Mike Papson, the head golf pro at Valley Brook Country Club in McMurray, remembers Jake Sollon when he started out — and he recalls Sollon loving nothing more than cracking a tape-measure drive.
“A little, skinny left-handed kid who loved to swing hard and hit it far,” Papson recalled Saturday morning. “Then he just kept getting better and better, and here we are.”
“Here” for the 28-year-old Sollon is the U.S. Open, beginning Thursday at iconic Shinnecock Hills Golf Club. The Peters Township product punched his ticket with a dramatic shot at a qualifier Monday in Rockville, Md.
And he did it wearing a Pirates cap. I confirmed that Saturday morning in a radio interview as Sollon and his family were leaving for the airport.
“I did have a Buccos hat on Monday in Maryland,” Sollon said. “That was a good luck charm.”
I probably should have asked if he could help the Pirates bullpen, but I instead wondered if we might see anything Bucco-related for the Open.
“As of now, I do not have anything planned for the Open,” he said with a laugh. “But the hat will be with me, for sure.”
What a story. Sollon and Mt. Lebanon’s Neal Shipley (a Central Catholic grad) will both represent Western Pennsylvania at the US. Open, competing against the likes of Rory McIlroy, Scottie Scheffler and Bryson DeChambeau. It’ll be Shipley’s second Open appearance.
Sollon said he’ll likely dial up Shipley — “Good dude,” he said — to play a practice round. The two have known each other and competed against each other for years. Sollon said they also play together at the Ten Memorial each year at St. Clair Country Club, a tournament that honors the late Tim Nettles.
Sollon isn’t sure what to expect when he arrives in Long Island. He was planning to play a few holes Saturday then full practice rounds Sunday and Monday.
“It’s probably going to be overwhelming at first,” he said. “Just get comfortable, figure out a game plan.”
He practiced Friday at Valley Brook, where his family has held a membership for years. Papson said the club has been buzzing since Sollon qualified Monday. This is always a big week at Valley Brook because of its member-guest invitational.
It’ll be that much bigger now.
“To have one of our own, from our fairways, go to the biggest and most gruelling stage in golf is just incredible,” Papson said. “Everybody here has always supported Jake. Really likeable kid. Everybody wants to be around him, watch him practice.
“One of my favorite stories was before he turned pro, when he was playing in our club championships. He was 8-under for the day from the black tees, just a buzz all day with members watching him, and he missed a green on the last hole. They all gasped. I said, ‘That’s Jake down there, don’t worry about it.’ And he almost chipped in.”
Sollon started his college career at Rider University then transferred to Oregon, where a large dose of reality smacked him like a solid 7-iron.
“That’s kind of when I realized if I wanted to do this for a living, I had to get a lot better,” he said. “Those kids were significantly better than the competition I was playing against in the northeast. It hit me that I gotta practice a little harder if I want to compete against these boys.”
To hear Papson tell it, nobody practices harder than Sollon. And nobody played harder Monday when he took part in what is called “the longest day in golf.”
At 10 sites across North America — nine in the United States and one in Canada — no fewer than 679 golfers competed for 43 U.S. Open spots and a tee time at Shinnecock Hills.
The day was even longer for Sollon at Woodmont Country Club — he went to a playoff for the last spot and won it with an epic 9-iron on a 166-yard hole, one that landed 7 inches from the pin.
That became both the easiest and hardest putt of his life. And now it’s off to the Open.
I asked Papson to put the accomplishment in perspective. He said it’s basically like an NBA or NHL player making it to an All-Star Game.
“You have thousands of players grinding through qualifiers with razor-thin margins, under immense pressure,” Papson said. “The fact he did that showed what I already knew: He has that championship mindset. This goes well beyond technique and talent.”
This goes all the way to Shinnecock Hills, actually, where Sollon was headed Saturday — his Bucco hat tucked safely in his bag.