The turning point for Class AA state champion Thomas Greene of Lake Park came, he said, on his worst shot.
Leading by three strokes, he stepped to the tee on the 368-yard 12th hole at the Den at Fox Creek on Saturday and proceeded to drive his ball 30 yards straight into a pond on the right.
“Hitting in the water helped me,” Greene said. “It made me realize I was getting away with stuff before, just getting nervous and hitting bad shots.”
Greene managed a double-bogey 6 on the hole, finished with an even-par 72 and gained a playoff spot against Waterloo’s Mitchell Gregson.
The two players tied at 3-under 141, the best 36-hole score at the Den in Class AA history.
Greene and Gregson played the first three sudden-death holes in even par. Then Greene got a break on the fourth–the 405-yard 18th–when Gregson hit his second shot right of the green.
After Gregson made bogey, Greene was faced with a 4-footer for par and the title.
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“I was confident because I’d been making them all week. I hadn’t missed one from that range,” Greene said. He didn’t this time either.
The senior became Lake Park’s first state golf champion in the first playoff for the title since 1992.
Normal University scored a first of sorts as well. The Pioneers, two-time defending Class A champions, were bumped to Class AA this fall by the IHSA’s multiplier.
The school with an enrollment of 626, playing on a familiar course, edged nine-time champion New Trier 587-588, the first time a Class AA title has been won with an aggregate score under 600.
“That’s a tough way to lose,” said New Trier’s Wilson Bowen, who led the Trevians with an even-par 72 Saturday. “And 588 is a good number. We played well. So did U-High.”
The Pioneers, who trailed co-leaders Deerfield and New Trier by four shots going into Saturday, got a lift from Drew Miller’s 71 and Kyle English’s 72.
Defending Class AA champion Lake Forest took third. Deerfield was fourth.
Massac County’s Mason Jacobs set a record for all classes by shooting a 137 to win the Class A final at Prairie Vista. For the second year in a row Manteno’s Andrew Frame was runner-up. Wheaton Academy’s Josh Butterfield was sixth and led the Warriors to fifth behind champion Peoria Christian.
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