FARMINGTON — As he came to the 18th hole at Oakridge Country Club Friday afternoon, Mike Malaska spotted a Special Olympian named Denise, whom he became acquainted with more than a decade ago, near the green. She was wearing wide-brimmed straw hat with pink flowers and he asked if he could borrow it.
You see, a day earlier in a pro-am, Malaska had done the same thing, borrowed the hat from Denise and promptly sunk a birdie putt. When he saw her Friday, Malaska said "I need that hat."
After briefly trading the straw hat for his black golf hat, Malaska stepped up and sank a six-foot birdie to cap off a 6-under-par round of 66.
By the end of the day, Malaska's 66 was the best score of the day at the 54-hole Siegfried and Jensen Utah Open. He shares the lead at the $110,000 tournament with three others, Farmington's Joseph Summerhays, Davis Park assistant pro Devin Volk and Clay Ogden, a West Point native who recently moved from Draper to Bountiful.
The biggest surprise among the leaders is Malaska, who is 53 years old and renowned these days as one of the top golf instructors in America rather than for his playing.
"I don't play very much, but I can get out there and occasionally get it going," said Malaska, who is annually makes Golf Digest's list of top teaching pros in the country. He says these days most of his time is spent doing clinics for other instructors and traveling all over the world working for the Jack Nicklaus Golf Academy.
"I don't know where playing would be on my priority list, probably third or fourth," he said.
Another 53-year-old, Davis Park head pro Brad Stone, is one shot off the lead at 67, along with Sandy's Todd Tanner, Draper's Ryan Ellis and 19-year-old amateur Tyson Lund.
Four more players, Luke Swilor, Doug Garwood, Matthew Baird and amateur Kirk Siddens are all at 68.
Malaska, who won the Utah Open in 1974 as a 20-year-old amateur, has been playing in the tournament ever since. Even though he has lived in Arizona for the past decade, he makes the trip up to Utah for one of his favorite tournaments.
"I don't think I've missed the tournament since I was 17 or 18," he said. "That's 35 or 36 years in a row and I think I've only missed the cut once."
Malaska hit the ball straight all day and avoided the rough. He missed just one green and had two eagles, at the par-5 5th and the par-5 11th. At 5 he hit a 5-wood from 247 yards to within three feet and at 11 he a rescue club from 221 yards to within eight feet for another eagle.
The 33-year-old Volk, an assistant at Davis Park Golf Course, is having a good season, winning the Mountain View Open, finishing second in the Assistants tournament and eighth at the Idaho Open.
"I'm real happy with my first round," he said.
Summerhays, 35, the son of Champions Tour regular Bruce Summerhays, feels he should have some advantage since he is a member at Oakridge and plays there often. However, he's battled a back injury for much of the summer and just recently began playing again.
He started the day with a bogey, but had four straight birdies in the middle of his round and birdied two of the last three holes.
The 22-year-old Ogden, who recently graduated from BYU, looked like he might run away and hide when he shot a 30 on the front nine and got it to seven under through 11 holes. However he missed a pair of 4-foot par putts at 13 and 14.
Since turning pro at the start of the summer, Ogden has won three events, the Salt Lake City Open and two events on the Butch Harmon Tour
OPEN NOTES: The field will be cut to the low 60 and ties after today's second round. With 68 players shooting 73 or better, the cut should be around 146, which was the cut the past two years ... PGA Tour veteran Jay Don Blake, who won the Utah Open in 1988 and has finished second twice, shot a 2-under-par 70 ... Boyd Summerhays, who grew up playing the Oakridge CC layout and plays on the Nationwide Tour, could only manage a 73 ... Three players were penalized a stroke for slow play ... Bountiful's Garrett Clegg, who has played in several Nationwide events this year, got to 6-under through 14 holes before finishing with a 69, despite battling stomach flu ... Craig Bohn made a hole in one in the Thursday pro-am and won a Mustang GT from Larry H. Miller Ford. Bohn made the ace with a 7-wood at the par-3 15th hole.
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