Tour stop guest feels right at home
For the second year in a row, Nolan Piazza competed as a guest when the Niagara District Junior Golf Tour made its annual stop at Legends on the Niagara.
Last year, the one-time tour regular made himself right at home on course’s par-72 Battlefield layout by topping the leaderboard in the boys under 19 flight in his lone event on the summer tour.
He duplicated that feat Monday in only his second — and last — event on this year’s tour. His 2-under-par 70 edged Ben MacLean, a two-time winner, by one stroke.
Piazza, who is going into Grade 11 at A.N. Myer Secondary School in Niagara Falls, won despite a round that was consistent only in its inconsistency.
“I would make two birdies in a row and then two bogeys in a row. It was up-and-down, but I played solid overall,” the 16-year-old said. “I hit almost every green on the front nine.
“I was a little shaky on the back, but some putts fell.”
Piazza said the course played “tough.”
“I don’t know when the greens were aerated. They were a little bouncy, but they were still very quick,” he said. “Everything else was perfect.”
With plans to compete in only tour events, Piazza, who plays out of the Cherry Hill Club in Ridgeway, knows he is out of the running for points title on the 10-stop tour.
“I’m just here to have some fun with my friends. Obviously, I do want to play well. I don’t want to go out there and make a mess of it,” he said. “But it’s more to see old friends. Whenever I’m home and not at events, it’s just nice to see what it used to be like.”
Two weeks ago he was in the U.S. Junior Amateur Championship at the Inverness Club and next month will be competing for the Canadian junior boys championship at Covered Bridge Golf & Country Club in Hartland, N.B.
Piazza wound up missing the cut for match play by two strokes at the U.S. junior amateur.
“It was a very tough course,” he recalled.
“They had a 5½-inch rough, so when you miss the fairway, it was try not to make a really big number.”
Piazza enjoyed competing in his first U.S. junior event. “It was a great experience. I got to meet a lot of nice people, and they treated us like tour players with everything they did,” he said. “Hopefully, I can go back and play a little better, but I just take it as an experience. I wasn’t expecting too, too much.”