Terra Cotta Invitational – Syndication Server

Ukrainian Misha Golod three shots off lead at Terra Cotta Invitational

Misha Golod has captivated the golf world since escaping the war-torn country of Ukraine to the U.S. in March.

NAPLES, Fla. — A pair of familiar faces are near the top of the 26th annual Terra Cotta Invitational after the first round.

Defending champion Caleb Surratt, an 18-year-old University of Tennessee commit, is leading, and Ukrainian Misha Golod, who has captivated the golf world since escaping the war-torn country to the U.S. in March, isn’t too far behind at Naples National Golf Club on Friday.

Surratt, from Indian Trail, North Carolina, was 3 under before a bogey at No. 8, but he bounced back with three straight birdies on Nos. 11-13 and added another at No. 15.

He made two difficult pars on Nos. 9 and 10 before getting that first birdie from 15 feet. Surratt bogeyed No. 16, then parred the last two to finish three strokes ahead of Golod.

“It’s kind of discipline, I think I know what it takes around here to play well and I kind of stuck to that same game plan, no matter how great things were going or bad things were going,” Surratt said. “I think it’s important to not get too aggressive, but play aggressively smart around here.”

Golod’s story was first told in Golf Digest in early March, and from there the golf world rose to the occasion to raise funds and awareness to help him get out of the country. He arrived in Orlando on March 11, and received a scholarship at the David Leadbetter Academy and received housing accommodations. A Leadbetter instructor is with him in Naples this weekend.

Golod was an honorary starter at the Players Championship shortly after coming to America, and then got to take in practice rounds at the Masters and attend the Golf Writers Association of America banquet in Augusta a few weeks ago.

The 15-year-old had only played one golf tournament in a few months, but shook off any rust for one day at least. He bogeyed three of his first five holes, but sank a 25-foot, breaking birdie putt at No. 7, a challenging par save at No. 8, and birdied Nos. 9 and 10 to get to even par. Golod saved a bogey on No. 11, but responded with birdies on Nos. 14, 15 and 16, then parred the last two for a 70.

“I’m obviously delighted with the score, and to make a comeback,” Golod said. “It’s awesome to make that comeback to get to 2 under par. Hopefully I give myself a chance on Sunday.

“I was pretty much as relaxed as I could but because obviously I’m probably one of the youngest players in here, and it’s the first time playing in this tournament and I’m just happy and having fun. We’re just out there smiling all day long, so it was awesome.”

Nicholas Prieto, a 17-year-old from Miami, is in second, a stroke behind Surratt. Ben James, a Virginia commit from Connecticut, is in third after a 69. Canadian Jean-Philippe Parr is tied for fourth with Golod. Luke Poulter, and a University of Florida commit and the 18-year-old son of tour pro Ian Poulter, is tied for sixth at 71 with Florida State commit Luke Clanton of Miami Lakes.

Lucas Fallotico, one of several FGCU men’s golfers in the field, is the top local player, tied for 13th at 1 over par.

The second round is Saturday, with leaders teeing off at 10:12 a.m. ET The final round is Sunday.

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Terra Cotta Invitational: Tennessee commit Caleb Surratt edges Georgia commit Maxwell Ford

Caleb Surratt, a 17-year-old headed to NC State, was able to finally put away Georgia-bound Maxwell Ford with 15-foot birdie putt on 18.

NAPLES, Fla. — Caleb Surratt had made just two bogeys and a double bogey in 47 holes of the 25th Terra Cotta Invitational presented by Workday.

But bogeys on Nos. 13 and 15 dropped him into a tie with Maxwell Ford with three holes to play.

Surratt, a 17-year-old headed to Tennessee, and Ford, an 18-year-old going to Georgia, struggled over the next couple of holes, and when Ford left a 40-foot birdie putt 10 feet short on No. 17 and missed it, Surratt carried a one-shot lead to the final hole at Naples National Golf Club on Sunday.

Surratt finished in style, draining a 15-foot birdie putt to win by two.

“It was definitely a tough finish for all of us — the wind started getting up,” Surratt said. “It’s a great finish with a birdie on 18; it felt really good. I’ve been working really hard for a long time and been close a lot of times, and it feels great to finally get it done.”

Ford made another bogey, so Surratt ended up with a two-shot victory at 3-under 213.

“Being tied with three holes and two holes to go, you can’t really ask for much more experience-wise,” Ford said. “You had a chance to win the tournament. I really don’t think I hit that many bad shots coming in.”

