Chris Wollmann

Normally, a 67-yard drive on the first hole of a USGA championship final is an omen for a round of misfortune and miscues. But this year's champion, Chris Wollmann of Parma, Ohio, merely shrugged off such a poor start and eventually unleashed his game that carried him to victory in the 70th Amateur Public Links Championship, played over the course of Stow Acres Country Club in Stow, Massachusetts.

Wollmann, a student at Ohio State, displayed a tenacious attitude in grinding down his final-match opponent, Bill Camping of Phoenix, Arizona, by a score of 4 and 3. Wollmann played inconsistently during the morning's 18 holes of the final match, but still managed to climb to a 1-up lead.

By the middle of the second 18 holes, Wollmann exhibited splendid shot-making, coming within inches of holing out with three consecutive approach shots beginning at the 27th hole. When the string ended, Wollmann was 3 up with eight remaining. Wollmann proceeded to make pars the rest of the way to win his first USGA championship.

Stow Acres featured towering fir trees that squeeze the North Course's narrow landing areas and transform them into terrifying chutes hundreds of yards long. Players accustomed to whacking drives far and wide, the focusing in their approach shots, found their second shots instead required delicate pitches back toward the fairway.

Players with scores of 146 or better advanced to the match-play rounds' it was only the third time in APL history that a playoff was not required to determine that last berths for the draw.