Hosek outlasts Little at Kenridge

Drama fans would have loved the final round of the Kenridge Invitational golf tournament at Farmington Country Club on Sunday.

Defending champion and local hero Nick Little was trying to end his amateur career in style, having announced his intention to turning professional this week.

Paul Kane was attempting to become the first Farmington member to win the event in who knows when — and, at age 49, realizing the clock was ticking on the championship he covets most.

Just to throw in a little spice, Scott Saal, who ended up tied for 16th, gave the fans something to cheer about when he became the first player in the tournament’s illustrious history to record a double-eagle, hole-in-one at the 280-yard, par-4, 13th.

When it was all said and done, though, it was the guy that most nobody had ever heard of that was slipping on the champion’s jacket and walking away into the sunset with the Kenridge trophy in hand.

Dan Hosek, of slight build, joked that the Farmington sports coat that is traditionally presented ala The Masters style, was a “little big.”

Probably because most of the

recent champions, such as Little, Keith Decker and the like, were all hulkish, broad-shouldered guys.

None of them, however, brought any more game to the rolling Farmington layout than Hosek, a 44-year-old engineer out of Fort Belvoir in Alexandria. He outlasted the determined Little in a Sunday shootout, both firing 1-under par 69s as Hosek took the Kenridge crown by a single stroke.

In the process, he strung together rounds of 70-67-69 for a 206 to tie the Kenridge record.

“Of all the players in the field, Dan would be in the bottom 5 to 10 percent in distance, and yet he won the golf tournament,” said Farmington head professional Rob McNamara.

Perhaps it was his engineering background, or maybe he’s just than darned good, but Hosek’s distance control with his irons was spectacular.

“I know exactly how far I hit my clubs and I know when not to go for something,” said Hosek, the 2007 Virginia State Mid-Amateur champion.

He really only made three mistakes the entire day with bogeys at No. 5 on the front and No. 10 and 18 on the back. He found a natural cure for those hiccups by answering with birdies on No. 7 (a tap-in) and No. 11 (a chip-in).

Still throughout most of the way, Hosek couldn’t shake Little and a handful of other competitors who were breathing down his neck, albeit from foursomes ahead.

“I actually felt really good after No. 9,” Hosek said afterward. “I breathed a sigh of relief because I had fiished the front nine at even par and felt I could keep going.”

On that par-4 hole, he drove his tee shot into a fairway bunker and didn’t hit a good shot out, leaving himself 140 yards out and uphill. Hosek managed to get up-and-down with a laser-like shot to the green and a one putt.

“My strength is my wedges, so I always try to play to my strength,” Hosek said.

He began to pull away from Little and the pack on the par-4, 12th, the last hole of Farmington’s “Amen Corner,” when Little’s approach sailed over the green, then from a bad lie, sailed back over the green and into a bunker, as he luckily escaped with a mere bogey.

That broke a tie for the lead with Hosek at minus-3, a stroke ahead of Little and others. Both birdied the short, par-4, 13th, then Hosek went to 5-under by draining a 30-foot birdie putt on the 14th.

Little refused to go away, hitting his approach on No. 15 to a couple of feet for a birdie, cutting Hosek’s lead to a single stroke. It remained that way until the par-3, 17th when Little suffered his lone three-putt of the tournament and fell two strokes off the lead as Hosek’s birdie putt lipped out.

Little needed a miracle on the 18th and nearly got it when the leader’s drive soared left behind some trees, forcing him to chip out into the fairway, while Little’s 3-wood landed 125 yards out in the middle of the short grass.

Hosek was prepared to take his medicine and hope for the best.

“I saw where the pin was, so I knew if I landed my ball on the right side it would come down toward the hole,” Hosek said. “I just wanted to get my ball out to a comfortable distance and wedge it up, again playing to my strength.”

That’s exactly what he did. He put his third shot pin-high, barely missed a tricky par putt and settled for bogey.

Little, who had won the title on the very same green last year with a dramatic six-foot birdie putt, couldn’t find the same magic and managed par, but that wasn’t good enough for a repeat as he fell by a stroke.

Kane, who had opened the tournament on Friday with a stunning 66, ended up third with a 208 (even-par 70 on the day), just ahead of Garland Green (210), Adam Horton (211), Philip Mahone and Pat Tallent (both at 212).

“I said to myself, win, lose, or draw, this is right where I want to be and the more experience you get, the easier it becomes,” Hosek said.

He was right. This was his second Kenridge. In his first, five years ago, he didn’t finish in the top 20.

Today, he’ll be fitted for a champion’s jacket.