MILL CREEK — As golf experiences go, Ryan Benzel’s trip to last year’s PGA Championship was about as good as it gets.
He played practice rounds with Jim Furyk, Woody Austin, Davis Love III, Sean O’Hair and Darren Clarke. He stood next to Phil Mickelson in line at the dining room salad bar. And from adjoining fairways, he got firsthand glimpses of the spectator frenzy that follows Tiger Woods around a golf course.
For Benzel, it was a great week in every way except maybe one. He finished 71st, and that’s something he hopes to improve on at this year’s PGA Championship, which tees off Thursday at Oakland Hills Country Club in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., just outside of Detroit.
“I definitely know that I can compete with those players if I play my game and if I play well,” said the 29-year-old Benzel, the new head pro at Mill Creek Country Club. “Last year proved that to me. And that’s my mindset this year. I know that I can compete, and if I play the way I know I can I’ll be just fine.”
Benzel, who was an assistant pro at Seattle Golf Club a year ago, played well enough the first two days to make the second-round cut, posting a 3-over-par 143 total that was better than luminaries like Furyk, Love, Vijay Singh and 2007 Masters champ Zach Johnson, who all failed to advance.
But on the third day Benzel faded in the severe heat and humidity of Southern Hills Country Club in Tulsa, Okla., where muggy temperatures often topped 100 degrees. That Saturday he was 6-over on the last five holes on his way to an 80, and he played the last 36 holes in 14-over 154.
“The third round, I really feel like I ran out of gas,” Benzel said. “I kind of got on that bogey train, as people call it. It was frustrating to finish poorly like that in the third round.”
Still, he said, the entire week “was a cool, cool experience. I was just so excited to be there. I definitely had a wide-eyed, kid-in-the-candy-store look for the first couple of days, and I didn’t sleep hardly at all that Sunday night (after arriving in Tulsa) because I couldn’t relax myself and my mind.
“But by the time the event rolled around on Thursday, it was ‘go’ time. I wasn’t there to look around anymore. To me, it was just a golf tournament and I was hitting golf shots. I felt like I was one of the field. Maybe I was lesser known and maybe completely unknown, but I felt like a player.”
That tournament was the beginning of a remarkable 12 months for Benzel. In between the two PGAs, he was hired at Mill Creek CC, where he started on April 1. He also played well in other tournaments, including this year’s PGA Professional National Championship in June, where he finished tied for fourth to receive one of 20 spots reserved for club pros at Oakland Hills CC. And last September he was a member of the United States PGA Cup team, which defeated a team of club pros from Great Britain and Ireland in a Ryder Cup-like competition.
Benzel has also been good around the Northwest, finishing fourth at the Washington Open in May and second at Spokane’s Rosauers Open earlier in July, coming within a whisker of winning both.
He earned upwards of $50,000 as a player in 2007, and he could easily do better this year with a strong showing next week.
“There’ll be no ‘Wow!’ factor when I get there this year,” said Benzel, whose father Bruce Benzel will be his caddy. To play well, he went on, “I have to be relaxed, but I have to be focused. I’m pretty even-keel when it comes to highs and lows on the golf course, and if I can maintain that even attitude throughout the round, that’s when I play my best.”
Benzel grew up in the eastern Washington community of Ritzville and played four years of golf at the University of Idaho. After turning pro in the fall of 2001 and spending the 2002 season on the Hooters Tour, he became an assistant pro at Seattle GC and stayed there until being hired at Mill Creek CC.
During the interview process, he said, “I told them that my desire to keep playing is still there. I’m a competitive person by nature, and one of the aspects of the golf business that really keeps me motivated is the competition aspect. It fuels my fire to keep my game at a level that I enjoy. And I think it reflects on the country club if I’m able to represent it well.
“I realize the job comes first and anything after that is secondary, but it’s still a major part of who I am as a golf professional,” he said.
Benzel’s playing ability “was one of the strong points in making the choice for him,” said Barney Dotson, board president at Mill Creek CC. “I think it’s really a benefit to (the membership). It’s going to get us on the map, so we’re rooting for him and we’re excited for him.
“There are,” Dotson added, “many, many members watching minute by minute as he plays in these tournaments, and they’re proud to have somebody from Mill Creek representing them.”
Benzel has attended the PGA Tour’s qualifying school four times previously in a bid to receive his PGA Tour card, but says he does not expect to do so again this fall.
“Once I made the decision to accept the job here at Mill Creek,” he explained, “it was also kind of the same decision to not go to Q school again. I just don’t want to chase that avenue (to a playing career) any longer. From a competitive standpoint, yes, I feel like I could be on tour and make a living for myself as a PGA Tour player. But there are a thousand other golfers in the United States who have the same thought and that are probably capable of the same thing. The difficulty is in getting there.”
For now, he said, “I’m having too much fun playing in our PGA of America events. I just want to keep having fun and competing in those levels where I’m having success.”
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