U.S. AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

August 20, 1996

Bo Van Pelt

BO VANPELT: Yeah.

BO VANPELT: I got off to a bad start. I bogeyed the first two holes and really didn't hit a solid shot and then I bogeyed 3 out of my first four, actually. And just kind of -- I was just trying to hit it solid. I'm trying to think -- No. 6 I hit a bad shot in that fairway bunker. And I hit a good shot in there about 10 feet and that kind of turned my day around. From that point on I hit it solid and made a couple of birdies.

BO VANPELT: I bogeyed 1 and 2 and then --

BO VANPELT: Missed the green right on 1 from the fairway and chipped it up there about 10 feet and missed it. And then 2 I hit it right but had an open shot, missed the green to the right and didn't get it up-and-down. Then the par 3, I guess it's 5, I hit it in the bunker short and didn't get up-and-down. Then I birdied 8. I hit my drive in the right rough and laid up to about 60 yards, got it up-and-down. Then I birdied 10. I got it up-and-down. I hit my drive way right in one fairway and then hit it right of the bunker again, and then I chipped it up there, I had a real easy chip, chipped it up four or five feet and made it. Then I birdied 11, the par 3 and hit a good shot in there, about probably 10 feet.

BO VANPELT: 6-iron. Then I birdied 15, the par 5. I hit a good drive and hit it pin high in 2, chipped it up about six or seven feet and made it, then I parred in. Made a good save on 17, hit it over the green. I thought I hit a good shot, just hit it a little hard.

BO VANPELT: I shot in the fall -- last fall in college tournament I shot 67, 68 the first two days in St. Louis. That's the lowest I've ever been.

BO VANPELT: No. After making three bogeys the first five holes I was just saying you better hit this solid or you're going to miss the cut, probably. But I was just trying to start hitting it solid and hit a lot of fairways and greens. And the TV camera came out there and I thought maybe I'm pretty close. So I figured that's the only reason they could be following me, the way I was hitting it. I thought about it, but not for too long.

BO VANPELT: We got through National Tournament in June and then I didn't play very well there. And worked our coach's golf camp (Oklahoma State men's coach Mike Holder) for two weeks and I learned a lot there from all the coaches and teachers that were there. I went to my state amateur and missed the cut. I've been playing really well, and I just didn't play very well for two days. And then pretty much the whole month of July I took off. I was in two weddings back-to-back, so I just practiced a lot and I baby-sat for my nephew, he's like 6 months old, to help my sister out. And then I played the northern amateur. I won that last year and I finished third this year. So I played good. And then I missed qualifying for the Western. Then I went to the U.S. Am qualifier and played really well. I didn't hit the ball particularly well, but I made a lot of saves and I putted pretty good. And now I'm here.

BO VANPELT: I shot 73, 71 and I finished tied for second in Warsaw, Indiana, Stonehenge.

BO VANPELT: No, I never really -- I played football one year in 8th grade. I played basketball a lot growing up, being from Indiana. And my high school is really big into basketball, my high school gym seats about 83 or 8400. I just decided to concentrate on golf. I played pretty much every sport you can play growing up. And I just -- I guess my dad didn't play football for very long and he had a lot of injuries, and I saw I could play this game at least for fun for a long time. So I just took the smart road, he says.

BO VANPELT: I didn't play in high school. I decided to just play golf in high school, but in junior high we had an AAU team. We finished 8th in the nation. We got to play in the opening ceremony game in Allen Fieldhouse, that was probably the biggest highlight of my life, starting lineup and the whole place is packed. But that was pretty much my basketball career there. I wasn't as tall then. I was kind of short. I grew late.

BO VANPELT: Definitely. Going in I told myself I've been playing decent. I wanted to get to the match play, because once you get there it's just you versus another guy, anything can happen. I didn't expect to shoot this low. I didn't have any preconceived notion. I just tried to play well.

BO VANPELT: Recently -- I haven't played any since I've been in college. In high school the biggest tournament in Indiana and our Indiana match play for juniors, that's our junior state championship this summer. I won that when I was 16 and 18. So it's decent.

BO VANPELT: 32. But I never played a U.S. Junior, I never even tried to qualify for one. I haven't played any match play since I've been in college, so it's been three years.

BO VANPELT: It's a lot of fun to be around young kids. You just got done playing a whole month solid of golf. Being out of school and we're up there getting ready for our nationals. Nationals was a big disappointment. You go in and we were playing well and it just -- sometimes it doesn't work out. So to take that time off for camp was good for me. I learned a lot from a guy named Tommy Moore who used to play for OSU. It's the first time I ever met him and he's a teacher in New Orleans. Just to go through the stations and hear the basics. On our off time we talked a lot about golf, from the coaches, they've been watching golf a lot longer than I've been playing it. So you get to pick up on some stuff that a lot of people don't have the opportunity to.

BO VANPELT: (Laughter.)

BO VANPELT: I learned a little bit about -- I'd gotten a little bit sloppy. I stopped playing golf for two months in the spring. I left our team and when I came back in May I had gotten a little bit of bad habit, an old habit and Tommy just -- the coach had guys hit balls in front of kids. He said your swing is good, I'd work on one thing. And being around them, just the stories and just hearing the fundamentals. We don't really get a lot of fundamentals from our coach, it's more mental. So to be around the fundamentalist side, you hear some of that, and the mental, both. Just one shot at a time. Don't put any limitations on yourself, stuff like that.

BO VANPELT: I'm going to try to go out and play as well as I can. You never know what's going to happen in match play. You can make a 27 on a hole and you only lose one. So I'm happy that I played well on Witch yesterday, even though I didn't get to play there today. That gives me a little bit more confidence than maybe I would have had if I just played good over there and decent over at the Ridge. I'm just going to go on and have some fun. I'm doing better this week than I thought I would. And I'm missing school, so I'm having a great time.