Boys Golf: Lyons’ Ryan Hudson preps for tryouts

What does a golfing family such as the Hudsons do for vacation? They golf some more.

With roughly a week before Lyons holds its tryouts beginning Aug. 8, all five members of the Hudson family of Western Springs will go on vacation later this week to a familiar destination — Desert Mountain Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz.

But senior Ryan Hudson will play in one more major tournament beginning Monday before joining his brother Dan and father Scott on vacation.

Ryan teed off at 8:50 a.m. Monday from the 10th tee at the American Junior Golf Association’s Stonehenge Junior Open at Stonehenge Golf and Country Club in Winona Lake, Ind.

Other area golfers joining Hudson in the tournament are Lyons senior Charlie Netzel of Western Springs, and Hinsdale Central’s Rosanna Lederhausen and Jacqueline Bruns in the girls division. Hudson’s first-round group includes William Gordon of Davidson, N.C. and Brandon Greenplate of York, Pa.

After the Stonehenge tournament, Ryan will travel with his youngest brother Jonathan and his mother Barb to Arizona, where they will be joined by the rest of the family the next day.

Ryan is coming off one of his biggest tournaments of the summer after playing last week in the 32nd Chick Evans Junior Amateur Championship at Itasca Country Club.

The tournament features 36 holes of stroke play before moving into match play based on seeds determined by stroke play.

Hudson won his first two rounds of match play before losing to Orion Yamat of Niles 2-and-1 in the quarterfinals. Yamat was a fourth seed compared to the No. 21-seeded Hudson.

Yamat lost his next match, 1-up, to eventual tournament champion Ryan Craig of Huntley.

“Match play was a lot of fun,” Hudson said. “I have never done it before. It was the first time I played match play in a tournament, not with just friends.”

What Hudson liked about match play was that one hole does not inflate your score. If a golfer has a bad hole, he can just move on to the next one.

“My [first] match play was against Reed [Aren]. He was a good guy, a tough competitor,” Hudson said. “After I played him a couple of times, I knew he was game.”

Hudson’s opening match in the round of 32 was a 3-and-2 win over 12th-seeded Aren, a Stevenson senior from Long Grove. Hudson’s next match was a 3-and-2 victory over Bryant Bolden of Mokena.

“[In match play], you don’t lose on different strokes against your competitor. You can have a care-free attitude,” Hudson said.

Hudson competed in last year’s Chick Evans Junior Am, but did not advance to match play after one round of stroke play was rained out.

Netzel owned the second seed after stroke play, but lost his second match to Alex Quenan of Libertyville, 1-up.

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