Raise the flag for Hudson’s Hahn

Writing from Lake Forest, Ill.
Saturday, August 8, 2009

John Hahn is a gritty golfer who probably prefers meat and potatoes over fancy finger food.

The gritty ones are the ones who usually win the Western Amateur. Hahn did so on Saturday afternoon, knocking off another hard-nosed player, Zach Barlow, 3 and 2 in the final match.

Hahn is from Hudson, Ohio, heretofore unknown as a cradle of great golfers. But Hahn’s hometown – the family now lives in Las Vegas – isn’t far from where Ben Curtis, a former British Open champion and Western Am runner-up, grew up. It turns out Hahn and Curtis are acquainted.

Curtis is a grinder. Hahn, likewise.

See a trend developing here?

To win the Western Amateur, one must play eight rounds of golf, give or take a hole or two, in five days. Throw in a practice round or three, and the grind – there’s that word again – can take a toll.

That’s probably why neither Hahn nor Barlow, from downstate Percy, which is a 7-iron from the Ohio River, played their best golf in the final match. They were close to tuckered out, having battled their way through the 36-hole cut, then into the Sweet Sixteen, then through three rounds of match play, some of it conducted in the rain.

Besides, the conditions for the final on Saturday afternoon were the fiercest of the week. The players went to lunch after winning semifinals in cool weather, a drizzle having let up after a few holes. They walked out of the clubhouse into a 92-degree furnace capped by a 22-mph south wind.

Barlow led early, then Hahn turned the tables, winning the third, fourth, fifth and sixth holes. He was 2-up on the ninth tee. The ninth green proved to be the turning point of the match. Barlow, who won the 2008 Illinois Amateur and will be a senior at Illinois this fall, dropped his approach within four feet of the cup. Hahn’s approach was even better, coming to a rest 2 1/2 feet distant.

Barlow saw a nearly straight putt. He didn’t even take a practice stroke. He rapped it. It skidded right and ran a good nine feet by. The gallery of about 175 – 200 when marshals and officials are added in – gasped.

Barlow might have to had his head now not been spinning. He missed the comebacker and three putted. Hahn made his birdie 3 and was 3-up at the turn.

There were more holes to play, but it was academic. The junior-to-be at Kent State would win the 107th Western Am, joining fellow Ohioans Jack Nicklaus and Tom Weiskopf, to name a pair of prominent Buckeyes, on the George Thorne Trophy.

Back to Barlow for a moment. When it was over, he looked back on the drama on the ninth green.

“He had me on the ropes,” Barlow said. “He won 3, 4, 5, 6, rolled off so many in a row, it knocked me back on my heels.”

Hahn saw it as a rush to recover.

“He tried to jam it in,” Hahn said. “That’s how match play works, with the momentum swings. I was on the receiving end of it. That turned the tide.”

So the 20-year-old won the title and the glory. But before he accepted either, there was one order of business. Changing shirts.

He was wearing a Kent State shirt with a Nike logo. The Western Am was sponsored by Callaway, but that wasn’t the reason for the change.

“My dad’s a Titleist rep,” Hahn said.

Smart kid.

– Tim Cronin