For a guy who was never even a state champion in high school, you might say that things are turning out quite well for Connor Cassano.
What’s better than being a State Amateur Golf champion? Becoming a two-time State Amateur Golf Champion.
That’s what the former Loyola product did last weekend at Metairie Country Club, finishing the four rounds at 4-under-par 276 to win by a stroke.
“It’s awesome,” he said. “You go into those weeks, obviously, feeling a little bit of outside pressure because I won last year. You think you’ve got the ability to do it again, but the state has got a lot of great players. You just got to go in and trust what you’ve been working on, and I did that.”
Cassano, whose best finish at the LHSAA state tournament for the Flyers was third, became the ninth player in the 107 years of the tournament to win back-to-back titles. The last player to do it was Grady Brame, Jr., who just so happened to be Cassano’s playing partner on the final day.
It set up an intense final two holes. On the 17th, Cassano birdied and Brame triple bogeyed and would ultimately finish fourth.
That gave Cassano a two-stroke advantage heading into the 18th hole and he needed every bit of it. He bogeyed the final hole but it was enough to hold on for the win.
“I was just happy to see some good golf come from a lot of hard work the last couple weeks,” he said.
Cassano started his collegiate career at LSU but transferred to Cincinnati for his sophomore season. He was not familiar with Metairie CC, which is an historic course designed by Seth Raynor in 1922.
He may only be two years out of college, but he knows his golf course architect history.
“I’ve played a couple Seth Raynor designs, and (Metairie CC) definitely lived up to exactly how he likes to design golf courses, so that felt awesome,” Cassano said. “You hit a good bit of drivers on the course, and that’s the strength of mine. The greens are challenging, so you’ve got to hit your wedges close and putt it well, so it was nice that I put all together.”
But there was a stretch in the final round in which things might have started to come unraveled for Cassano. And he took some inspiration from an Amazon Prime documentary he had seen, “Rory McElroy: The Masters Wait” that provided a defining moment in the championship.
“I think I was leading through 11 holes, and then I double bogeyed the12th hole, and I thought surely that I was out of it,” he said “There was no chance left. But my caddy said to me a line they used in the Rory McElroy documentary: ‘If I would have told you on Thursday (before the tournament started) that you’d be in the final group with six holes to play and be two (strokes) back, would you have taken it?’ And I said ‘Absolutely, 100%.’
“I think him saying that to me just really helped calm me down. We had six holes left, so let’s go play and try to win. I just need that moment right there was big for me.”
A birdie on 14 and a birdie on 17 proved that the advice was just what he needed.
Now, Cassano will get a chance to play in the U.S. Amateur for the second straight year, this time at famed Merion Golf Club outside of Philadelphia.
Before that, he will play in the 85th annual Sunnehanna Amateur next week, also in Pennsylvania. He will also play in another prestigious amateur event, the Porter Cup in upstate New York, where previous winners include David Duval, Ben Crenshaw and Phil Mickelson.
Not a bad way to spend a summer that’s already off to a great start.
Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com
