Editor’s Note: MSGA Communications and Marketing Press Release
HELENA — Great match-ups, don’t always result in great matches, but the 2018 Montana Cup was a classic as the amateur team rallied to wrestle back the Montana Cup from the professionals with a 38-34 victory.
The amateurs found themselves in a sizable hole after entering the final round trailing 19.5 to 16.5 and then losing points in three of the first four singles matches of the day.
2017 Mid-Amateur Champion, Joe Cielak of Libby, picked up a sweep over Connor Sproull to lead a rally that saw the final seven matches result in a 17.5 to 3.5 advantage in favor of the amateurs.
The 38-34 triumphant comeback gave the amateurs a victory after losing last year to the professionals in Butte.
Bob Hasquet earned 3 points in his match with Brian Eekhoff, as did Spencer Williams vs. Tom Anderson and Bill Dunn picked up 2.5 points in his match vs. Jason Lehtola.
Heading into the final match, David Owens of Hamilton needed to sweep amateur Marcus Drange of Billings to give square the match, which would have been good enough to retain the cup, but Drange prevailed with a 2-1 win to give the amateurs the win.
The Montana State Golf Association conducts the annual competition of matches between 12 club professionals and 12 top amateur golfers who earn their inclusion on their respective teams based on a points system from the previous year’s tournament results from competitions around the state.
Day one had 36 holes of play with morning matches being four-ball (“best ball”) and afternoon matches were modified chapman (version of alternate-shot). The final day was 12 single match play matches.
Green Meadow general manager and PGA Professional, Tod Fitterer was the captain for the professionals and former MSGA Mid-Amateur Champion, Parker Heller captained the amateurs for 2018.
The Montana State Golf Association would like to thank Green Meadow for hosting this year’s Montana Cup.