Surratt, who is from Indian Trail, North Carolina, was the only golfer in the field of 70 top amateurs to finish under par.

“One thing for me was realizing that I’ve played great golf all week — I think I’ve had the least bogeys in the field,” Surratt said. “When I make a bogey and initially be really mad, I would just try to keep the perspective that how great you’re really playing. You’re not throwing that many shots away, and just keep plugging along like you have been.”

Surratt, whose dad Brent was his caddie, had the lead from wire-to-wire, shooting a 3-under 69 in the first round, and going into the final round tied with 18-year-old Cohen Trolio. But he never gave it up.

“It kind of felt like he didn’t really miss a shot,” said Ford, who is from Peachtree Corners, Georgia.

Sunday wasn’t a good one for the Southwest Florida contingent, three of whom were in striking distance of the lead.

But James Tureskis of Florida State, who started in sixth, stumbled to a front-nine 49 on the way to an 85 and tied for 40th. Sam Kodak, an FSU commit, shot a 78 and tied for 16th. Jack Irons was in the top 10 with four holes to play but played them 5 over and finished 14th at 6-over 222. Ryan Hart, who plays for Florida, had the best round out of them, with a 2-under 70 to end up tied for 24th. He was one of only four players to break par in the final round.

Florida Gulf Coast University golfer Van Holmgren, coming off winning the ASUN tournament title Tuesday, ended up tying for 10th at 221 with an even-par 72.

Carl Santos-Ocampo, a former Community School and Notre Dame golfer, did have a hole-in-one on the par-3 17th from 169 yards with a 7-iron, and shot a 77 to tie for 40th.

Surratt birdied No. 9 to close a painstaking, three-hour front nine by the final group to take a three-shot lead to the back. And he seemed in control before the middle of the back nine when he went over the par-4 13th in two and couldn’t get up and down, then missed a 3-foot par putt on the par-5 15th.

Ford, whose twin brother David withdrew with a back injury, had caught a break on the hole when his third shot rolled into the collar of the green, and into rocks guarding the greenside water hazard, then caromed back where he could putt it. He two-putted to move into the tie.

On No. 16, a par 4, both players went over the green – Ford from the fairway and Surratt from the pine straw left. Neither got up and down.

On the par-3 17th, Ford’s shot ended up 40 feet away and left his birdie putt well short, and Surratt just missed his 15-footer.

Ford’s miss gave Surratt back the lead, and he played the 18th perfectly, laying up, and then hitting it to 15 feet.

Trolio, an LSU commit, went to the back nine tied with Ford at 2 under, but played the back nine 3 over to finish in third at 1-over 217 with former U.S. Mid-Amateur champion Scott Harvey.

Now Surratt goes back to high school to play in the state tournament series there, and plans on trying to qualify for the PGA Tour’s Wells Fargo Championship in a couple of weeks.

“I know I can compete on this level with my good golf,” Surratt said. “I have in previous amateur events. That makes it even better to get it done. We’ve worked on a lot of things that we thought would make the difference and they did this week so it feels amazing.”

Greg Hardwig is a sports reporter for the Naples Daily News and The News-Press. Follow him on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter: @NDN_Ghardwig, email him at ghardwig@naplesnews.com. Support local journalism with this special subscription offer at https://cm.naplesnews.com/specialoffer/

Terra Cotta Invitational: Matt Kuchar, Justin Thomas, Patrick Reed part of amateur tourney’s 25-year run

In the fall of 1995, Jerry Stahl came out to play Naples National Golf Club. “What a great venue for a USGA championship,” he said.

In the fall of 1995, Jerry Stahl came out to play Naples National Golf Club.

“This is a fantastic golf course,” he told then-head professional John Calabria. “What a great venue for a USGA championship.”

Calabria went to Naples National founder Dr. Charles Benton, and they discussed Stahl’s comments, but for various reasons, hosting a USGA event wasn’t in the club’s plans.

Starting the Terra Cotta Invitational soon was.

Twenty-six years later, some of the top men’s amateurs in the world are in the middle of the tournament’s 25th edition — it wasn’t played last year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Sunday’s champion will join a list that includes Matt Kuchar, Justin Thomas, Emiliano Grillo, and Bud Cauley.

And the ones who don’t get to hoist the Terra Cotta jug? Well, they’ll join a list that’s just as impressive. Sergio Garcia, Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Patrick Reed, Daniel Berger, Cameron Champ, and Scottie Scheffler have done just fine without winning the Terra Cotta.

