Bloomington City Golf Tournament: Drew Todd enjoying return to Cascades

The Men's Championship finals of the 95th annual City Golf Tournament have turned into the Bloomington Intercollegiate.

The four finalists will represent St. Mary-of-the-Woods, Ball State and the University of Southern Indiana.

A couple of them are already City veterans of a sort, with North grads Logan Vernon (SMWC) and Jace Day (USI) playing in the tourney steadily since their high school days and seldom are they not playing in the final weekend. Jason Bannister, a California transplant, is the defending champ, winning it in his first try.

This is also the first time in the Men's bracket for Drew Todd (BSU). The South grad had plenty of success as a junior in 2016, making the final as an eighth grader with older brother Evan on his bag, before falling to Sam Wise, 5 and 4. He came back the next year and after beating Logan Vernon in the semis, found his brother opposite him in the final, pulling out a 1-up win.

This is his first time back and will tee off at 7:30 Saturday morning, taking on Day, while Bannister and Vernon tussle in the other semifinal. Todd is looking to join Nick Burris and Day as the latest to win both junior and men's titles.

"Same course it's always been since I've been alive," Todd said. "So it's golf: hit the ball straight, find it and hit the ball again."

Halfway through college, Todd found himself back in Bloomington this summer after getting an internship with HFI (Harrell-Fish, Inc.), a local mechanical contractor. It's the first of two internships he has to do over 400 hours in order to graduate.

"It doesn't leave a lot of time during the week to take days off to go play somewhere," Todd said. "But here's three weekends I can play in. It's fun and good people, so I might as well have some fun and play golf when you can and try to win a tournament I've won before as a junior."

Panther to Cardinal

Todd had a strong career at South, named the H-T Boys' Golfer of the Year twice, with his junior year wiped out by COVID. Todd placed 21st at state as a senior, helping the Panthers place fourth and improving on his 49th place at state in 2019 when he and Evan, who went to North, both played as individuals in the finals.

Things have been a little tougher for him at Ball State, where the competition forces him to keep working to make the top five.

"I had a pretty decent fall, but I didn't play much in the spring," Todd said. "But I'm enjoying it. I'm around a lot of good people up there. Nine of out the 10 of us are from Indiana and we're all familiar with each other. My roommate, I've known him since sixth grade."

The program also got a boost recently when Todd's former teammate for a year at South, Happy Gilmore, drew nationwide attention for his commitment to the Cardinals. It caught the attention of movie actor Adam Sandler, the on-screen Happy Gilmore, who congratulated him on Twitter.

"I've played with him over at IU," Todd said. "I keep in touch with those freshmen, some of them are close friends, too. He's a good player and we're all pretty excited to have him up there. He's a familiar face, too, so it should be easy for him to adjust."

Tough final four

Four, long-hitting, competitive active college golfers will go at it in the semifinals and it's likely that Cascades will be surrendering a lot of birdies this weekend. Pars may not win a lot of holes, but Todd notes that grip and rip isn't always the best option.

"You've got to be aggressive as much as you can willingly," Todd said last Sunday. "Some holes are drivable and some you can be aggressive on and get rewarded, but not always.

"Like today on 12, I tried to go for the green. I had the distance but I was off to the right and ended up with a bogey. If I had hit a 4-iron onto the hill and then wedged it up there, it's easy par. Sometimes, you have to just lay back and sometimes you gotta go for it. It just depends on the situation."

Figure it may take the most of the 54 scheduled holes (with a 36-hole final set for Sunday) to determine a champ.

"I think this is going to be a fun one," Bannister said. "Hopefully we get a decent crowd to follow. Four high-level college golfers, that's going to be fun."

And anything but easy.

"It's going to be a grind, every day is," Todd said. "No round I've played, I thought, 'This is going to be easy.' You still have to get the ball in the hole, and you can have a bad day any day. So I need to just keep my head down and grind it out."

Other Championship matchups

One of the two Senior Championship semifinals will feature two men on opposite sides of the age bracket.

Top seed Gary EuDaly just turned 65 in December but that hasn't slowed him from making a run at a fifth title, which would be the most in the division since it was started in 1984. He'll meet No. 4 Matt Seifers, who is making his first appearance in the Seniors after several years competing in the Men's brackets. This is the deepest run he's ever made at the Championship level.

More: Steady reign: Bannister back in the City Golf semifinals

More: City Golf seniors: Dramatic wins lift trio into final four

The other semi pits No. 2 Jim Alexander, the 2021 champ, against No. 6 Mark Chestnutwood, who needed 37 holes to sneak through the opening weekend.

In the Super Seniors, defending champ Rory Brown rolled into the semifinals but could have his hands full with fifth seed Bob Hasty, who owns three Senior titles. There's a rematch from last year in the other semifinal as No. 6 Dan Neubecker plays No. 7 Don Chastain. Both knocked off higher-seeded players to move on. In the 2022 quarterfinals, Chastain tripped up then second-seeded Neubecker, 1 up, in the quarterfinals, rallying from two down and winning on the 18th.

The Juniors bracket will also get started at 9:30 as top seed Ryan Decker takes on Lyle Henry and No. 2 seed Nash Henry plays Ike Wilkie.

BLOOMINGTON CITY GOLF TOURNAMENT

SATURDAY TEE TIMES

PHIL TALBOT MEN'S CHAMPIONSHIP

7:30 a.m.: [1] Jason Bannister vs. [4] Logan Vernon; [2] Jace Day vs. [6] Drew Todd.

PAUL GRAY SENIOR CHAMPIONSHIP

7:40: [1] Gary EuDaly vs. [4] Matt Seifers; [2] Jim Alexander vs. [6] Mark Chestnutwood.

ROSS RUSH SUPER SENIOR CHAMPIONSHIP

7:50: [1] Rory Brown vs. [5] Bob Hasty; [6] Dan Neubecker vs. [7] Don Chastain.

MEN'S REGULAR

8:00 (First): [1] Daniel Melwid vs. [4] Brad Scroggins; [2] Nate Herr vs. [6] Devin Price-Presslaff. 8:10 (Second): [1] Charles Osborne vs. [5] Matt Newman; [3] Brad McLaughlin vs. [7] Andrew Conder. 8:20 (Third): [1] Chris Stedman vs. [5] Matt Jacobs; [3] Nick Zwissler vs. [7] Jason Storm. 8:30 (Fourth): [1] Russ Wilkie vs. [5] James Richardson; [3] Eli Prather vs. [7] Michael Spangler. 8:40 (Fifth): [1] Brian Wise vs. [4] Kyle McWhorter; [2] Wyatt Birch vs. [3] Inchang Park.

SENIOR REGULAR

8:50 (First): [1] Joe McWhorter vs. [5] Mike Vernon; [2] Robert Milam vs. [3] Burke Geene

SUPER SENIOR REGULAR

9:00 (First): [4] Steve McDonald vs. [8] Doak Henry; [6] John Cantwell vs. [7] George Finley. 9:10 (Second): [4] Michael Thomas vs. [8] Gary Walters; [6] Craig Spanburg vs. [7] Jim Shea. 9:20 (Third): [1] Steve Englert vs. [4] Mark Deal; [2] Steve Layman vs. [3] Rand McKamey.

JUNIOR CHAMPIONSHIP

9:30: [1] Ryan Decker vs. [4] Lyle Henry; [2] Nash Henry vs. [3] Ike Wilkie.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Bloomington City Golf Tournament: Drew Todd enjoying Cascades return