KALAMAZOO, MI – From the playground at Quarton Elementary School to the classrooms at Kalamazoo College, Jackson Jones and Parker Pickell share a decade’s worth of memories, but few compare to the moment the longtime friends experienced Saturday at the 68th installment of the Kalamazoo Country Club Invitational.
The grade school pals and golf teammates at Birmingham Seaholm High School and Kalamazoo College overcame wet and windy final-round conditions to capture the 2021 KCC Invitational, with Pickell providing the winning putt to defeat former champs Kevin Shugars and Andres Echavarría on the 18th hole of the team-based match play tournament.
“It was awesome,” Jones said. “It was a really good week and a lot of fun. Parker and I have gone to school together since elementary school, so we’ve known each other a long time. Obviously, we played on the same team in high school, and then we played in college together, so this one really felt good after wrapping up my career at K, and it was a great partner to do it with.”
Jones sank a birdie putt on No. 17 to put the K-College tandem 1-up going into the final hole, and Pickell’s par allowed his team to hold off Echavarría, a pro golfer on the PGA TOUR Latinoamérica, and KCC member Shugars, who combined to win the event in 2010.
“I tried to just calm myself down and not really think about how big the moment was for me, honestly,” Pickell said. “The KCC Invite holds a special place in my heart because of the history behind it and the caliber of players that have played in it and have walked the same fairways that I was, so I kind of tried to block everything out for a moment until I saw the ball go in the hole, and then everything hit me about how big the moment was for me and what it meant for me.”
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Prior to Pickell’s tournament-clinching 10-footer, Jones sank his own clutch putt on No. 18 on Friday, when he drained a 40-footer to defeat Billy Nelson and Rob Tighe and secure a spot in Saturday’s semifinals.
“That gave me a lot of confidence with the putter, and it kind of got us rolling a little bit,” Jones said of his long birdie. “That next morning, we came out, and I had the putter hot again, so it just made me confident in my speed because the greens are fast, and if you’re ever above the hole, you’re in trouble, but we were in great spots all week to putt from, and really, that putt on No. 18 gave me a lot of confidence.”
Making their fourth appearance as a team at the KCC Invitational, Jones and Pickell entered the tournament aiming to avoid bogeys at all costs, and that strategy paid off, as the pair carded just one in 90 holes.
“When I started to struggle, he picked me up and covered the holes that I didn’t play my best on, and luckily enough for us, I did the same when he was struggling, so we were really good at kind of ham-and-egging it and not allowing ourselves to make a lot of bogeys, so that’s really what kept us in it,” Pickell said.
That’s not to say that there weren’t some challenges along the way for the K-College teammates, as well as the rest of the field.
Dry conditions leading up to Thursday’s opening round kept the fairways and greens fast and firm, but Friday morning rainstorms delayed the tournament for a few hours and made the course considerably slower.
“We got out there on our first match (Friday), and the course was completely different from what we played Thursday and had been practicing on all week,” Pickell said. “It was firm and fast, and after that rain, it really softened everything up, but luckily for us, the grounds crew did an amazing job of getting the water to go away and drying out the course, so by the time that Friday afternoon match rolled around, it was almost playing the same as it had been the whole week.
“We just kind of stuck together, and although we had to change our game plan a little bit by adjusting some yardages to hit in certain spots so that it wouldn’t release more, we were able to stay confident and kind of keep our heads in it.”
That weather delay provided what Pickell called a blessing in disguise, as it allowed K-College men’s golf coach and 1998 tournament champion Mitch Wilson to caddy for the Hornet junior.
“Honestly, it was kind of a blessing in disguise because we had a buddy from the (K-College) soccer team, but he had something that Friday afternoon, so when our tee time got pushed back, he couldn’t make it, so we kind of went to (Wilson) because we knew he was coming and watching us, so we said we might as well try to get him on the bag, and we all just had a blast out there. It was so much fun with him, and he just made everything a lot more relaxed, and we’re a lot more confident knowing that he’s been in our shoes, and he’s won it before, so he knows what it takes, and he did a great job of calming us down when we got ahead of ourselves and just trying to keep us level-headed in every match the whole time.”
“For me personally, when I get nervous, I start to kind of pick up my pace, and whether it be walking too fast or going through my routine too fast or swinging more quickly and getting out of my groove, he would say, ‘Hey, walk with me,’ and we walked at a slower pace, and he was asking me to take a bunch of deep breaths and relax my shoulders before every shot, so that really helped me slow everything down and give my head a minute to catch up to everything and kind of keep my body and swing and everything at a good pace and not get ahead of myself,” Pickell added.
Jones added that Wilson’s experience at the tournament, which includes six runner-up finishes was invaluable to the Hornet teammates, especially when the winds picked up on Saturday.
“In the championship match, we had weather coming in, so the wind picked up to 20 to 30 mph, so gauging that wind around water on the back 9 was pretty tough, but thankfully we were staying composed because we had someone with us who has won the tournament before and knew what we had to do to get it done,” Jones said. “Having him there to calm us down and get us the right number was really good.”
For Wilson, who played in the KCC Invitational for 30 consecutive years before his last appearance in 2015, seeing the tournament from a new perspective made for a fun weekend.
“It was a little bit different. It was kind of fun hanging out with the caddies and having our little discussions and making sure we knew where all the coolers and the snacks were and things like that,” Wilson said. “There’s a lot of friends that are out there, and we had a good crowd for the finals, so it good to see a lot of people I’ve made friends with over the last several years in being part of that tournament and helping people in Kalamazoo understand what a treasure the tournament is.”
“I can’t emphasize enough what a treasure this tournament is for Kalamazoo and how fortunate and blessed I feel to be part of it again, and to see them come through with a victory, it was just very special,” Wilson added. “They’re, a couple of very special young men in my life, and it was fun to be able to share it with them and their families.”
Whether or not Wilson returns to the bag in 2022 is unclear, but one thing that is certain: Jones and Pickell will be back next year looking to become the eighth tandem to win multiple KCC Invitational titles.
“The tradition behind it, it’s a really special event to Jackson and I, and we love representing K-College and what this tournament brings exposure-wise,” Pickell said. “It’s just a fun tournament week. It’s probably my favorite week of the year; I’ve always got it marked on my calendar, and it’s just a great event with great people on a great course and overall a great time.
“So, next year, we have to defend; we have to try to defend.”
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Longtime teammates Jackson Jones, Parker Pickell make lasting memory with 2021 KCC Invitational win - MLive.com
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