Sajevic Battles to Win Fourth Nebraska Senior Amateur Title
Last year, John Sajevic of Fremont dominated the field by nine strokes to win the Senior Amateur but had to work a little harder to win his victory this year at the 21st Nebraska Senior Amateur Championship at Wilderness Ridge Golf Club in Lincoln June 4.
Sajevic saw his final round lead disappear and had to fight back to claim his record fourth title. This victory also gave him a record 10th NGA men’s title, breaking a tie with Knox Jones of Lincoln and Alex Schaake of Omaha, who both have nine. Sajevic shot a final round 74 (+3) to finish with a 146 (+4) total and win by one stroke.
After shooting 72 (+1) the first round in difficult conditions, Sajevic entered the final round with a three stroke lead. His jump quickly disappeared though, as he bogeyed the first hole and Norfolk’s Todd Pospisil birdied Nos. 3 and 4. Sajevic answered with a birdie of his own on the 164-yard, par-3 fourth hole, nearly holing his tee shot and tapping in from less than a foot away. However, with another bogey on No. 5, Sajevic tied the two for the lead and Pospisil’s birdie on the par-5 sixth put him into the lead.
“You just have to play your game,” Sajevic said. “You start to think about shots that you can give away and you give them away.”
Pospisil made the turn in 33 (-3), still holding the lead. He went to double-bogey No. 10, followed by bogeys on the next two holes. He bounced back with a birdie on No. 13, but two more bogeys followed. Pospisil had a chance down the last stretch, but a back-nine 42 (+7) and another 75 (+4) left him four strokes out at 150 (+8).
“I just always try to stay focused and play each shot one at a time, play each hole one at a time and it’ll work out,” Sajevic said.
Both players performed for a crowd the closing hole, a difficult par-4, starting with both men hitting good drives. Muller’s second shot finished short on the front of the green, while Sajevic’s rolled just off the back onto the fringe. Muller rolled his past the hole and had roughly five feet left for par and knocked it down. Sajevic left his birdie attempt short and had for feet for his fourth title. He buried the putt to add the 2019 title to his 2008, 2016 and 2018 wins.
“You can’t control what everybody else is doing, you just control what you’re doing,” Sajevic said.
Muller finished runner-up with a 147 (+5) total after a final round 72 (+1), matching Sajevic for the low round of the championship. Pospisil finished in a three-way tie for third with Lincoln’s Bill Spangler and Omaha’s Kirby Smith. Those three also tied for first in the 50-57 Age Division.
Brady Bailey of Lincoln and two-time champion Steve Samuelson of Waterloo finished tied for sixth at 152 (+10). Rounding out the top 10 was the 2018 Nebraska Senior Match Play Champion Matt Haynes of Papillion, Ed Wyatt of Lincoln and John Fecht of Lincoln, who all tied for eighth at 153 (+11).
Sajevic also won the 58-64 Age Division for the fourth time in five years, while Omaha’s Steve Redlin was the 65+ Age Division Winner with a 149 (+7) total.
U.S. Open Qualifying
Local
Three players advanced out of Local Qualifying for the 2019 U.S. Open Championship at Champions Run in Omaha on May 9.
Taking first in the qualifier was Omaha’s Carson Schaake, 2014 Nebraska Amateur Golfer of the Year, who earned medalist honors with his round of 69 (-3). Schaake, now a professional playing on the mini-tours, started off on the right foot with birdies on Nos. 1 and 2. He then achieved an eagle on No. 4 to get 4-under through four holes. Cooling off a bit, Schaake made it through the difficult back nine in even-par, which included birdies on Nos. 11 and 17, to shoot the low round of the day by one stroke.
Behind Shaake was Rylee Reinertson of Gibbon, the 2015 and 2016 Nebraska Amateur Golfer of the Year who has conditional status on the Mackenzie Tour (PGA Tour Canada). Reinertson started with seven straight pars to begin his round, then made a bogey on the par-3 eight but birdied the next three holes to get to 2-under. He then made seven straight pars to close out his round of 70 (-2). Reinertson was the only golfer to break par on the back nine with his 34 (-2).
