The Chattanooga Choo Choo Invitational turns heads with its unique name. Its junior winner should turn heads, too.
Hogan Ingram was the last man standing at Council Fire Golf Course in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on July 29. Often times, just one tournament in a player’s career can tell a whole story about his growth. The Choo Choo is that for Ingram, a 17-year-old about to enter his senior year of high school.
Ingram was tied for ninth going into the final day and chased from the third-to-last group. He came alive on the back nine, birdied Nos. 11, 13 (both tap ins) and 14 and began to wonder if he might have a chance at winning. He strung together three more pars, then stepped up to the 18th hole, a par 5 converted to a par 4 for tournament week. He knocked a 4-iron from 207 yards to about 12 feet and made it for a closing 64. He won at 10 under.
He didn’t even know at that point, though, what the putt was for – and even once he did, it took awhile to process.
“It was all just kind of a blur. I don’t really know,” Ingram said days later. “I don’t even think I knew how big that was.”
Many summer tournaments have seen deeper-than-normal fields in 2020. The Choo Choo was thick with college players, from Ben Rebne, the NAIA Jack Nicklaus Award winner from Dalton State, to defending champion Jack Maples of Georgia Southern to seven members of the University of Tennessee golf team.
Big thank you to @TNAmateurGolf and @GolfCouncil and all the volunteers for putting on a great event this week. To be the 2020 Chattanooga Choo Choo Invitational Champion is something I will never forget. #CCCI #GATA pic.twitter.com/4gWvMdI2Xt
— Hogan Ingram (@HoganJIngram) July 31, 2020
Turn the clock back three years. When Ingram first teed it up at the 2018 Choo Choo, he wasn’t nearly as long off the tee as he is now that his frame has grown to 6 feet, 2 inches. Ingram finished at 11 over that week after rounds of 76-77-74. It was middle of the pack, but Ingram felt far from ready to be there.
“My game wasn’t equipped to be playing with some of the best college players,” he said.
From his dad Joe’s perspective, the Choo Choo offered an opportunity to see how he stacked up. Hogan kept working at his game long after going home.
“I think that experience, the first two years playing in this event, really helped him to see where he needed to improve,” Joe Ingram said.
If there’s something about Hogan that shows how he approaches his competitive golf career, it’s the desire to always play up and play well. Joe remembers his son competing in the lower age division of tournaments when he was younger. Just winning his division wasn’t good enough.
“He says, ‘I don’t care about that, I want to win the whole thing,’” Joe remembered. “He kind of has that drive and determination. He wanted to play with the older guys and beat the older guys at that tournament.”
He accomplished that feat last month, just at a different venue.
Hogan has tried to pay attention to the men he has played alongside, particularly when they are more advanced in the game and in their experience. He says it’s not so much that his game changes when he plays up into more competitive events, but rather the tournament plays out differently.
“The scores,” he said. “You’ll shoot even in junior tournaments and move up a couple spots but in amateur events, college players are so good, you’ve got to be under par in a round to stay in the same spot or move up.”
The Choo Choo was a breakthrough, but this has been a summer of quality golf. Days after winning the Choo Choo, Hogan represented the winning Georgia team in the Georgia-South Carolina Junior Challenge Match in Rocky Face, Georgia. In June, Ingram won the Georgia Junior Amateur.
The 17-year-old carries a classic bit of golf history just in his name, which is indeed in honor of Ben Hogan, one of the game’s greats. His parents were watching a documentary on the Golf Channel before Hogan was ever in the picture, and both agreed they liked the name for a son.
Hogan’s love for golf followed naturally.
“He got clubs in his hand since he could walk around,” Joe said. “We have pictures of him dragging a putter around the house.”
It’s never been particularly easy to tell what emotions Hogan is feeling on the golf course, but that’s especially true now. Hogan, headed to Georgia Southern in the fall of 2021, has worked with instructor Travis Nance out of Stonebridge Golf Club in Rome, Georgia. His mental approach has improved considerably, laying the foundation for good play to follow.
“He would try to have a perfect round and when it didn’t go his way, it would start affecting the next shot,” Joe said. “… He has really got a calm demeanor. He has really improved on that.”
The Ingram train keeps rolling.
[lawrence-related id=778054964,778054396,778053759]