ORLANDO, FLORIDA | As a golf instructor, Greg Koch tries to help his students relax, visualize the shot and then hit the target.
A few minutes past sunup Saturday during the PGA Tour’s Arnold Palmer Invitational, the teacher borrowed a page from his lesson plan to pull off perhaps the most consequential par save of his life.
Koch (pronounced KOTCH), 37, an assistant professional at nearby Ritz-Carlton Golf Club, got up and down from 33 yards at the par-4 ninth, rolling in a 3½-foot putt to make the cut on the number and secure his slice of a $20 million pie.
The drama to complete the second round, suspended by darkness 12½ hours earlier, followed a restless night for Koch, despite the API being a relative home game for the Orlando resident.
“It was one of those situations where I had to hit a shot,” said Koch, who had drawn his tee shot into the left-hand rough before darkness suspended the second round. He hacked a 5-iron approach from 208 yards out of dewy rough early Saturday before his clutch wedge play.
“You can’t do anything but hit the shot. In that sense, it was a little easier. My wedge game has been really sharp. I’ve been working on it a lot. I nipped it perfectly. It felt like 10 feet. It was a long 3½ (feet).
“It’s tough when you know what you have to do, and I’ve never been in a situation where I’ve had to sleep on knowing that I have to make a score,” said Koch, who signed for a 1-under 71 before ultimately finishing T68 and earning $42,000. “If you don’t make par on a hard hole, you’re not going to be playing on the weekend. And to be that close. All that I kept thinking was that I don’t want a heartbreak situation happening again, because I’ve had those happen and golf can be cruel like that, but that’s why it’s such a cool sport. When it pays off, it’s 10 times better.”
For Koch, who earned an exemption into Bay Hill via the PGA’s North Florida Section, where he was the 2022 player of the year, the API was his first made cut in six career starts on the PGA Tour. His previous biggest check as a professional golfer: $8,675 for a T17 finish at the 2021 PGA Professional Championship, the club pros’ Super Bowl.
“It’s super impressive for a club pro that doesn’t play a whole lot of tournament golf, to come out on a golf course like this and beat a bunch of the world’s top players.”
Ryan Fox
Ryan Fox, a New Zealander who is a three-time winner on the DP World Tour and ranked No. 33 in the world, marveled at how Koch stood up to the challenge on one of golf’s biggest stages.
“It’s super impressive for a club pro that doesn’t play a whole lot of tournament golf, to come out on a golf course like this and beat a bunch of the world’s top players,” Fox said Saturday after having been paired with Koch. “He stacks up as good as anyone around the greens. He rolled it great, especially early today. Most of the bad shots that he hit today were probably more tiredness and a little bit of relief after sleeping on having to make par on the ninth hole to try to make the cut.”
Koch’s wife, Katie, and a few dozen relatives, Ritz-Carlton members and fellow Florida Southern College alumni followed him at Bay Hill. Younger brother Matt was on the bag. “This is the first time that he’s caddied for me that he has made some money,” Koch said. “So, it’s a win on both ends.”
Koch was making his second consecutive start at the API. He missed cuts at the 2021 PGA Championship at Kiawah Island, the past two Butterfield Bermuda Championships and last year’s Valspar Championship.
“I played pretty good in those other events, and I was always just kind of like falling short by two or three shots of making the cut and never had my game all together,” he said. “The thing that was different this week was probably my short game was really sharp, especially my wedge play around the greens. The iron play and driving wasn’t where it usually is. You’re going to make up strokes if your short game is pretty solid.”
Koch cited “consistency” as the difference between his game and the play of the touring pros.
“They’re putting their whole game together more frequently,” he said. “I’m pretty confident in saying that if I were to play in more of these, and have more opportunities to do that, then that would happen as well for me. When you only get one or two starts in an atmosphere that’s so unlike anything you ever play in, you kind of add pressure on yourself, and that trickles down into the other parts of your game.”
Koch, a Massachusetts native, knows Bay Hill from his days as a high school golfer in Orlando, though he noted the course setup and conditions make scoring much more difficult during the PGA Tour’s annual late-winter stop. He plays about 25 tournament rounds per year, mostly pro-ams or one-day section events.
As the North Florida Section’s player of the year, he also has a spot waiting for him at next week’s Valspar Championship at Innisbrook Resort’s Copperhead Course in Palm Harbor, Florida. With nods from his boss and the Ritz-Carlton club, he hopes for a light work week to be able to prepare for Valspar, the last of four events on the tour’s Florida Swing.
“It’s just nice to know that I’ve overcome the missed-cut streak and gotten to the other side,” Koch said behind the practice green at Bay Hill as Justin Thomas, whose father is a PGA professional, approached for a fist bump and congratulations. “And this tournament being so special. My parents used to bring my brother and I out here to watch this tournament, growing up in Orlando. We’ve been out here watching Mr. Palmer and all the greats play this golf course. Over the years, it’s a real sentimental place, and to have that happen here, it was really emotional.”
Steve Harmon