Coming in third was recently turned professional Philip Maschka of Omaha. He completed his round with a 73 (+1). Finishing early, Maschka watched the back nine take its toll on the other golfers, with them falling behind him by the end of round. All three of Maschka’s birdies were on the front nine.
Amateur golfers, Omaha’s Alex Schaake, a three-time Nebraska Amateur Champion, and Lincoln’s Jay Moore, each fell one stroke short, shooting 74 (+2). To decide the first and second alternate, they went to a playoff, with Schaake winning to get first alternate position and Moore being second.
Sectionals
In Sectional Qualifying, a couple professionals joined the three qualifiers. PGA Tour member Nate Lashley, formerly of Scottsbluff, was the only representative at RattleSnake Point Golf Club in Ontario, Canada. He was also the lone man of the five Nebraskans that competed, to earn a spot in the U.S. Open. His first round, Lashley matched his birdies and bogeys with three a piece shooting even-par 72. In the second round, he went on to sink three birdies on the front and one birdie on the back to give him a score of 68 (-4), tying him for third with two others. With just four spots available at the Ontario Sectional, Lashley went into a 3-for-2 playoff with fellow PGA Tour members Alex Prugh of Spokane, Washington and Harris English of Sea Island, Georgia. Lashley and Prugh claimed the two spots through the playoff. Lashley will tee it up June 13-16 in California at Pebble Beach, and he'll be the first Nebraskan to do so since McCook's Brandon Crick played in the 2013 U.S. Open at Merion Golf Club.
Rylee Reinertson played in an earlier Sectional Qualifier on May 20 at Bent Tree Country Club and Northwood Club in Texas. He had a promising start with a first round 70 (-1) on Bent Tree, but fell out of contention with a second round 76 (+6) on Northwood. He finished at 146 (+5), nine strokes out of a playoff for the final spot.
The rest of the Nebraskans competed at Springfield Country Club in Ohio. The trio consisted of local qualifiers Carson Schaake and Philip Maschka, and PGA professional Ryan Vermeer. Vermeer began his tournament with a double bogey on No. 1 but made up for it with five birdies and finished with a score of 69 (-1) for his first round. He went on to shoot even-par 70 for the second round after two bogey and two birdies. Vermeer finished T12, three strokes out of a playoff for the final spot.
With three birdies, three bogeys, and a double bogey on No. 18, Schaake finished his first round with a 72 (+2). Improving his score, he shot even-par 70 his second round, but fell short to the competition at 2-over. As for Maschka, he finished at 11-over for the day, shooting rounds of 81 (+11) and 70 (E).
Sajevics Showing at U.S. Four Ball
Father-son duo John Sajevic of Fremont and Andrew Sajevic of Omaha found out just a couple weeks before the 2019 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Bandon, Oregon that they were in, and they made the most of it.
The Sajevics were the first alternates from the Sectional Qualifier at ArborLinks in Nebraska City last fall, and weren't planning on competing until they received the call from the USGA that a spot had opened up, and it was theirs.
The Sajevics were T2 after the first round of Stroke Play Qualifying with a round of 62 (-8), which matched the championship scoring record. They birdied five holes on the front putting them at 32 (-4) before making four birdies on the back nine. In the second round, the pair shot a 70 (-1) with birdies on Nos. 4 and 3 giving them a 32 (-2) score on the front, but bogeys on Nos. 11 and 16 put them at a score of 38 (+1) for the back. They were T11 after Stroke Play and advanced to the match play bracket as the No. 15 seed.
In the Round of 32, the Sajevics had the lead early, but eventually fell 2 and 1. They lost to the team of Cullen Brasfield of La Quinta, CA and Tyler Moore of Escondido, CA.