SHAWNEE TOWNSHIP — It wasn’t the Road Hole at St. Andrew’s, but Phil Trueblood’s round during the Lima Men’s City Golf Championship took a definite turn for the better after he ran into trouble on No. 13 at the Shawnee Country Club along Shawnee Road on Thursday.
Trueblood, a two-time city champion, was the low qualifier in the championship flight with a one-under-par 71 on Thursday.
After hitting his tee shot into Shawnee Road and taking a double bogey on No. 13, he finished his round by playing his final four holes in five under par.
Trueblood started that streak with a birdie at No. 15 when he rolled in a 25-foot putt. He eagled the par-5 sixteenth hole, then dropped putts of 10 feet and four feet for birdies on the final two holes.
“I was a little rusty but I found something,” Trueblood said. While his 34 on the back nine was enough to make him the low qualifier by one shot over Scott Geier, it was still five shots above his career best of 29 on the back nine at Shawnee, his home course.
“That feeling I had on the last four holes, I’ve had before,” he said.
Geier came in with an even par 72 even though he bogeyed his last two holes. Steve Creps Jr. was one shot behind him with a 73 and 2015 city champion Josh Hollar was next with a 76.
Geier said, “I made a couple birdies early. I birdied No. 1 and No. 3 right out of the gate, then made a bunch of pars in a row and birdied No. 12. I made a couple of bad swings late and got back to par. It was a good round, it was a good way to start the week.”
Heavy rain late Wednesday night and early Thursday morning forced the Championship Flight to relocate to Shawnee from Hidden Creek Golf Club. The senior flights were played at Colonial Golfers Club instead of at Bluffton Golf Club and the open flights also played at Colonial.
Tournament organizers started looking for a Plan B around 5:45 a.m. “It was a lot of emails and texts. It was a logistical nightmare,” tournament committee member Matt Metzger said.
Geier, also on the tournament committee said, “We didn’t get as much rain here. We only got two inches of rain and they got four inches of rain up north. Bluffton and Hidden Creek were under water.”
Hollar, like Trueblood, was on the road on Thursday. But it didn’t cost him any strokes.
“I found out (that the tournament was moving to Shawnee) on the web site and the radio. I was out at Hidden Creek at 6:30 and then I went to Colonial, thinking we were going to play there. So then we drove here. It’s been a lot of miles on my car this morning,” he said.
All flights in the tournament are scheduled to play at Shawnee today.
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