Liias responds to nature's call

The best thing happened at almost the worst time for Penn men's golfer Endel Liias late last June.

Taking on a field of 50 of New England's best amateur golfers in Keene, N.H., on June 21, Liias, a first team all-Ivy selection last year, finished in third place to qualify for the U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship.

Considered the best national amateur golf tournament behind the prestigious U.S. Amateur, the Public Links Tournament is open to amateur golfers who do not hold membership in a private club.

"I had never qualified for anything that big," said Liias, who hails from Melrose, Mass., a suburb of Boston.

However, he also never had so little practice leading into an important tournament.

Just two days after qualifying, the junior Environmental Studies major embarked with nine other Penn students to Billings, Mont., and Yellowstone National Park for an intensive, two-week Environmental Studies course called Rocky Mountain Field Geology and Ecology.

While learning about the different geological formations in the vast mountain range and the ecological impact of that area's frequent wildfires, Liias also kept his mind on the upcoming tournament.

Knowing he had only a day between the end of the program and the start of the first round, Liias improvised with what practice equipment nature provided.

Cedar limbs became his Callaways, and pine cones his Top-Flites.

"Just swinging sticks in the woods," he said. "I didn't get to swing any clubs."

Unfortunately, it didn't do much for his handicap.

On July 8, Liias "flew directly from Yellowstone, like out of a tent," to San Antonio, Texas, site of the tournament.

With hardly any time to regain his touch, and playing on unfamiliar Bermuda grass, his game was less than he had hoped when the first round began on July 9.

"The course was ridiculously hard," he said.

Fortunately, Liias improved upon a first-round score of 83 with a second-round score of 78. But the disappointing scores left him 10 shots off the cut for match play, which continued for two more days.

"If I had time to go down there a week early and practice, I think I could have made match play," he said. "But it was a great learning experience."

Liias wasn't the only member of the Red and Blue who made a national tournament appearance this summer.

Fellow junior Peyton Wallace qualified for the 2001 U.S. Amateur, posting the top score of the 81-player field at the Meadow Country Club in Fairfax, Calif., on Aug. 9 after winning a three-man playoff on the 10th hole.

At the U.S. Amateur, held in Atlanta, Ga., Aug. 20-26, Wallace finished with a disappointing two-day score of 167 and did not make the cut for match play.

"Unfortunately he didn't play well there because he was sick," Penn coach Francis Vaughn said.

Now reunited after a long summer apart, the Quakers are looking to use their individual experiences over the summer to boost their play in the fall season.

Saturday, the Red and Blue head to Annapolis, Md., to participate in the two-day Navy Invitational.

"Navy's usually a very strong tournament," Vaughn said.

And with Wallace no longer ill, and Liias having plenty of time to practice with real equipment, there is a new feeling around this Penn squad full of seasoned tournament players.

"I think on the whole the team definitely has a different attitude," Liias said. "Before we might have gone into a tournament trying to put up a good round to just help out the team. Now I think we more have the attitude that we really can win the thing individually. We really should be just going for broke out there."

At the very least, the Quakers have learned from this summer that playing with sticks and pine cones is no substitute for the real thing -- unless something greater than golf is at issue.

"It was such a great course," Liias said, thinking back to the time spent in and around Yellowstone. "It was worth playing poorly in San Antonio to go up there."

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