Dorset, Vt.
From there, Landgraf left himself a short sidehill lie to reach the 16th green, resulting in an eight-foot par putt. Erik Moreau, father of Landgraf’s playing partner, Brennan Moreau, mused what a good par it would be if Landgraf sank the shot, and he did. And it was.
“That’s not what I expected,” the grinning Landgraf remarked.
Really, nothing is quite what Landgraf expected after graduating from Rivendell Academy last spring.
He anticipated recounting his first year of college; instead, he’s still waiting for that first year to start. He also wasn’t sure what golf would mean to him more than 12 months after winning the Vermont Principals Association Division III individual title with the Raptors. Making the field for this week’s Vermont Golf Association state amateur championship for the first time answered that question.
“Golf kind of dipped off for me a little bit; it definitely wasn’t as important,” Landgraf said after a first-round 10-over-par 80 to open the Vermont Golf Association state amateur championship on Tuesday. “Last summer, I had a lot of other stuff going on. I still got out and played probably three or four times a week, but it didn’t really mean as much. I think taking the year off from school this past year, I had to find something to do. I tried to fill that time with golf as much as possible.”
And because of that, Landgraf is just one of the many young faces populating this week’s championship.
Several of them sit atop the field after the first round of the three-day, 72-hole championship. Rutland High senior Jared Nelson leads after a 4-under-par 66 that was all birdies and pars after an opening bogey. Rutland grad Drake Hull, in the midst of a college golf transfer from Kansas to UConn, and St. Johnsbury Academy alumnus Alex Rainville, three years into college golf at Florida’s Johnson and Wales University, are a shot back. Montpelier High’s Bryson Richards is two shots back at 68.
Among Upper Valley competitors, Hartford High graduate Zach Temple is in the best shape after a 3-over 73. Play resumes at 8 a.m. today.
Landgraf will be first on the course after he and Moreau drew the final pairing on Monday. It’s the highest level of play he’s experienced and a big change from what was common during the Orford native’s Rivendell days.
“In D-III, I know I was one of the best, if not the best player out there; I know I wasn’t the best player on the course with D-I, D-II and everything,” Landgraf said. “Here, it’s like I’m just scratching the make the cut, y’know? There’s a lot of good players out here.
“I played with Alex Rainville at the Vermont Open (last month), and he shot 68-69 when I played with him. He’s a solid player, and I’m not going to touch him. I’m just grinding out something that may not be at the top of the leaderboard, but it’s my personal best.”
Landgraf first learned golf around the third or fourth grade “and I absolutely hated it,” he admitted. “I played for one summer and told my parents I’m never going to do this again. A couple of years later, my parents both work during the summer, so I was stranded at home; I obviously couldn’t drive — I was in fifth or sixth grade — and I had to find something to do, so I might as well go down and sit at the golf course all day and see if I could play.”
Playing for Rivendell coach Justin Bonnett taught Landgraf the value of grinding on the golf course. Landgraf also credited a former Lake Morey Country Club assistant pro, Lebanon native Pat Pelletier, with pushing him to be more competitive.
“Just seeing Pat hit the ball and playing with Pat was amazing for me,” Landgraf said. “I think that’s what really sparked me and started to get me to take golf really seriously.”
Winning the D-III individual title in a playoff last spring at Middlebury College’s Ralph Myhre Golf Course also gave Landgraf a measure of satisfaction that didn’t come as much when the Raptors won D-III team titles his freshman and sophomore years. He didn’t play well in either tournament, he said, and hadn’t enjoyed much team success in any sport over his youth years.
The question now is where golf will fit in Landgraf’s future. He started college last fall at Connecticut’s Quinnipiac University, but left after a week and a half when he realized it wasn’t for him. He seriously considered going out west to the University of Washington, but eventually chose Vermont because of its relative closeness to home. In the interim, Landgraf is busy working at West Lebanon’s Fore-U Golf Center.
Although his first-ever Vermont Am round included eight bogeys and a double, it ended satisfactorily. He followed the scramble par at 16 with a conventional par at 18, hitting the tiny green in regulation and two-putting from 20 feet on a surface faster than what he’s experienced before.
“I want to keep doing stuff like this,” Landgraf said. “I don’t have any professional aspirations of any sort. Just to be a good club golfer and go out there on the weekends and some weekdays really enjoying myself, just be a solid player and try to improve.”
Chip Shots: Nelson seemed set to join Hull and Rainville atop the leaderboard, but back-to-back birdies on 15 and 16 gave him the solo lead through 18 holes. “Long way to go, but I played really well today,” Nelson said. … Fellow Rutland Country Club member Garren Poirier (69) knocked himself out of a share of second with a double-bogey 6 on 18, then went right to the practice green for more work. … Temple, who is playing out of Hanover Country Club these days, professed himself reasonably OK with his 73. “It’s all right; I’m going to have to take it whether I like it or not,” said Temple, a North Hartland resident who birdied only the par-4 third hole against four bogeys. “I hit the ball better than a 73 today, which is frustrating. I hit a lot of good putts that didn’t go in.” … Woodstock’s Alex Moore also shot 73 to join Temple and seven other in a tie for 16th place. … The top 40 and ties advance to Thursday’s 36-hole finale, which means Quechee’s Zak Lyford, Temple’s former Hartford High teammate, will have to improve after an opening 78. “I hit it really well; just had three doubles, two bogeys and no birdies,” said Lyford, a University of Vermont senior who plays on the Catamounts’ club golf team. “The doubles kind of hurt me.” … Lyford played the round with UVM club teammate Devon Havers and recent North Country Union High graduate Alex Giroux, who got an occasional recruiting pitch to join their Catamount squad. … In the ultimate definition of a moveable obstruction, Kwiniaska’s Jason Havers two-hopped his drive into the parked power cart of VGA rules official Jim Kiehle in the rough along the 15th fairway. Havers took a free drop and kept plugging away. … Brennan Moreau, Landgraf’s partner, holed out from the 18th fairway for a birdie 3 to put a nice exclamation point on his round.
Greg Fennell can be reached at gfennell@vnews.com or 603-727-3226.