Iowa’s top amateur plays on golf’s top stage

AUGUSTA, Ga. - Little in life had eluded Mike McCoy.

The West Des Moines man had long been a successful executive in the insurance business. When it came to his passion, golf, he had long been established as the premier amateur player in Iowa.

McCoy was inducted into the Iowa Golf Hall of Fame three years ago. He has won five Iowa Amateurs, stretching from 1992 to 2010. Last year, he became the Iowa Golf Association's Player of the Year for the 11th time. No one else has earned that more than three times.

Nationally, McCoy has qualified for 15 U.S. Amateurs. Last year, he qualified for the U.S. Senior Open.

But last October, the one thing McCoy had chased in golf without catching was his at last. He won the U.S. Mid-Amateur in Birmingham, Ala., his first triumph in 38 USGA championship events.

The Mid-Amateur is for players 25 and over. Besides getting a 10-year exemption to future Mid-Amateurs and a two-year exemption into the U.S. Amateur, the winner also gets invited to the following year's Masters.

So McCoy, as decorated an Iowa amateur golfer as the state has known, is playing in the Masters at 51, the second-oldest rookie in the vaunted tourney's history.

McCoy's son, Nate McCoy, was an Iowa high school state champion and a first-team all-Big 12 player at Iowa State. He was ISU's Male Athlete of the Year in 2012. He played professionally on PGA Tour Canada the last two years. Nate is caddying for Mike here.

'Heady stuff,” McCoy said late Tuesday afternoon after playing a 9-hole practice round at Augusta National with Justin Rose, last year's U.S. Open champion.

'Justin was just a peach,” McCoy said. 'It was fun having a front-row seat to watch him.”

McCoy played nine holes with the Masters' other player from Iowa on Tuesday and Wednesday, and 18 holes on Sunday. That was 2007 Masters champion Zach Johnson of Cedar Rapids.

Iowa's most-successful pro and amateur were together on America's most-famous golf course in America's most-storied tournament.

'Zach's the best,” McCoy said. 'He's a friend.”

Johnson texted McCoy with encouragement the night before McCoy defeated Bill Williamson of Cincinnati in the 36-hole final of that Mid-Amateur. There are few players Johnson can point to as someone who have routinely beat him in competition, but McCoy did just that when the two were in the same tourneys in the 1990s.

'He kicked my butt in everything except a Harv Ketter (an event at Grandview Golf Club in Des Moines),” Johnson said. 'I don't know of another time I beat him.

'I didn't play with him that much because he was playing in bigger events, national events. I never got to play in any of those.”

The deepest McCoy has gotten in a U.S. Amateur was the third-round of match play in the 1998 tourney. He had reached the semifinals of the U.S. Mid-Amateur in 2005 and 2008.

Players generally don't keep improving into their late 40s and early 50s, but there was McCoy in 2013 not only going to the Mid-Amateur finals, but clinching the match-play win over the 36-year-old Williamson with six holes left.

Now here he is, a Masters rookie. Thursday morning, he will play in a threesome with 25-year-old pro Brendan Grace of South Africa and 1987 Masters champion Larry Mize of Augusta, who is 55.

Mize and McCoy played a few holes of a practice round together Monday morning before rain sent everyone off the course.

'It'll be fun playing with somebody who's a little more my contemporary,” McCoy said.

As for the entire experience here? 'It's probably better than you expect,” he said. 'There's nothing like it.”

The Masters has invited U.S. Mid-Amateur winners of the previous year since 1988. None have made the 36-hole cut.

McCoy made a few trips here this winter, saying 'I kind of did all my work ahead of time.”

His goal this week has been to 'just enjoy, soak it all in. It's going to be a little more tense, I'm sure, on Thursday. But you can't beat it.”

l Comments: (319) 368-8840; mike.hlas@sourcemedia.net