Peterson, Onkka, Stendahl, Markham, Schmitz Top Crowded Leaderboard in Twin Cities Open

May 22, 2023 | 6 min.
By Michael R Fermoyle


EDINA -- The Twin Cities Open wasn't played for the first time until 2021, which is the best explanation for why Trent Peterson hasn't won it yet. He is the only player to have won all five of the major state championships available to an amateur in Minnesota -- State Amateur, State Open, State Public Links, MGA Players Championship and Minnesota Golf Champions -- but he's won nearly every other tournament there is to win around here, as well. He's won the MGA Mid-Players, the MGA Four-Ball, the State Publinx Four-Ball, Publinx Combination (9 holes best-ball, 9 holes scramble and 9 holes alternate shot),  the MGA Mixed Team Championship, and . . . . well, you get the idea.

When he won the MGA Mid-Amateur last year, it was his 34th state title. That's more than any other male amateur in the history of Minnesota golf. (Don Berry has 53 state championships, 16 of them as a senior, but he won only once before turning pro. Leigh Klasse has the record for all Minnesota golfers with 56 women's championships -- 37 individual, 19 four-ball.)

On Sunday, Peterson started work on what could be another title, shooting a 4-under-par 68 at Edina Country Club in this year's Twin Cities Open. That has him in a five-way tie for first going into Monday's final round, along with three other amateurs -- Blake Onkka, Cooper Markham and Ryan Stendahl, a junior at Maple Grove High School -- and professional Michael Schmitz.

There's another fivesome right behind them, tied for sixth at 69, including Jack Hiemenz, who won the inaugural TC Open two years ago, and two-time Tapemark Charity Pro-Am champ Ross Miller. And there are yet another five players tied for 11th at 70, and nine more guys are bunched together at 71. Berry, the 17-time Minnesota Section PGA Player of the Year, is one eight guys tied for 25th at even-par 72.  Defending champion Andy Smith is only five strokes behind, at 73, but he's tied with six others for 33rd place. Basically, it's going to be a cavalry charge to the finish line on Monday. 

The mystery guest among the leaders is Markham. He just finished his junior year at the University of Montevallo, a Division II school 30 miles from Birmingham, Ala., and he came into this tournament with no expectations -- or course knowledge.

"I had played the front nine here, but never the back nine," he noted after his round. "But I saw that there were three par 5s on the back nine, and I thought that looked like fun."

It was. The 6-foot-6-inch Markham, who averages somewhere in the neighborhood of 310 to 320 yards off the tee, birdied the one par 5 on the front nine, No. 8. When he got to the back nine, he hit a monster drive and a 228-yard 4 iron to 3 feet at the 561-yard, par-5 10th hole, made the putt for an eagle, and then birdied both of the two remaining par 5s (Nos. 12 and 13). He birdied the par-3 17th, too, but bogeyed the daunting, 486-yard, par-4 18th for a back side 33.

Markham is nearly a foot taller than another of the co-leaders, Stendahl, a junior at Maple Grove High School who is 5-7 and 135 pounds. Nevertheless, the No. 6 player in the current Minnesota HS Boys Rankings stiill manages to average nearly 300 yards with his driver, and he put his length off the tee to good use on Sunday, making two eagles in his round. The first came at the 522-yard eighth hole, where he hit a 4-iron to 25 feet, and the second came at the 506-yard 13th, where he hit a 320-yard drive and an 8-iron to 10 feet.

"Legs and hips," was his reply when asked how he generates so much power from a small frame. It probably helps that his father, Derek Stendahl, is a golf professional, although his title at Rush Creek is general manager. 

Onkka had an interesting scorecard. He made four 3s on the front nine, and another one on the back nine -- but he parred only one of the four par 3s at Edina (No. 4, 130 yards). He made three birdies on front-nine par 4s, and he had an eagle 3 at the 518-yard, par-5 12th. 

Every one of the five players who shot 68 on Sunday had an eagle. Schmitz made his at the 13th, and Peterson got his at the 12th. It is a measure of how far tournament golfers now hit their drivers that Peterson is considered a relatively short hitter at about 275 yards.

"No, I'm not long," he concedes. "But I'm long enough."

What's more, he hits his ball straight, and he has a first-rate short game. He demonstrated that by making his eagle with a 60-yard wedge shot at the 12th hole, and he followed that with another birdie at the par-5 13th. 

"I like this course," he said afterward, "because you don't have to be a bomber to play it."  

And he has good memories of Edina CC from three years ago, when he nearly won the State Amateur again. (He won it for the first time in 2008.) With three holes to go in the final round, he was tied for the lead. But then the eventual winner,  Frankie Capan, who was one hole behind Peterson, birdied the 15th hole, and the 16th. Peterson bogeyed the 18th and wound up in a tie for third, three strokes behind Capan, who is now playing on the Korn Ferry Tour.     



Twin Cities Open

At Edina Country Club 

Par 72, 6,810 yards

Edina

First-round results 


T1. Trent Peterson, Valleywood (a)             68

T1. Blake Onkka, Bunker Hills (a)               68

T1. Ryan Stendahl, Rush Creek (a)            68

T1. Cooper Markham, Baker National  (a) 68

T1. Michael Schmitz, 2nd Swing (p).         68

T6. Ross Miller, LeSueur CC (p)               69

T6. Alex Kline, Troy Burne (p).                  69

T6. Danny Renner, Hazeltine Natl. (a).     69

T6. Jack Hiemenz, Victory Links (p)         69

T6. Scott McDonald, Minnewaska (p)      69

T11. Charlie Nasby, Bearpath (a).           70

T11. Matt Armstrong, Braemar  (a).        70

T11. Eddie Wynne, Bolstad/Univ. (p)      70

T11. Bryce Hanstad, Olympic Hills (a)    70

T11. Beck Erholz, Bemidji T&C (a)         70

             

Michael R Fermoyle

Mike Fermoyle’s amateur golf career features state titles in five different decades, beginning with the State Public Links (1969), three State Amateurs (1970, 1973 and 1980), and four State Four-Ball championships (1972, 1985, 1993 and 2001). Fermoyle was medalist at the Pine to Palm in 1971, won the Resorters in 1972, made the cut at the State Amateur 18 consecutive years (1969 to 1986), the last being 2000, and amassed 13 top-ten finishes. Fermoyle also made it to the semi-final matches at the MGA’s annual match play championship, the Players’, in 1982 and 1987.

Fermoyle enjoyed a career as a sportswriter at the St. Paul Pioneer Press Dispatch before retiring in 2006. Two years later he began a second career covering the golf beat exclusively for the MGA and its website, mngolf.org, where he ranks individual prep golfers and teams, provides coverage on local amateur and professional tournaments and keeps tabs on how Minnesotans are faring on the various professional tours.

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