Voges’ Defense of Amateur Comes to Disastrous End

Last summer, Mitch Voges turned in the most spectacular week of his long golfing life, cracking long and straight drives, pounding long irons to the pins and knocking down putt after putt as he danced his way to the U.S. Amateur championship, wrapping up his marvelous waltz amid the pines of Ooltewah, Tenn., with a face smeared in tears and his arms wrapped around his young son and caddie, Christian.

“It was,” Voges said at the time, “the best moment of my life.”

Wednesday probably didn’t bring Voges the worst moment of his life. He doesn’t allow golf to penetrate his soul deeply enough for that.

But it did make the bottom 10.

The Simi Valley resident’s bid to repeat as U.S. Amateur champion came to an agonizing and confusing end on the tough Muirfield Village Golf Club course. His round of 89 was a stunning 17 strokes over par and sent him packing, eliminated from the tournament with a two-day total of 162, a whopping 15 strokes above the cut. The top 64 golfers from the starting field of 312 advanced to the start of match play today.

Making the grade were David Berganio Jr. of Sylmar, the 1991 U.S. Public Links champion, and Charlie Wi of Thousand Oaks, the 1990 California Amateur champion. Missing the cut were Jason Gore of Valencia, Yukinori Miyashita of Simi Valley and Don Baker of Canoga Park.

Voges’ problems began at the start of Wednesday’s round with a double bogey on No. 10, his first hole of the day. He bogeyed 15 and 16 but got one stroke back with a chip-in for a birdie on the 17th.

Then came disaster.

He launched his tee shot on No. 18, a 431-yard, par four, left of the fairway, toward a creek. Voges believed the ball went into the creek and prepared to drop a ball and hit his third shot. But a marshal working the hole said he never saw the ball and ordered Voges to return to the tee and hit a second drive.

He did. Into the creek.

This time he took the drop and the penalty but was ordered by the marshals to hit two balls from that spot and they would rule later which ball would count. A ball in a water hazard results in a one-stroke penalty whereas a lost ball is a two-stroke penalty. A bewildered Voges did as ordered and finished the hole by putting out both balls. He had scored a double-bogey six with one ball and a five-over-par nine with the other and left the green not knowing which score he would be given.

Five holes later, he was told his first ball off the tee at No. 18 had been ruled a lost ball and he was forced to accept the nine on the hole.

For Voges, 42, his confidence ebbing, it was a death stroke. He finished his final nine holes with a nine-over-par 45 and was gone from the tournament. “I was having a lot of trouble anyway,” Voges said. “And then I went from three-over at 17 to eight-over starting the second nine. The problem at 18 really unnerved me and I lost all my concentration.”

Despite the odd ruling, Voges kept his composure. “I didn’t want to rant and rave about it,” Voges said. “I don’t place blame on anybody. This past year has been incredible. I’ve experienced some of the highest highs, but this is one of the unbelievable lows.”

Voges said it was time, finally, to put the golf clubs in the closet for a while. “It might be time for me to pull a Bobby Fischer (a la the chess master) and disappear,” he said.

Things went smoother for Berganio and Wi.

Berganio, a senior at Arizona, shot an even-par 72 at Muirfield for a two-day score of 143, four shots under the cut.

Wi, a junior at Nevada, barely made the match-play field. He shot a 73 at Muirfield for a 147 total, which was the cut mark. Gore finished with a two-day score of 150, followed by Miyashita (153) and Baker (158).