By Gary Kalahar, JTV Sports
While preparing for the Jackson Masters golf tournament one evening last week, Steve Maddalena hit the Country Club of Jackson driving range after the balls had been picked up for the night. That meant he would have to gather any balls that he hit. After striking a bucket’s worth, the job of retrieving them didn’t prove too difficult, since every one of them was on the target green.
That was a good sign for Maddalena, and a bad one for the rest of the field.
Maddalena stayed on target all weekend, firing rounds of 67 and 71 for a 6-under-par 138 total and a comfortable five-stroke margin of victory to claim his sixth Jackson Masters championship. Cody Lysher finished second at 143, followed by defending champion Logan Anuszkiewicz, Mark Kurzynowski and Jack Brockie at 146. Lysher, Anuszkiewicz and Brockie all matched Maddalena’s 71 on a sunny, windy Sunday at the Country Club of Jackson, but no one made a run at the three-stroke lead he carried after his exceptional opening round.
With his first Jackson Masters victory since 2009, the 59-year-old Maddalena became the tournament’s oldest winner, eclipsing Bob Zimmerman, who was 54 when he won it in 1992. In the last three years, Maddalena has also become the oldest winner of the City Championship and the Spring Thaw. There is no apparent end in sight to the victory total of Jackson’s winningest golfer. He has won at least one major local tournament for four straight years since a swing change revitalized his game – and provided motivation to keep playing competitive golf.
“It’s a lot easier now because of the way I swing,” Maddalena said. “I have more control of my golf ball than I ever have. Hitting the ball is much easier than it’s ever been.”
The enjoyment Maddalena even derives from the practice needed to remain at his level hasn’t dimmed in the 36 years since his first local tournament victory.
“I don’t mind practice,” he said. “It relieves stress. I enjoy hitting golf balls. I like that I can control the golf ball. When you can do that, that’s what makes it fun.”
In Saturday’s first round that was interrupted by storms, Maddalena was 4 under par after five holes.
“That pretty much set the tone,” he said. “And after that I didn’t do anything stupid.”
A relentlessly consistent Maddalena playing on his home course with a three-stroke lead is going to be tough to beat, and he never provided an opening on Sunday. He birdied No. 4 and gave it back with a bogey to finish the front nine even par.
Todd Marston, who started the day in second place, pulled within two strokes with a birdie on No. 11 but couldn’t get closer. Maddalena reeled off six consecutive pars on the back nine, birdied No. 16 from five feet and cruised home. The only potential hiccups on the back nine came when he was short of the green on Nos. 10 and 14, but both times superb chip shots gave him up-and-down pars. His 36-hole total matched his lowest score of his Jackson Masters triumphs.
“I played real solid (Saturday),” Maddalena said of a round that saw him miss only one fairway and one green. “I drove it super straight. And I played well again (Sunday), just not quite as crisp.”