WAYZATA -- Spring Hill is probably the most spectacular looking golf course in the Twin Cities. It's also one of the most visually intimidating. There are several tees set 50, 60 and 70 feet above the fairways, and those elevated tees have the effect of drawing a player's eyes away from the intended targets -- that is, the fairways -- and toward all the places he doesn't want to go, such as the trees, the waste areas and the water hazards that frame the views.
Every year, during the Gopher Invitational, the course draws rave reviews from the college players who make up the field. One Notre Dame player said a couple of years ago that the par-72, 7,050-yard layout designed by Tom Fazio was comparable to Augusta National (which the Irish had played not too long before), both as a test of golf and as a place where you can find an abundance of remarkable looking scenery.
Spring Hill can take some getting used to, however. There are lots of bogeys, doubles, triples and even worse just waiting out there for the unwary and the wayward.
"This is my fourth year playing here," noted Ben Pisani, a senior on the University of Minnesota team, "and I tend to play the course better the more I play it. After you've played it a few times, you know where to go and where not to, and yourealize that most of the the fairways are bigger than they appear from the tees. If you can just get the ball into the fairways, you can make some birdies."
Pisani had proved his point during the first two rounds of this year's Gopher Invitational. In the opening round, he broke the course record with a bogeyless, 7-under-par 65, and he came back from a double bogey 7 early in the second round to shoot a 71.
His 36-hole total of 136 put him in the lead by a stroke over SMU's Kelly Kraft, who opened with a 67 and followed it with a 70.
From there, it was another five shots back to third joint tenants in third place, Jordan Elsen of Wisconsin and Corey Nagy of the University of North Carolina-Charlotte. Elsen was steady, shooting 72 in the morning and 70 in the afternoon on his way to 142.
Nagy had a little more adventure in his day. He opened with 76 and came back with a score that a few hours earlier would have tied the course record, a 66.
The old tournament record was held by former Gopher Antti Ahokas, who is now on the European Tour. He shot a 66 in 2005. Timmy Herron, the PGA Tour player (and four-time winner), who is from Wayzata, also shot a 66, but not in a tournament.
Kraft's efforts helped SMU to take sole possession of first place in the team competition. The Mustangs posted a four-man total (out of five players) of 285 (3 under) in the first round, and a 290 in the second, for an overall 575.
Minnesota and Arkansas, the 2009 NCAA runner-up (to Texas A&M), are tied for second place at 577 going into Monday's final round. The Gophers arrived at that number by putting together a 292 in the morning and a 285 in the afternoon.
Pisani, who is from Brisbane, Australia, spent the summer here, but he didn't play much golf.
"I was taking classes," he explained.
The Gopher Invitational is the first tournament of the 2009-10 college season for Minnesota, and it's only the third tournament that Pisani has played in since the Gophers' '08-09 season ended at the NCAA Regional. But he certainly didn't show any rust
"I hit it great all day," he said. "I was hitting fairways, which I have trouble doing sometimes, and I had a lot of wedges into greens, which plays into my strengths. If I have a wedge in my hand, I'm in good shape."
Both rounds featured shotgun starts, but Pisani began them at No. 1. He made his first birdie in the first round at No. 3, and quickly added three more at the fifth, sixth and seventh holes. The one at No. 7 came by virtue of a curling, 20-foot putt, which was the longest putt that Pisani made in his record-setting round.
"It was a bender," he said. "Those are nice to make."
He birdied the 10th, as he would do again in the afternoon and got to 6 under with a birdie at the daunting, 455-yard 15th. The green at the 15th is split into two tiers, and the hole location on Sunday was on the right, about 15 feet onto the lower tier. Putting from the top tier was such a precarious proposition that one player, Lamar's Hugues Joannes (76-68--144), used a 60-degree wedge from the green, about a foot onto the top tier, maybe 25 feet from the hole, during the second round. He pitched the ball -- without taking a divot -- to the flat part of the green and nearly holed the shot, ending up about 18 inches from the cup, for an easy par.
Pisani made his last birdie of Round 1 at the 508-yard, par-5 16th. After a 300-yard drive from a tee that's elevated at least 60 feet, he knocked his second shot onto the green, which is also elevated about 60 feet, and two-putted for the birdie.
The first round took 5 hours, 15 minutes, which is pretty quick by the standards of college golf, and the players ate their lunches on the run. They don't stop to eat. Instead, they are handed a box lunch after they finish their 18th hole, and off they go once again. It's probably like being on a forced march in the Army.
Pisani encountered his first resistance of the day at No. 3, the 540-yard par-5 that he had birdied in the morning. In the afternoon, he made a 7. But just as he had in the morning, he birdied the fifth (570 yards, par-5) and sixth (343, par-4) to get back to even for the round.
He also birdied the 340-yard, par-4 10th again, and his birdie at the 16th was essentially a carbon copy of the birdie he had made there five hours before. His only bogey of the day came at the 155-yard, par-3 17th, where he three-putted from 30 feet.
"I under-read the first putt," he lamented, "and then I under-read the second one, too."
Even though Pisani was six shots higher in the second round than he was in the first, the Minnesota team was seven shots lower. Robert Bell had the low score for the Gophers in the afternoon, a 70 that put him at 145 for the day, and tied him for 12th.
That was a pretty impressive performance for the former state high school champion from Pierz, who sat out last year as a redshirt and was playing in his first college tournament on Sunday.
Was he surprised to have played so well on a course has a habit of beating up on newcomers?
"Not really," he said. "I caddie here. So I know a little bit about what to avoid."
Like Pisani, he said the main thing to avoid is the rough, and toward that end he limited his use of the driver.
"I hit my driver seven times today," he pointed out. "You can still hit wedge to a lot of the greens, even without the driver. And you don't need a driver on the par-5's (other than 16), because you can't reach the greens in two anyway, but you can still make a birdie by hitting a wedge close."
The last groups are scheduled to go off the first and 10th tees at 9:50 a.m. on Monday.
(For complete, updated results, and for hole-by-hole scoring, go to golfstat.com.)
Gopher Invitational
At Spring Hill Golf Club
Par 72, 7,020 yards
Wayzata
Second-round results
1. SMU 285-290--575
T2. Minnesota 292-285--577
T2. Arkansas 296-281--577
4. UNC-Charlotte 298-281--579
5. UNC-Wilmington 287-299--586
T6. Iowa 294-294--588
T6. Notre Dame 302-286--588
8. Lamar 304-292--596
9. Northern Iowa 306-291--597
10. Wisconsin 306-294--600
11. UNC-Greensboro 301-301--602
12. Miami (Ohio) 300-306--606
Individuals
1. Ben Pisani, Minnesota 65-71--136
2. Kelly Kraft, SMU 67-70--137
T3. Jordan Elsen, Wisconsin 72-70--142
T3. Corey Nagy, Charlotte 76-66--142
T12. Robert Bell, Minn. 75-70--145
T27. Cameron White, Minn. 76-72--148
T27. Tim Peterzen*, Minnesota 72-76--148
T43. Chris Meyer*, Minnesota 78-73--151
T43. Frederick Van Rooyen*, Minn. 77-74--151
T62. Thomas Campbell, Minnesota 76-80--156
66. Justin Kaplan*, Minnesota 79-78--157
T69. Derek Chang, Minnesoa 88-72--160
*-indicates players who are competing as individuals only, and whose scores don't count toward the team total.