Sam Weatherhead wins Wisconsin State Open after rollercoaster final day at Blackwolf Run
KOHLER – Sam Weatherhead didn’t know the five-foot uphill putt he made on the 18th hole of the Meadow Valleys Course at Blackwolf Run on Aug. 20 was the winning putt of the 105th Wisconsin State Open.
By the time his wife Kristyn squeezed him just off the green it clearly had sunk in with smiles that, perhaps, only rivaled that of their 2022 wedding less than a mile down the road at The American Club Resort Hotel.
“It means a lot,” he said. “Winning golf tournaments is very, very hard. I’ve had tournament’s where I’ve thought I played my best golf and have gotten beaten. It takes a lot of things to fall into place to win a golf tournament.
“Yeah, I’m going to remember this for a long time. I don’t have a tally of professional golf tournaments that I’ve won, so to add this to the résumé is just a huge confidence-builder and it’s reassuring I’m doing the right things to practice and prep for it and, yeah, hopefully go get another one next time I play in one.”
Weatherhead won the championship and the $ 15,000 prize – the largest in tournament history – with a score of 10-under-par 278. It was a rollercoaster of a final 36 holes for the PGA professional out of Hartland.
He began the day as a co-leader after two rounds, took a one-shot lead after the first 18 holes at 10-under, but by the time he made the turn he had dropped three behind Harrison Ott.
But Weatherhead rallied with an eagle on the par 5, 11th to get back to within a shot of – that point – co-leaders Ott, Mike Van Sickle and Cameron Huss – and a birdie on the 13th moved him back to 10-under for the tournament and tied for the lead.
“I think it’s probably how much I’ve matured probably since I was in college (at Michigan State from 2013-17) and everything,” Weatherhead said. “If I was 3-over through nine and people were going the opposite direction I probably would have counted myself out but I just tried to take it one hole at a time and thankfully it worked out.”
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A bogey at No. 14 didn’t hurt his standing, and then Weatherhead hit a 195-yard 8-iron to two feet on the par 3, 17th hole for what proved to be the winning birdie.
“It’s what I’ll remember the most, for sure,” he said.
Weatherhead also held the lead through two round in 2024 before a third round 75 led to a 10th place finish. He finished fifth in 2023 after a closing round 74.
“Every time you feel heartbreak on the golf course you’re going to get stronger from it,” he said. “It’s not necessarily that I was looking back at some of those rounds, but I think it hardened me up a little bit to say hey, everybody’s gonna have stuff happen today that they don’t want to happen and try to take that next shot one at a time.
“Every golf tournament I’ve played since I was a little kid I think has led up to this moment. That’s pretty cool, too. All the times I lost a golf tournament, I don’t remember those, but they helped me win one today.”
Huss, the 2023 Wisconsin State Open champion, played a group ahead of Weatherhead and felt he had to make a birdie on the 18th but his attempt came up short. He finished alone in second place at 9-under for the tournament. He fired a 3-under 69 in the final round, which included an eagle, four birdies and three bogeys.
Huss, a University of Wisconsin alumnus who has had three starts apiece on the Korn Ferry Tour and PGA Tour Americas, kept his title hopes alive after scrambling for par on the ninth hole when his approach bounced off the walk wall framing the hole and back into play and then eagling the 11th.
“The eagle on 11 is when I really thought like, OK, we’ve got a shot here,” said Huss, who was vying to become the sixth player in state history to win the State Open as an amateur and a professional. “Then I got a flyer on 12, 13 I made a good birdie and then from there it was just kind of just ‘hold on.’ It’s a hard finishing stretch (on) this golf course, and when you’ve got a little bit of pressure, too, and your golf swing is not feeling the best, targets are pretty conservative. It was fun to compete and be in contention again.”
Ott, the 2020 and 2021 tournament champion, was hoping to join that club as well as become the 11th player to win three or more state opens. But he closed with a 2-over 73 and tied for third with Marquette University alumnus Mike Van Sickle.
A Brookfield native who played at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Ott held the lead by a shot heading into the back nine and had made nine pars in a row before he carded back-to-back bogeys on Nos. 13 and 14 to fall two shots back with just four to play.
“I was not frustrated,” Ott said of his run of pars that include a couple of lipped out putts. “If I just keep hitting fairways, you get good looks out here. You earn ’em. I wasn’t too frustrated by it. Nature of the course. Maybe I wanted to make my birdie putt on 11, but you know, that was kind of the extent of that.”
Van Sickle, a three-time All-American and the all-time leader in tournament wins and scoring average at Marquette University, played in his first state open. The 38-year-old lives in Pennsylvania, and he also held the lead at times before playing his final seven holes at 2-over.
Fellow Marquette alumnus Tyler Leach, who began the final round one shot behind Weatherhead, finished in fifth at 6-under for the tournament. He shot a 3-over 75.
He was two shots off the pace heading into the par 5, seventh hole. Unfortunately, two chip shots could not hold the green and then he penalized himself a stroke when the ball moved after he grounded his club. A triple-bogey 8 – followed by a bogey on No. 9 – effectively knocked him out of contention.The rest of the top 10 was rounded out by Jordan Niebrugge, who won the Open as an amateur in 2011 and is currently an assistant coach at Marquette, who tied for sixth with current Golden Eagles player Mason Schmidtke at 2-under.
Russell Dettmering was the only other player to finish under par for the tournament at 1-under, taking eighth place. Patrick Adler finished ninth at even par while Drake Wilcox, Brett Wieland, Barrett Kelpin and Aidan Lafferty all tied for 10th at 1-over.
Defending champion Max Lyons, yet another Marquette alumnus, tied for 16th.
The stirring finish to the tournament in the afternoon was set up by the third round of play in the morning on Aug. 20.
Weatherhead was atop the leaderboard for the third straight round following the first 18 holes of the day, shooting a 3-under 69 to get to 10-under for the tournament. He maintained a one-shot advantage over Leach and Ott, who each shot 2-under 70s.
Van Sickle was the player who made a massive move in the morning, shooting a 5-under 67 to get to 7-under from the tournament and into contention.
Huss gave ground with a 1-over 73 while Delsman fired an even-par 72 to finish the third round at 6-under for the tournament and within shouting distance of the championship to begin the final 18 holes.
Lyons matched Van Sickle for the round of the morning with a 5-under 67 of his own.
This story has updated with new information
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: PGA pro Sam Weatherhead wins Wisconsin State Open at Blackwolf Run
