Putts don't drop, Keating misses cut at Staal Foundation Open

OLIVER PAIPOONGE -- Walter Keating Jr. says his Staal Foundation Open story might be vastly different if his putter had been blessed with a tiny bit more luck.

The Thunder Bay golfer on Friday figured he’d lipped out a dozen or more times over his two rounds, leading to an eight over, 152 finish that put him well outside the Mackenzie Tour-PGA Tour Canada tournament cutline, projected to be even par.

“It’s not that I’m putting bad, it’s just that they’re not going in,” said Keating, a former Canadian Tour pro.

“When you get to my age I think that starts happening a little more often than I’d like.”

Putting woes aside, Keating, who birdied his final hole to the road of the gallery gathered round the 18th green at Whitewater Golf Club, was happy with his performance in his third try at the Thunder Bay tournament.

“Hey, I didn’t miss too many fairways this week. I didn’t miss too many greens. I didn’t have to look for any of my balls. I made one bad swing all week. I made double on 11. Other than that I made some bogeys and they were four three-putts and chips from beside the green,” Keating said, after a two-over 74 on Friday.

“If I could have made some birdies this week it would have been better. Yesterday afternoon I turned 33 into 38 on my last nine.”

Keating made the turn at 37, the lone blemish on his card a bogey 6 on the long par 5 seventh hole.

He bogeyed the 10th to start the back, birdying the 12th before picking up bogeys on 13 and 15, the two par 3s on the final nine.

“Today on the front nine I hit eight out of nine greens and shot one over,” said Keating, who played with amateur Blair Hamilton, entered into next week’s Canadian Open, and American J.P. Brown.

Firm fast greens were probably the biggest challenge facing the local golfers at the third-year tournament, a group that also included Evan DeGrazia, Evan Littlefield, Jeff Hunter and Robbie Untinen.

“What happens is you put off memory a lot and we’re putting off a lot slower, softer memory. You’ve got to start taking more borrow. And what I found yesterday, and this is my third year (here), I’m still not taking enough,” he said. “And I’m more used to it than the rest of them.”

Untinen, DeGrazia, Littlefield and Hunter remain on the course on Friday afternoon.