With a talented field at the beautiful and beastly Jug Mountain Ranch, the 95th playing of the Idaho State Amateur Championships was one to remember.
Written By Shane René, P.J. Boatwright Intern for Media and Communications
The lush meadow and alpine forest that line fairways and surround the greens at Jug Mountain Ranch eat a steady diet of golf balls. They seem to deliberately reach out and take them — as if starving for a dimpled snack — charging players a stroke and a small slice of dignity each time.
But it’s the final stretch that seems to haunt players the most. It’s a torture chamber for marginal ball striking and a graveyard for otherwise good days. Of the 30 scores worse than double bogey tallied in the final round, 11 were made on the last three holes.
The 16th tee. | Shane René
The 18th green site with a testy hole location. | Shane René
The par-5 16th asks players to take on a partially blind tee shot into the mouth of what looks like an intermediate ski run. Bending right from the tee, the tree line encroaches on both sides as the hole bottlenecks into a creek guarding a narrow green site. Players find themselves back on flat ground on the 17th, but the short, dogleg-left par-4 hosted more disaster last week than any other hole. Tee shots sent wide of the fairway have a snowballs chance in the hellish meadow, and the shallow, elevated green stares back at the fairway through a deep, lion's-mouth bunker. The fairway is mandatory once again on the final hole, leaving players with an uphill approach into a green that has just enough flat ground to sod the roof of a Volkswagen Bus.
The test at Jug Mountain is one of survival.
In the 95th playing of the Idaho State Amateur Championships, Jug Mountain identified two hardened survivors, crowning Trevor Garus and Maddie Montoya as the 2023 champions. Neither of them held the lead when they stood on the 16th tee last Saturday, but they both managed to separate themselves down Jug Mountain’s most harrowing stretch.
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Garus on the first tee in round one. | Shane René
When Garus arrived on Tuesday afternoon for his first of two practice rounds, he’d never seen the golf course before. It’s a curious omission on the resumé of an elite junior player from Southwest Idaho, but the Capital High School senior showed up ready to do his homework.
“I loved it,” he said. “The course is great; it’s beautiful. I like the way it plays — firm and fast, which fits my game and that’s what I’m used, so I can’t think of a better venue to host the State Am.”
On Thursday, Garus found himself two shots back of the lead shared by 71-year-old, nine-time champion Scott Masingill and fellow junior talent Reid Piron. He might have found himself tied with them if it weren’t for a rollercoaster of a back nine, featuring five birdies, two bogeys and a triple bogey on 17. He made just one par for a closing, even-par 36.
The second round proved Garus was comfortable on the golf course, and that his ball-striking prowess might afford him more birdie opportunities than most. Cruising out of the gate to a bogey-free 33, Garus made his second triple bogey of the week on the 11th, a benign par 4. Undeterred, birdies on both remaining par 5s dragged him under par for the tournament, two back of the 36-hole leader Reid Piron.
“There are some big numbers,” Garus said. “There’s a lot of trouble out here, so you’ve got to have a good mental game and keep pushing through the round.”
In a remarkably young final pairing that featured Garus, Piron, and rising University of Idaho senior Matt McGann, the two juniors got off to a sluggish start. A double bogey at par-5 2nd bounced Piron out of the lead, and two bogeys on the front nine had Garus struggling to close the gap with a steady McGann.
The final group played the first five holes on the back nine in a combined five-under par, with McGann hanging onto a two-shot lead. But a bogey at the par-4 15th cracked the door open as they rolled into the final stretch.
“I knew I was playing well,” Garus said. ‘Everything felt great in my game, so I knew if I just stayed patient a door would open, and I would have some opportunity to squeak my way up there.”
Garus for eagle on 16 from just off the back of the green. | Shane René
After a trio of birdies on 16, Piron plugged his ball in the front bunker of the 17th as McGann and Garus earned looks at birdie. Unable to advance his ball onto the green, Piron scrapped his way in for bogey while his opponents traded pars. Garus was one back with one to play.
Garus played safely into the right half of the 18th fairway. McGann, taking a much more aggressive line, knocked his tee shot into the far-left corner of the fairway for a perfect angle into the severe green. Piron ejected into the meadow.
“I liked where the pin was at,” Garus said. “It was kind of on the right side — I’ve been working with my swing coach Kevin Burton to hit a fade, so it set up to my eye very nicely.”
With 195 yards uphill, he pulled 8-iron.
“It started right at the pin and faded offline,” he said. “But it ended up sticking to about 6 feet, so I gave myself a look and put the pressure on the other guy.”
Garus holding the Scott Masingill Cup. | Shane René
Looking like he would need a par, McGann’s wedge came out squirrelly and right, leaving him with an awkward, short-sided chip off a downhill lie. It ran more than 30 feet past the hole.
