Kuntz hangs on to win amateur

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This article was published 23/07/2022 (1486 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Braxton Kuntz peered through the pine trees on the left side of the 14th hole, reeling from a stray tee shot and white-knuckling a three-stroke lead that had dwindled from seven at the start of the day.

The 18-year-old, fighting himself on a golf course in a competitive round for the first time in what seems like weeks, couldn’t make a full swing and hit his wedge shot thin from the pine needles, sending the ball screaming into the lip of a fairway bunker.

The crowd’s collective heart rate quickly increased at Elmhurst Golf and Country Club, as his nearest competitor, Marco Trstenjak, idled in the middle of the fairway with an opportunity to set himself up for an eagle and draw himself even closer to the grinding teenager.

Kuntz superbly hoisted his next shot to the green-side rough, from where he would navigate to eventually save bogey. Though Trstenjak parred, clawing his way within two strokes of the lead with four holes to play, the leader had mitigated the damage.

“Obviously my goal there was to hit driver down the fairway and hit it on and to make birdie, but… a lot of things could have gone wrong there,” Kuntz said after his round.

Kuntz gained a stroke at the 15th hole, thanks to another impressive display of his short game and a bogey by Trstenjak, allowing him some much-needed breathing room with three to go.

It was the final momentum shift in the round he needed to get him over the finish line.

“Yeah, I definitely say so. I was kind of falling off again. At that point, I bogeyed the hole before so to be able to a hit a nice chip shot (around the 15th green) was definitely a confidence booster.”

Kuntz cruised through the last three holes to put his wire-to-wire title on ice, capturing the 111th edition of the Manitoba men’s amateur championship on Saturday with a four-under total (209). It was his second-straight amateur championship and a fitting sequel to his win last weekend at St. Charles Country Club, where he claimed a consecutive Manitoba junior men’s championship.

He became the province’s first player to defend the men’s amateur championship and junior men’s championship in the same year.

“I didn’t really realize it was a record or anything until they told me so I guess that’s kind of cool to hear,” Kuntz said after his round on Saturday, adding “I’m happy that I’ve been able to perform really well in Golf Manitoba events. I look forward to them every year, I try to build my game up leading up to tournaments, so I think that’s why I’ve been able to have some success. It’s an honour to be able to win a couple of tournaments.”

“There’s so many good players that have come through this province for many years, so for me to be able to be the only one to go 4-0, it’s really special to know with all the talent that’s come out of here.”

Trstenjak, who started the final round trailing by seven strokes, made an admirable run at his second amateur championship, ultimately coming up two strokes short to finish two-under par in the tournament (211).

The host-course member had several moments throughout the final round where it appeared he was running downhill while Kuntz trudged through the course. One of those critical moments came at the turn, when he was two strokes back of the leader and sporting pep in his step.

“I thought at that moment, we got to 10 and I was like ‘I’m going to win this thing.’ I hit a good shot on 10 there, just couldn’t convert and he made that a little bit tougher. I gave it my all, all day and not everything went my way but it was good playing by Braxton all week,” he said.

“Just try to put some pressure on early, which honestly I didn’t really do, got off to a little bit of a slow start. Hole 6 he gave me that opening, Hole 7 I was able to save par, which was a big one and kept going with those two birdies. I think that really put the pressure on him but he bounced back well coming into the back nine there.”

Kuntz conceded he has grown a bit superstitious amid his unprecedented run. The Breezy Bend Country Club representative owns two pairs of golf shoes but decided to don his “comfortable” shoes given by his university golf team, Nicholls State University, at last week’s junior championships.

He went back to his now-lucky kicks this week.

“I wore these the past two tournaments and played pretty well, so stick with the same ones, I guess,” he said with a laugh.

Today might’ve been a little bit of a struggle, but I’m still glad that I was able to hang in there and finish off strong.”

Also coming from his historic win, Kuntz has received a sponsor’s exemption to the PGA Tour of Canada’s 2022 Manitoba Open at Southwood Country Club on Aug. 18-21.

jfreysam@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @jfreysam