“There are a lot of people that are big on the PGA Tour that didn’t win it,” said Denny Glass, who has been the tournament director since 2006.

Going into Sunday, three teenagers top the leaderboard, and are the only players under par. N.C. State commit Caleb Surratt, a junior in high school, and Cohen Trolio, an LSU commit from West Point, Mississippi, are tied for the lead at 3 under. Surratt double-bogeyed No. 16 to fall out of the lead. Maxwell Ford, who is a Georgia commit, is in third at 1-under 143 in the tournament, which has a presenting sponsor, Workday, for the first time.

A pair of former U.S. Mid-Amateur champions — 2016 champion Stewart Hagestad, 30, of Newport Beach, California, and 42-year-old Scott Harvey of Kernersville, North Carolina, who won it in 2014 — are tied for fourth at even par.

Naples High grad James Tureskis, who plays for Florida State, is sixth at 1 over, and Naples High junior Sam Kodak, a Seminoles commit, is tied for eighth at 2 over. 2020 Daily News Boys Golfer of the Year Jack Irons, who did not play high school golf this season, is tied for 10th at 3 over.

Jackson Van Paris, a Vanderbilt commit, had the day’s low score with a 3-under 69 and is tied for 10th.

Sunday’s leaders will go off between 9:30 and 10 a.m. There is no admission and the public is invited.

Reed, a former Masters champion, is among those who have played the Terra Cotta the most but haven’t won it. He tried five times from 2007-11, with his best finish in 2007, in second place, but eight strokes behind Peter Uihlein. He tied for fifth in 2009, a stroke behind C.T. Pan, another current tour player. Reed was third when Thomas won it in 2010, and tied for fourth when Grillo won it the next year.

Masters Tournament 2020 — Patrick Reed walks up onto the 7th green during the first round of The Masters golf tournament at Augusta National GC. Reed played in the Terra Cotta fine times, but never won it. Michael Madrid-USA TODAY Sports

Terra Cotta’s beginnings slightly more humble

But the Terra Cotta didn’t start out like it’s played now.

There were 16 players in the first in 1996, and Calabria, now a golf ambassador at Grey Oaks Country Club, enlisted former top amateur John Harris, who is a current PGA Tour Champions player and Calusa Pines Golf Club member, to help construct it for Thanksgiving weekend.

“Our notion was that the golf course belonged to the members and having 16 players really wasn’t going to interfere with regular member play that much even over Thanksgiving weekend,” Calabria said.

Jerry Courville Jr., who had won the U.S. Mid-Amateur in 1995, was the first champion in a field that included Trip Kuehne, Buddy Marucci Jr., and Steve Scott. All three of them had lost in U.S. Amateur finals to Tiger Woods in 1994, 1995 and 1996. Harris also played, as did Naples’ Lee Booker and Boomer Erick and Fort Myers’ Tom Case. Robert Floyd, a son of Raymond Floyd, was scheduled to play but didn’t because of illness.

Kuchar beat Garcia in the semifinals the next year, and went on to win after becoming the U.S. Amateur champion earlier that year.

“It was a lot of fun,” Calabria said.

Glass, who started running the Northeast Amateur in Rhode Island in 1994, also helped Calabria get some players in those early years.

“He reached out to me and we talked about players and procedures and things like that,” Glass said. “That’s how I first ever talked to him.”

Coincidentally, Glass became a member at Naples National a few years after that. And then the club decided to put Glass in charge of the tournament in 2006.

“They wanted to elevate the tournament into a stroke-play event and get (amateur) ranking points,” Glass said.

That meant expanding the field, more than doubling it from 20 to at least 50, and going away from match play.

“I had to reach out to try to get players because people didn’t really know that much about it,” said Glass, who has a field of 70 this year and turned away 200 applicants.

The change in field and format also changed the makeup of who was playing — more so who was winning. The older amateurs and mid-amateurs still play to this day, but almost all of the champions, beginning with Arnond “Bank” Vongvanij in 2006 in that first year, have been college players.

Top amateurs such as Harris, Tommy Brennan, Gene Elliott, Danny Green, Sean Knapp and Tom McKnight had won it in the years after Kuchar did. Brennan and Elliott are playing this year.

“I understand now expanding the field,” Calabria said. “All things evolve over time, and. you get the best guys to come.

“I was very proud of being instrumental in bringing that tournament into existence.”

Greg Hardwig is a sports reporter for the Naples Daily News and The News-Press. Follow him on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter: @NDN_Ghardwig

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