Local golfers falter in final round

For a one and a half rounds, local collegiate hopefuls were hanging in with the the older and more experienced golfers at the Bremerton City Amateur Golf Tournament last weekend at Gold Mountain Golf Complex.

Ken Jensen, of Seattle, won the two-day event with a 5-under 139, and Tacoma’s Ray Schuler was two strokes back for second place.

The golfers opened the tournament on the Cascade course and played the final round at the tougher Olympic course.

While the top 10 golfers shot a 6-over or better, Kitsap County’s younger generation struggled.

Brian Wilson (77-79—156), a 1999 South Kitsap High School graduate who will play on scholarship at Western Washington University this fall, admitted he wasn’t in the right frame of mind.

He said a combination of upcoming finals at Tacoma Community College and not playing much on the links contributed to his disappointing tournament.

“Just everything wasn’t working,” Wilson said. “I haven’t been (golfing) much. I’ve got other things on my mind.”

Wilson’s McCormick Woods neighbor, Bjorn Bjorke, had a better day at Olympic after opening with an 80 on Cascade. He recovered with a modest 76 at Olympic.

Central Kitsap senior C.J. Hanson was blunt about her disastrous final round.

After opening with a 4-over on Cascade, Hanson broke down on Olympic’s back-nine and shot an 86.

Hanson’s CK teammate, John Hausdorf, shot an opening round 76 and followed on Olympic with a 77.

Dylan Robbins, a former CK standout and current Washington State University golfer, shot a disappointing 80 in the opening round but came back to shoot a 76 at Olympic.

Hanson, who placed sixth at state three weeks ago, said is was tough to recover after scoring a triple bogey on No.10, bogey on No.11, and double bogey on No.12.

“I really lost my focus after that,” Hanson said. “Keeping my emotions under control I’m usually good with that but my emotions got to me today.”

After playing well throughout the spring, Hanson said her play at Olympic was perplexing

“I’ve been playing really well but last week out of no where I started to struggle,” she said. “It was a joke.”

Hanson, who has a full-ride scholarship to play golf at the University of Idaho, said she’ll play the AJGA tournament at Trophy Lake, her home course, before dialing it down for the remainder of the summer.

One person not dialing it down is South Kitsap junior Ryan Aker.

Aker suffered the same demise as Hanson in the middle holes, but he said it was to be expected.

After opening with a strong 1-over 73—just five strokes behind the leader—Aker continued to play well at Olympic, going 1-under through nine holes.

But he shot himself out of a top five finish with a 10-over on the back-nine.

He admitted he was a bit rusty after the three-week layoff.

“Since state I didn’t pick up a golf club until this tournament,” Aker said. “It felt good to have a break. I was getting burned out.”

Aker said he’s picked up a new coach and is going through a swing change.

The best way to get used to the swing change is to play a lot, Aker said.

“I’ll play a lot of tournaments this summer,” he said. “There will be a stretch of 13 days I’ll be playing.”

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