Korte fires opening 64 at Dalhousie Junior Championship

KIT DOYLE ~ kdoyle@semissourian.com Joe Doramus, of Arkansas, shot from the sand Tuesday during Dalhousie Junior Championship. [Click to enlarge]

Dustin Korte played a dream round Tuesday in the opening round of the Dalhousie Junior Championship.

He went unconscious, he said, somewhere around the seventh hole and woke up on No. 18, just in time to finish off the best round of tournament golf in his career.

Korte recorded an eagle on the par-5 finishing hole, closing out a round that included eight birdies, two bogeys and resulted in the best competitive round in the seven-year history of the course: 8-under 64.

"I really didn't pay attention to anything outside the fairway," Korte said.

Easy as that.

The Metropolis, Ill., resident, playing in only his second AJGA event and playing at Dalhousie Golf Club for the first time, finished out his last 12 holes with seven birdies and an eagle.

He came to the par-5 seventh hole at even par and promptly entered the dream state.

"I went unconscious and wasn't even thinking about it, except for the last hole," Korte said. "I knew what I was doing, but I didn't think about it. I was just kind of going with the flow, trying not to make any mistakes and hitting it in the middle of the green."

Whatever part of the green Korte found was the right one.

"I think I had 23 putts," he said.

Dalhousie was willing to yield good scores in the opening round of the second annual AJGA event. After just one round in the 60s last year, when Ty Spinella set the course competition record with a 67 in the final round en route to winning the title, there were two Tuesday. And eight other golfers bettered par.

Jordan McLaurin of Ironton went out in one of the first two groups of the day and came in with a 70. Playing partner David Erdy of Boonville, Ind., equaled him.

And then Marshall Talkington of Jackson, Tenn., came in with a 67.

"There were a bunch of good scores," Korte said. "I knew I would have to do something, and sure enough I did."

With the tournament switched from late June last year to early August, the fairways are dryer and the wind so far is calmer, making the course conducive to better scoring.

"You can see the ball bounce 20 feet in the air" in the fairway, Korte said.

Thus, he did make an adjustment before slipping into his unconscious state.

"The front nine, I was hitting the driver real high and not very far," he said. "I got it together on the back."

He played the course's four par-5 holes — Nos. 2, 7, 15 and 18 — in 5-under par. He was on the fringe in two shots on No. 15 en route to a birdie. On the 14th hole, the shortest par-4 at 327 yards, he hit his tee shot to the fringe and made birdie.

Then he woke up and did even better on the 18th, a hole whose pin placement he had spotted earlier in the round.

"I don't even know how to explain that last hole," Korte said. "I would have been excited with 6-under."

Excited, maybe, but he wasn't about to settle for that. After a long drive that put Korte in front of his playing partners by 15 yards, he launched a 7-iron that bounced in the fringe and found a spot on the green. He laced his putt from 14 feet, leaving no doubt.

Korte, an incoming senior who has been a top-10 finisher in the Illinois high school tournament as a sophomore and junior, has been on the leaderboard before in AJGA play. At his only previous tour event, the Natural Resource Partners Bluegrass Junior in Ashland, Ky., he was third after a first-round 69.

"I was third when I blew up," he said, closing with rounds of 78-75 that left him tied for 19th. "I don't even want to think about it."

And once he woke up Tuesday, he didn't want to go to sleep.

"I want to just play again," he said.