McGann missed his par putt, leaving Garus six feet for birdie and the win. As the putt ran out of pace, it caught the front edge and disappeared, capping off a bogey-free, back-nine 32 to win in his first ever Idaho State Amateur appearance.
“I just stayed patient and let the game come to me,” he said. “And it ended up working out.”
Emily Cadwell and her father, Dave, on 6 green. | Shane René
Montoya’s path to victory looked a little bit different. Heading into the final day, Montoya was an afterthought in a field led by Washington State University junior Emily Cadwell.
“I’m hitting it pretty well,” Montoya said following a second-round 76 to find herself alone in 5th place. “It’s just my short game that’s kind of lacking right now. I definitely will have to shoot some close and make a lot of putts tomorrow.”
Montoya, who had yet to make a birdie in her 76-76 start to the tournament, found a hot putter in the early goings of her final round. A birdie at the 2nd and an eagle at the 4th had her storming up the leaderboard before she stumbled into the turn with a string of bogeys.
In the meantime, just a hole behind her, Cadwell was moving along steadily. One-under par through 11 holes, Cadwell’s ballooning lead lost some air by the time she arrived on the 16th tee. Then, the final stretch showed its teeth.
Just ahead of Cadwell, Montoya was flawlessly plotting her way around the back nine, closing with a back-nine 34 to get into the clubhouse with a final round 71.
“I was just trying to play my game,” Montoya said. “I knew what the girls in my group were at, and I kind of estimating. I looked on hole 16 to see what the leaderboard was just so I could see on the final few holes. But otherwise [I didn’t look at the leaderboard].”
Cadwell rolled in a slippery 4-footer on 18 to end her round double bogey-bogey-par for a back nine 40. Suddenly, Montoya had a share of the lead.
Montoya and Cadwell embrace on the final playoff hole. | Shane René
The players returned to the No.1 tee for a playoff hole, both finding the middle of the fairway. First to play her approach, Montoya’s ball snagged the left edge of the green. Cadwell’s approach came out thin and right, hopping into the greenside bunker.
Maddie Montoya hoisting the Jean Lane Smith Cup. | Shane René
The tension boiled up again as Cadwell’s bunker shot landed exactly where she was looking, coming to rest inside five feet of the hole. Montoya’s lag came up short, just a notch inside of Cadwell.
Cadwell and her father, Dave, stalked the putt from every angle. Rolling at the center of the hole, it drifted left and lipped out. You could feel the gallery clutch their stomachs as they groaned.
With a nearly identical putt for the win, Montoya poured in the center.
“I’m just very thankful and grateful.” Montoya said. “I’m just kinda speechless — I started in 5th yesterday and I just didn’t know what today held. I’m just super excited.”
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The 95th playing of the Idaho State Amateur Championships is a reminder to us all how bright the future of golf might be. We live in the heart of an era in which college players make seamless jumps into the professional game, and high school prodigies have more opportunities than ever before to cut their teeth against top-flight competition.
Garus is the prototype of the elite, modern junior player. He’s built like a multi-sport athlete — tall, strong, and mobile. He hits the ball high, he hits the ball far, and it doesn’t look like he has to try very hard to do either. His short game is steady and solid, as sharp as you’ve probably ever seen. He’s the kind of player that Division I programs search the country trying to find; and in the fall of 2024, Garus will join the roster at UCLA.
Montoya is cut from a similar cloth. Quiet and easy going, she will kill you with mistake free golf; with 40 pars through 54 holes, she made three more than anyone else in the men’s or women’s fields. The ability to go low when you need to is difficult — if not impossible — to teach, and her final round 71 showed everyone this week what a clutch gene really looks like. The Montana State freshman is an example of the tremendous depth that has developed in the women’s amateur game over the last decade.
“Amateur golf is the next step to bridge between junior and college golf,” said Garus, who qualified for the U.S. Amateur just days earlier. “So, I look forward to playing in all of these amateur events. To be able to walk away with a qualification for the U.S. Amateur, and a win here at the State Am, is great — I feel like I’m ready to go.”
IGA Championships Director Nicole Bird noted during the trophy ceremony on Saturday evening that well over half of the 2023 field carried a handicap index of better than 0.0. The depth and quality of the field needed a golf course to put them to the test.
“That told me that this golf course was the only golf course that could handle that test of golf for that caliber of a field,” Bird said. “It’s really amazing to me to see the talent that we had out here for the championship this year, and Jug Mountain Ranch held up to that championship, for sure.”
Just three rounds broke 70 all week.
With the perfect golf course, the 2023 Idaho State Amateur Championship hosted a test worthy of the rich history that lives behind it. And this year’s champions more than earned their place among the greats of amateur golf in Idaho.
The pond wrapping around the right side and behind the 12th green, an exciting, drivable par-4. | Shane René