Confidence is a big thing in golf. Just ask any golfer, from hack to pro, if you have positive thoughts and “know” you can hit the shot, it makes a world of difference.
Paul Apyan was about to give up golf last year before coming to the TrueNorth Greater Cedar Rapids Open, presented by Granite City Food & Brewery.
That changed for the Chattanooga, Tennessee, resident when he walked away from Hunters Ridge Golf Course with the $22,000 first-place prize check.
“Winning meant I was able to continue chasing my dream of playing golf on the PGA Tour,” said Apyan in a recent email. “As mentioned last year, I had a pretty rough stretch … where I was right on the line of playing well, but continued to miss cuts by one or two shots.
“Winning gave me the confidence after many hours of practice and not seeing much on the results side.”
Apyan led wire-to-wire last year and will defend his title this year when the 18th annual TrueNorth GCRO gets underway at Hunters Ridge. The 54-hole tournament begins Thursday with tee times starting at 7 a.m. The second round is Friday and after a cut to the top 50 and ties, the third and final round will be played Saturday, with the championship ceremonies anticipated around 4:30 p.m.
Apyan gained more confidence this past weekend when he finished tied for fourth at the prestigious Waterloo Open, the largest and oldest golf tournament in Iowa. Apyan actually led tournament heading into the final round after a second-round 11-under 61.
“It’s always a confidence booster playing good golf,” said Apyan.
Apyan is coming off a good season in the first half of the PGA Tour’s Latinoamerica developmental tour. He made six cuts in seven events with three top 10s and a second in the tour’s qualifier. In Mazatlan Open, he shot a course-record 10-under par 62 and finished tied for fourth. He made over $34,000.
Apyan, very likeable both to those he first meets and those who play against him, has a 14-month-old son, Paul Cameron (he goes by Cam) with wife Leah, a good golfer in her own right who last year spurred her husband on to keep trying.
“It is really hard being on the road away from them,” said Apyan, “but no matter what seeing them on FaceTime at the end of the day always makes things more comfortable.
“An example would be my eagle-birdie-birdie-birdie finish in the Stella Artois Guatemalan Open where I captured my first top five on the Latinoamerica. That night my son took his first steps as I was sitting in a hotel in another country.
“Missing out on those parts of life so I can possibly provide for him in the future is part of what makes this job really difficult at times,” he continued. “I wouldn’t trade it for the world and I’m extremely lucky to have a family who supports me 100 percent whether I’m at home or on the road.”
Apyan will have plenty of stiff competition this week in his title defense. Friend Mark Blakefield (Maysville, Kentucky) blew away the GCRO field by nine strokes in winning the 2014 title. Between the two, no other player has led the tournament the last two years. Blakefield, in the last threesome with Apyan last year, finished T7.
Seth Fair (Brownsburg, Indiana), who won the PGA Tour Latinoamerica Qualifying tournament in January in Columbia, just finished T2 at Waterloo and has a history at the GCRO. Fair was second in 2012 and T9 a year ago to go along with a T22 in 2013.
Eric Cole (Tequesta, Florida), who tools around with 2010 GCRO runner-up Greg O’Mahony, tied Fair at Waterloo at 20-under-par. He is playing well and was T21 last year at Hunters Ridge, T11 in 2014, a T14 in 2012 and T7 in 2011. He knows the course.
Eric Steger (Fishers, Indiana) has shown he’s very capable of playing well here. He finished a solo sixth last year and T8 in 2012. He played with Apyan in the Latinoamerica and posted three top 10s including a second and a third. He made the cut in seven of the eight events he played and made over $36,000 and finished eighth on the money list.
Former University of Iowa standout Steven Ihm (Peosta, Iowa) also figures to be a contender. He finished T13 at Waterloo and returns to the GCRO after finishing T9 last year and T24 in his first stop here in 2014.
Also returning is Joseph Juszczyk (Dearborn Heights, Michigan), who has played in one PGA Tour event and four Web.com Tour events in his career. In his first GCRO start in 2012, he tied for 38th. Since then he has climbed the ladder with a T10 in 2013, T7 in 2014 and a solo fifth last year. The Wayne State University grad bears watching.
First-time GCRO player and University of Maryland grad Sean Bosdosh (Clarksburg, Maryland) is coming off an impressive T6 at Waterloo and should be watched. Matt Miller (Bloomington, Illinois) has two Top 25s here and local favorite Bill Hoefle, the head golf coach at Linn-Mar High School who has contended, also figure to be in the mix.
Don Wojciechowski resides in the Hunters Ridge Golf Course community and plays the course on a regular basis. He’s a former sports editor for a suburban Chicago daily newspaper and an avid golf fan.