. On the final day, Nelson, Georgia All-American Michael Morrison, yet another Chattanoogan, and Tennessee’s Andy Brimer all had their chances to win, along with Trey Lewis of Hendersonville.

Playing in the second to last group, Nelson birdied the first two holes to get to 4-under for the tournament. But Morrison did the same and stood at 5-under. The par-3 third hole proved tricky for both players; each bogeyed. But while Nelson was able to recover with birdies at No. 7 and 8, Morrison made double-bogey at No. 9. He turned in 38, to 33 for Nelson, who led at 5-under.

On the back nine, Nelson, Morrison, Brimer and Lewis all had their chances. But as it does in every tournament it hosts, The Honors extracted a heavy toll on two of the contenders. Brimer and Lewis both double-bogeyed the par-4 15^th, setting the stage for the two Chattanoogans to battle for the championship.

Nelson won the tournament at 15. Trying to steer clear of the water that guards the left side of the hole, Nelson pushed his drive right, into the trees. He had to pitch out sideways and was left with a 175-yard shot. He calmly knocked it to six feet and drained his par putt, and he closed out his round with three more pars.

Morrison had a 20-foot birdie at No. 18 to tie, but when it fell short, Nelson had won the most significant tournament of his career. He was the first Chattanoogan to win the state amateur since Gibby Gilbert III at Bluegrass Yacht and Country Club in 1988.

Nelson (285) and Morrison (286) were the only two players to finish under par.

Nelson would turn pro after the Amateur, with mixed results. He won $100,000 for out-driving John Daly in a contest sponsored by Pinnacle golf balls, and he came within two strokes of making it to the final round of the PGA Tour’s rugged Q school.

“I started going through some swing issues after that,” Nelson said. “I went through a period of six months where I couldn’t break 80. It went from going really good to really bad. It was three years before I could break par again.”

By that time, Nelson had given up on a playing career, but when former South Alabama teammate Heath Slocum offered a job as his caddy, Nelson had finally found his way to the PGA Tour. He’s been on Slocum’s bag for eight years, and the experience has been life changing. Nelson looks back fondly on the night in 2003 when tour player Chad Campbell’s wife set him up on a blind date.

“Actually, she set up me and Chad’s caddy with dates,” Nelson says, laughing. “And we both wound up getting married. She should open up a business.”

Nelson eventually moved with wife Lori to Fort Worth, Texas, where six months ago, they added baby Kinley to the family. Now that he’s married with children, life on the road isn’t quite as appealing to Nelson.

“It’s been a great gig,” Nelson said. “Heath is an unbelievable ball striker and we’ve done well. But it’s tough traveling with a wife and kid at home.”

Nelson plays just for fun these days, but says maturity has helped make him a better golfer. And time has helped him appreciate his victory in the 1999 Tennessee Amateur even more than he did 10 years ago. The Honors, which he hasn’t played since winning the amateur, will always be special to Nelson.

“To this day, even on the great courses I’ve caddied on like Augusta, I’ve never been on a course I like more than The Honors,” Nelson said. “I tell that to tour players all the time. And if they’re lucky enough to get to play the course, they will see what I mean.”

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