Piazza eyes the biggest prize
Much has changed since last July when Nolan Piazza shocked the field and won the Ontario Junior Boys Golf Championship at age 15.
“My confidence has gone up and I have grown a lot, so I am hitting it a lot farther,” the 15-year-old Niagara Falls resident said.
He has grown to six feet tall from around 5-foot-6 and that has resulted in an increase in distance of about 50 yards off the tee. He can now hit the ball upwards of 290 yards.
“I’ve heard of people who really struggle a lot when they grow so fast, but I still feel the same,” the Grade 10 student at A.N. Myer Secondary School said.
And while the added height and distance is nice, the newfound confidence is probably the single biggest development in his game.
“My confidence was really boosted,” he said. “I had never won anything of that calibre before and now I know that I can. That helps a lot.”
The scratch handicapper at Cherry Hill would have loved to defend his Ontario junior crown but he has much bigger fish to fry.
He recently qualified for U.S. Junior Amateur July 15-20 at the Inverness Club in Toledo, Ohio, after tying for first with a two under par 69 at a qualifier at Carlisle Country Club in Pennsylvania. There were 60 players in the field and only Piazza and co-winner Palmer Jackson from Murrysville, Pa., advanced to the main tournament.
“It’s tough because I do want to defend it but I know the U.S. junior is way larger of a scale, especially for college coaches,” he said. “Last year, there were almost 60 college coaches at the U.S. junior and there were two or three at the Ontario junior.”
Things didn’t start well at the qualifier as Piazza went three over par through the first four holes. But five birdies and no further bogeys allowed him to tie for first.
“I wasn’t thinking it was over, but I was thinking that it would be pretty impossible,” he said. “Then I made a birdie on five and that sort of allowed me to regain the momentum.”
He credited last year’s Ontario title for helping him get back on track.
“Without the junior win, I don’t know if I would have had enough confidence when I’m playing bad to keep grinding it out.”
He will now join 155 other competitors at the 7,339 yard, par 71 Inverness Club course for two rounds of stroke play. The top 64 from stroke play advance to compete in a match play format.
Former winners of the event include Tiger Woods and Jordan Spieth. Piazza’s goal for the tournament is to make it to the match play portion of the event.
“If I can successfully do that, I can set new goals the next morning,” he said. “It will be a great experience and hopefully I can take advantage of it.”
He feels the match play format is well-suited to his game.
“I like that each individual hole is like a different match. One guy can make an eight and another guy can make a two and you are only down one.
“And I am a really aggressive player and if the aggressiveness doesn’t work out, it’s only one hole.”
Piazza trained through the winter using a net in his garage and coach Doug Lawrie lent him a FlightScope launch monitor to analyze his shots. He had been out golfing since Cherry Hill’s opening day on April 21 and plays or practises almost every day.
