2009 USGA Men's State Team Championship Fact Sheet

Sept. 23 – 25, 2009
The Country Club of St. Albans (Lewis and Clark Course)
St. Albans, Mo.

PAR AND YARDAGE – The Lewis and Clark Course at The Country Club of St. Albans will be set up at 7,150 yards and will play to a par of 35-36—71.

THE COUNTRY CLUB OF ST. ALBANS (LEWIS AND CLARK COURSE) – Tom Weiskopf and Jay Morrish designed the course, which opened in November 1992. A second course, Tavern Creek, opened in May 1998.

HOLE BY HOLE – 7,150 yards, par 35-36—71;

COURSE CHARACTERISTICS – Fairways will be cut to 1/2 of an inch, while the teeing grounds, putting-green approaches, aprons and collars around the green will be cut to 3/8 of an inch.

The intermediate cut (5-foot width) of rough will be mowed at 1¾ inches, with the primary rough cut to 3 to 3½ inches.

Greens will roll at 11 to 11½ feet on the USGA Stimpmeter.

COURSE RATING AND SLOPE – Based on the course setup for the championship, the Lewis and Clark USGA Course Rating® is 74.3. Its USGA Slope Rating® is 137.

SCHEDULE OF PLAY – The field of golfers will play 18 holes on each of three stroke-play rounds Sept. 23-25 (Wednesday-Friday). The two lowest scores from each three-person team constitute the team score for each round. The three-day total is the team’s score for the championship. Any first-place ties will be broken by the final-round score from the team’s non-scoring player. If the teams are still tied, the tiebreaker will be the second-round score from the team’s non-scoring player.

ADMISSION IS FREE – The general public is invited to attend the championship. Admission and parking are free of charge.

ELIGIBILITY – The championship is open to male amateur golfers as selected by each state golf association or administrative body. Collegiate players are not eligible to compete in this championship under NCAA rules.

2007 RESULTS – Trip Kuehne of Dallas carded a 5-under-par 67 in the final round to lead defending champion Texas to victory on the Fazio Course at The Club at Carlton Woods in The Woodlands, Texas. Texas finished with a 54-hole total of 422, one better than Georgia and four strokes ahead of Alabama and Virginia.

Texas also got an even-par 72 in the final round from Terrance Miskell of New Braunfels. Miskell was the lone holdover from the victorious 2005 Texas squad.

The third member of the squad was Jonathan Mathias of San Antonio, who opened the championship with a 69. Along with Kuehne’s 68, Texas enjoyed a three-stroke first-round lead over Alabama and Tennessee in the 3-count-2 format. A second-round 146 saw Texas relinquish its advantage to Alabama, which shot 141 behind a 70 from Will Swift and Talbert Griffin’s 71 to grab a two-stroke advantage over Texas.

But Texas came out focused in the final round, and Kuehne’s birdie at 17 and par at 18 sealed the title.

"It’s nice to go out and play well," said Kuehne, the runner-up to Tiger Woods at the 1994 U.S. Amateur, "and for once it’s nice to be a bride instead of a bridesmaid."

Two weeks later, Kuehne, a member of the victorious 2007 USA Walker Cup squad, would register his first USGA individual championship by claiming the U.S. Mid-Amateur title at Bandon Dunes Resort in Oregon.

CHAMPIONSHIP WEB SITE – Visit www.stateteam.org or www.usga.org for the latest news and results from the championship.

GROUPINGS AND STARTING TIMES – Groupings and starting times will be available just prior to the start of the championship and will be posted at www.stateteam.org.

MISSOURI AND THE USGA – This will be the 17th USGA championship held in the state of Missouri and the second in 2009, following the U.S. Women’s Amateur at Old Warson Country Club in St. Louis. This will be the first State Team Championship conducted in Missouri.

MISSOURI AND THE MEN’S STATE TEAM CHAMPIONSHIP – Missouri has sent a squad to all seven previous USGA Men’s State Team Championships, with its best finish a tie for seventh in 2003 at Charles River Country Club in Newton Centre, Mass. The team finished 30th at the 2007 competition at The Club at Carlton Woods in The Woodlands, Texas. Members of the 2009 Missouri team are Skip Berkmeyer, Brian Haskell and Darren Lundgren.

TEAMS ENTERED – Fifty-one teams – all 50 states and the District of Columbia – are entered in the Men’s State Team Championship. With Puerto Rico not fielding a team, it ended a streak of three consecutive Men’s State Team Championships where 52 teams had entered.

USGA CHAMPIONS/WALKER CUP TEAM MEMBERS – A total of four USGA champions and three past/present USA Walker Cup participants are in the field.

Alan Bratton (Oklahoma): 1995 Walker Cup

Tim Jackson (Tennessee): 1994 and 2001 U.S. Mid-Amateur; 1995 and 1999 Walker Cup
Nathan Smith (Pennsylvania): 2003 U.S. Mid-Amateur; 2009 Walker Cup
Steven Wilson (Mississippi): 2008 U.S. Mid-Amateur

STATE TEAM CHAMPIONS – Besides the individual USGA champions, Steve Galko was a member of the victorious 2005 Texas Men’s State Team title squad, Keith Decker played on the winning Virginia team in the inaugural event in 1995 and Tim Jackson helped Tennessee win the 2003 title.

PERFECT EIGHT – Counting the 2009 competition, Keith Decker (Virginia) and Frank Vana Jr. (Massachusetts) are the only two golfers to compete in all eight USGA Men’s State Team Championships.

OTHER NOTABLE PARTICIPANTS – In addition to the past USGA champions/Walker Cup participants, other notable golfers are in the 2009 field. These players includes former major-league pitcher Erik Hanson (Washington); Tim Mickelson (California), the brother of three-time major champion Phil Mickelson; and Hawaiian team member Lorens Chan, who at 14 became the youngest ever to qualify for the PGA Tour’s Sony Open this past January.

HISTORY – This is the eighth playing of the USGA Men’s State Team Championship. The competition, as well as the Women’s State Team Championship, grew out of the Association’s centennial anniversary in 1995. USGA officials believed that a new championship, one in which each state could be represented by amateur, non-college golfers, was an appropriate way to cap the USGA’s year-long birthday celebration. The competition proved to be such a success that the Association decided to continue conducting the championship biennially.

The format was fashioned after the biennial World Amateur Team Championship, which involves three-person teams in a 3-count-2 stroke-play format. State associations were given a variety of options in which to select its team members. The inaugural Men’s State Team Championship drew teams from all 50 states and Puerto Rico. The District of Columbia has also been added.

This year, for the first time since its inception, the Men’s State Team and Women’s State Team will be conducted in different states and at different playing dates. Starting in 2010, the Men’s State Team and Women’s State Team Championships will be played in alternate years, beginning with the Men in 2010 and followed by the Women in 2011.

Texas and Minnesota are the only two states to have won more than one Men’s State Team title.

PHOTO MEDIA SERVICE – The USGA will offer daily complimentary high-resolution photographs during the USGA Men’s State Team Championship (Wednesday-Friday) for news use only. For more information and to register, contact Ellie Kaiser of the USGA at ekaiser@usga.org. Her office phone number is (908) 234-2300, ext. 1294.

IMPORTANT PHONE NUMBERS – USGA Communications Department – (908) 234–2300

FOR MORE INFORMATION – Please contact David Shefter, USGA digital media staff writer, at (908) 566-5691 (cell) or via e-mail at dshefter@usga.org. He can also be reached prior to Sept. 21 at (908) 234-2300, ext. 1315.