Golden Isles Invitational title up for grabs today

Sat, Jul 5, 2008

By KEVIN PRICE

The Brunswick News

With the Golden Isles Invitational reduced to 36 holes this year, there figured to be a crowded leaderboard heading into the second and final today at the Brunswick Country Club.

But, it might even be a little more jam-packed than most anyone thought it might be as the top 30 players in the championship flight are all within seven shots of the lead with 16 of those being within five shots of leader Danny Nelson, who opened with a 7-under-par 65 for a one-shot lead after Friday's first round.

"In two-day tournaments, you basically have to really start from the get-go and keep it up," said Nelson, who made eight birdies and a bogey in his first round. "I'm usually better in three-day tournaments. I'm not usually a lights-out guy. I'm more of a consistent player."

The Golden Isles is usually a three-day event. But with the present course still being relatively new, club officials elected to shorten the tournament and limit the size of the field to 135 players to eliminate some of the traffic on the course. This is the first Golden Isles since 2006. There wasn't a tournament last summer as the country club was closed for renovations. The new course, designed by St. Simons Island-based Love Golf Design, opened in November after the year-long renovation project to return the course to the original look that renowned architect Donald Ross created in the 1930s.

In Friday's first round, the course might have been new, but the scores were about as low as they usually are with the entire field playing from the members tees and the new layout not playing as fast as it will in the future with the course still in the maturing stages.

"The course is pretty much out there in front of you. There aren't any secrets," said Nelson, who was playing the new course for the first time. "There was a lot of green-light golf out there today."

Nelson, a member of the Savannah Golf Club and winner of multiple city amateur championships in Savannah, played the first nine holes in 3-under and finished the back with four birdies including one on the finishing hole that was lengthened during the redesign to make for a stronger finish.

"I just hit my irons well and hit it fairly close (to the hole)," Nelson said. "I had a lot of makeable birdie chances."

Nelson will carry just a one-shot cushion into today's second round, which will include the championship flight playing from the back tees with the first pairing in the flight teeing off at 12:15 p.m. and the final group going off at 1:36 this afternoon.

The leader's nearest challengers will be Nate Balanis of Valdosta, Jack Hall of Sea Island and Trey Freeman of Athens. All three players shot 66 in the opening round.

Hall, who is actually friends with Nelson and was playing in the same group with the leader, made seven birdies in his round against a bogey. "We're four-ball partners and know each other's games pretty well," said Hall, a former All-SEC player at Georgia who has won the last two club championship tournaments at Sea Island's Ocean Forest Golf Club. "We're able to club off of each other a lot. Both of us played solid today and hit it close to the hole."

Freeman, a pharmacist from Athens who owns several club titles at Jennings Mills Country Club, played a bogey-free round that included six birdies with three in succession in the middle of his back nine.

"I hit 16 greens and had 29 putts," said Freeman, whose 16-year-old son Dylan also made the championship flight with a 71. "I just didn't make a lot of mistakes."

Freeman will be in today's next-to-last group with Alma's Berry Martin and Brunswick's Ron Foulke. Both players shot 67 and will start the day two shots off the lead. Foulke, a longtime country club member and a three-handicapper, made six birdies en route to his best-ever score in the tournament while playing with sons David and Derek Foulke, who shot 71 and 73, respectively.

"I hit it down the middle and made putts," said Foulke, who holed putts of 20- and 30-feet to bolster his score.

The closest former champion to the lead is 2002 winner Peter Brennan of Savannah, who shot 68 on Friday and will start today's round just three off the lead along with Hal Johnson.

Local players Scot Drader, Corey Murrell and Wes Spannuth all opened with a 69.

Seventeen other players broke par in the first round and will be within at least six shots of the lead starting today's final round.

Bill Ploeger, the 11-time tournamnt winner from Columbus, shot 73 in his first round and is not among the 30 players in the championship flight for today's final round.

* Scores, 8B

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