Daryl Freeman Wins
2004 Howard Loy Memorial
Daryl Freeman
PPA Hall of Fame Member
2004 Howard Loy Memorial Champion21 March 2004 - Burlington, N.C. - After a poor outing to start the 2004 season on the North Carolina tour, Tennessee's own Daryl Freeman recovered from a pair of opening round 30's on Saturday and retracted those rounds into a pair of opening rounds of 23 apiece to claim his fourth North Carolina win in the past two seasons. Freeman, who posted a score of 70 for his second win of 2003 in Burlington, fired a score of 71 in conditions that were similar from the day before, sunny and very windy.
Freeman's opening round 23, not only was the lowest round of the tournament, but was sharing the opening round honors with Andy Coradini. Lance Perdue and Thomas Rawles both fired a 24 in that round to start out in third and there were four other players tied for fifth at 25.
Freeman would have the event decided within the second round as he fired his second straight 23 to grab a two-shot lead over local player Steve Shively, who also fired a 23. Coradini had a shot at second to himself with an ace on 18, but wound up taking a bogey on that hole to drop into third at 49. Jay Klapper and Rick Baird would round out the top five at that point by going at 50 & 51, respectively.
Freeman then continued his consistent run at the win as he only shot 25 in the final round. However, it was good enough to win by two shots over the two-time defending North Carolina Player of the Year in Coradini. Coradini actually missed the two easiest holes arguably on the course (holes 5 & 12) in the final round that he says made the difference in Freeman's two-shot win. Coradini fired a final round 24 to edge out Shively in the final round for second place.
In the end, Freeman posted a final score of 71, by far the lowest score shot this season and only on the second day of activity on the tour. Coradini finished with a 73 to finish in second, and Shively came in third at 74.
A dramatic ending took place in the APA ranks as the lead continued to change hands. After the first round, Keith Waters had shot 23 and was up by a stroke on Chuck Nance, who was going for his first medal play tournament victory in nearly seven seasons. Waters would take himself out of the tournament immediately after he took an unexplained seven on the second hole of Round 2. That seven paved the way for an even-par round of 36 for Waters and he never got back in the groove from that point.
This gave Nance a chance to capitalize from Waters' blunder, but he, too, would discover some slight trouble as he had a couple of bogeys in that round to post a 30 and wind up at 54. Steve Helton, who fired a 25 in the opening round, took over the top spot with a 26 for a three-shot lead on Nance and on Frankie Peters.
Helton would then put himself on the hot seat. Helton shot 31 in the final round to finish at 82, giving Peters a chance for his first ever career win. Peters fired a 27 in the final round to wind up at 81, but Nance was still on the course and was playing well down the stretch. Nance came to 18 realizing that he needed a deuce to seal up a win. After missing his tee shot, Nance sank in his deuce in front of a gathering of onlookers as they cheered him on to victory. Nance would collect his first win of the season and also post his first win in a medal play tournament since June 7, 1997 in Gastonia. Nance had won the 1998 Match Play Championship in Durham since then.
Nance posted a final round 26 to finish the day at 80, winning by one shot over Peters and by two over Helton. Again, there were five cash spots in the tournament for the amateurs. The cash line was at 85.
Klapper, along with Coradini, posted his second straight top five finish on Sunday as he went with consistent rounds of 25, 25, and 26 to finish alone in fourth at 76. Defending champion Greg Newport recovered from an over-par front nine to start the tournament and finished in fifth at 78. For the second consecutive day, there were 14 cash spots available and the cash line was a three-way split for two spots at 82.
The second State Championship and Match Play spots were awarded to Freeman. There was also a two-day low medalist spot given to Coradini. Peters was awarded the first APA low two-day spot into the State Championship for later this season.
Special thanks goes out to Brian Patterson for having the course ready for play this past weekend. The tour will return to Burlington two more times, including the annual Elton Davis Memorial in August and the Teams and Match Play Championships in September.
The next events on the North Carolina tour will be in two weeks on the weekend of April 3 & 4 in High Point for the High Point Open and the Furniture City Open. The action gets underway at 12:00 p.m. on Saturday, April 3, and at 10:00 a.m. on Sunday, April 4.
Tournament recap and scores provided by Opie Roberts.
Professional Division of the 2004 Howard Loy Memorial
(Burlington, N.C. Event - 21 March 2004)
Round Prize Player 1 2 3 Total Money 1 Daryl Freeman
23 23 25 71 $ 150.00 2 Andy Coradini 23 26 24 73 $ 110.00 3 Steve Shively 25 23 26 74 $ 90.00 4 Jay Klapper 25 25 26 76 $ 80.00 5 Greg Newport 29 25 24 78 $ 75.00 6 Vince Batten 28 26 25 79 $ 65.00 Brad Lebo 27 27 25 79 $ 65.00 Rick Rybaczek 28 25 26 79 $ 65.00 9 Rick Baird 27 24 29 80 $ 50.00 Bob Haizlip 27 27 26 80 $ 50.00 11 Opie Roberts 26 27 28 81 $ 43.00 Tony Varnadore 28 28 25 81 $ 43.00 13 Tony Jackson 25 28 29 82 $ 27.00 Robert Johnson 30 26 26 82 $ 27.00 Bill Kirby 29 23 30 82 $ 27.00 16 Lance Perdue 24 28 31 83 Randy Reeves 31 26 26 83 18 Chris Bunting 30 27 27 84 Billy Caudle 28 32 24 84 Rusty Taylor 33 27 24 84 21 Ray Guthrie 29 28 28 85 Thomas Rawles 24 32 29 85 23 Tommy Barbour 30 28 29 87 Michael Cardwell 28 31 28 87 Allen Wall 29 31 27 87 26 Randy Carter 25 32 31 88 Mike Griffin 27 30 31 88 28 Gary Moore 31 32 28 91 Amateur Division of the 2004 Howard Loy Memorial
(Burlington, N.C. Event - 21 March 2004)
Round Expense Player 1 2 3 Total Reimbursement 1 Chuck Nance
24 30 26 80 $ 10.00 2 Frankie Peters 28 26 27 81 $ 10.00 3 Steve Helton 25 26 31 82 $ 10.00 4 Dennis Biesma 26 31 27 84 $ 10.00 5 Walter Kolb 25 30 30 85 $ 10.00 6 Adam Smith 31 30 26 87 Gerald Vick 30 28 29 87 8 Larry Hoover 27 32 29 88 9 Ricky D. Schults 29 31 29 89 10 Todd Trent 29 33 28 90 Keith Waters 23 36 31 90 12 David Gregor 28 30 33 91 Brian Hutchins 33 28 30 91 14 Mark Lawson 30 29 33 92 15 James LeBrun 29 35 35 94 16 Linwood Moist 34 30 35 99
