Four area golfers ready for grueling test in Missouri Amateur tourney

It's that time of year.

Time for a grueling test of golf that measures the talents and souls of men. A week that many avid golfers mark on their calendars and wouldn't miss for the world.

No, we're not talking this week's U.S. Open, which is being waged in New York.

We're talking next week and Kansas City, where more than 150 male golfers will gather at the Blue Hills Country Club for the Missouri Amateur championship.

This is certainly no amateur hour. It's amateur to be sure, but it's long and grueling -- the last man standing. The champion will have weathered nine rounds of golf over six consecutive days. All of it will be walked, including 36 holes over each of the final three days.

After 36 holes of medal play on Tuesday and Wednesday, the top 64 golfers advance to head-to-head match play over the next four days.

And it's all under tournament conditions and rules, living with all your mistakes over 144 holes. No mulligans. No "Get out of Jail Free" cards. No partner to fall back on.

Five golfers -- four qualifiers and one alternate -- from the area will be making the trek west.

"When you play little scrambles on the weekend, it's not the same," said Kent Phillips, a qualifier from Cape Girardeau and a member of Kimbeland Country Club. "They're fun to play, but they're not the same as playing your own ball and competing."

Phillips, 24, a former golfer at Central High School and Southeast Missouri State, will be joined by fellow Central alum Todd Obergoenner, 20; Jackson High School alum Blake McDowell, 20; and Poplar Bluff transplant Ben Brumitt, 22. The quartet, which recently qualified at Westwood Hills Country Club in Poplar Bluff, will be joined by veteran Cord Dombrowski, 57, who hopes to join the field through his first-alternate status.

"I've gone to quite a few of these, and it's just fun to compete, and every so often it happens to be a good day," said Dombrowski, who said he's played in six or seven Missouri Amateurs.

He's still looking to make the cut for match play, which is for the top 64 players after medal play.

Dombrowski, a managing partner at Dalhousie Golf Club, also is a board member for the Missouri Golf Association, which runs the Missouri Amateur. The board is having a meeting Monday night in Kansas City.

"I need to be there anyway, so I'll take my golf clubs with me," Dombrowski said. He'll find out Tuesday if there's enough no-shows for him to join the competition.

Phillips, playing in his fourth amateur, has reached the match-play portion twice. He encountered match-play success for the first time last year before running into eventual champion Matt Keith in the second round at Millwood Country Club in Springfield, Mo.

"It turned out be his home golf course," Kent said. "I found that out on the 12th hole. That ended my plans right there." But Phillips has proven pesky. Three years ago, he pushed the No. 1 seed, Kansas University golfer Casey Harbour, to 19 holes in the first round.

He recently received his master's degree from Southeast and has already accepted a job in sports marketing and promotions at Auburn University, which could mean the end of his play in the Missouri Amateur.

"It could be; it just depends on my work situation," Phillips said. "I'm kind of treating it that way."

McDowell, a member of Kimbeland, qualified for the Missouri high school state tournament three times, and he made the Missouri Amateur field on his first attempt. He said he's looking forward to the competition and playing the traditional country club-style course, a par-72 layout that stretches a generous 7,250 yards.

"I would like to do this for a living if I could," McDowell said of playing competitive golf. "I'm just hoping to make it as far as I can and get whatever experience I can get."

Brumitt, an all-state golfer his sophomore year at Poplar Bluff, was the co-medalist at the regional qualifier, shooting a 70. He played two years of collegiate golf, helping John A. Logan to a second-place finish in the NAIA national tournament. He attends Southeast and is a member of Dalhousie.

Brumitt reached the round of 16 in his only two state amateur appearances.

"I look forward to it all year," Brumitt said. "I like match play. It's really suited to my game."

Obergoenner, another Central grad, also has college golf experience. He is transferring to Southern Illinois-Carbondale in the fall after being a member of the University of Kentucky golf team this past year. He's making his third appearance in the tournament and looking for his first encounter in match play.

"There's a lot of good players," Obergoenner said. "It's not an easy thing to make it to match play. You've got to play well to do that."