June 12, 2008

PERU, IN — Kyle Marti's putting performance last week at Rock Hollow Golf Club is probably the most underrated sports performance in the history of the tournament. The 30-year old senior member took home the 2008 Stroke Award after making 20 long-putts.

"Marti made a long-putt on 37 percent of his 54 holes," says Greg Garrett. "You need to just think about the consistency for a moment. This defines a strong performance on the greens. He had 8 long-putts during both Round 2 and the final round."

The average long-putts made by the tournament field was 10.3 putts and 20.6 points. Marti finished the tournament in 16th position. The difference between 40 long-putts and 21 long-putt points was 26 positions on the Leaderboard.

"After succumbing to the pressure by finishing second for the Stroke Award year after year after year, I decided to take a new approach entering the final round," said Marti. "I just played for fun and drank a lot of beer. I took Greg Garrett's approach on short putts, which is 'if you hit the ball hard enough there is no break.' The putts just fell in one after another."

The 40 long-putt points broke the 4-year Spackler record set by Jason Ridgeway at Tanglewood Park in June 2004. Ridgeway made 19 long-putts and scored 38 points in his rookie event.

In related news, the 2008 Dooty Award was lost by Craig Williams in a 3-man playoff. Chad Long and Tim Davis made a 3-foot putt to escape the Dooty.