Very important date

Over the past several years, Dalton’s David Noll Jr. has brought home plenty of awards with his play in Georgia State Golf Association events.

And while winning the GSGA’s Men’s Player of the Year award seven times since 2003 — including the past five — he has been at the top of his game unlike any other amateur golfer in the state. But despite his success in other tournaments, there is something about this week in July that causes a little more heavy thumping in Noll’s chest as he steps up to the first tee.

Noll will try to repeat as champion when the 91st annual Georgia Amateur Championship begins Thursday at Ansley Golf Club’s Settindown Creek course in Roswell.

“This one excites me,” said Noll, who also won the tournament in 2003 at Pinetree Country Club in Kennesaw. “This is the biggest tournament in the state of Georgia as far as amateurs go, and to have your name on the same tournament trophy as Bobby Jones and Allen Doyle and Danny Yates, it isn’t hard to get excited about it.”

Noll, who qualified for five different exemptions into the tournament, will be joined by two other area players — Chatsworth’s Chase Jones and Rocky Face’s Will Snipes — on the 7,181-yard, par-72 course.

Jones is a former Murray County High standout who recently completed his freshman season with the Darton State College team; he qualified by finishing tied for second with a 2-under 70 at Cartersville Country Club on June 11. Snipes, a senior at Vanderbilt who played high school golf at Chattanooga’s McCallie School, qualified with a 3-over 75 at the host club on June 12.

The Georgia Amateur is a four-round tournament, with the field cut to the low 70 and ties after the completion of Friday’s second round.

Noll won last year’s tournament with a final round of 4-under 66 to hold off a late charge from Roswell’s Billy Mitchell at Cherokee Town and Country Club in Atlanta. He and Mitchell were the only two players who finished the tournament under par, winning by four strokes with a four-round total of 6-under 274.

Noll, who was runner-up in 2005 and 2009, is just the 15th golfer in the history of the tournament to win twice; a victory this year would put him into even more elite company — only four golfers have ever won three or more titles, with Doyle claiming a record six trophies.

It has been two years since Noll played at Settindown Creek, where he finished as an alternate during U.S. Open sectional qualifying in 2010. He said he also finished strong in the Georgia Open played there in 2003.

“I have had some success down there, but it is a difficult course,” Noll said. “It has length, but I only hit about five drivers a round down there. It is a course that you can’t overpower. You have to play it the way it is laid out and play it the way it is designed. It is just a grinding course.”

Snipes agreed, and having played his qualifier there, he will have played three rounds on the course in the past month after today’s practice round.

“I had heard it was a tough course, and I felt like the extra rounds would help if I could qualify for the tournament,” Snipes said. “It is important to stay in the fairway. I didn’t hit nearly as many drivers trying to keep the ball in the fairways.

“I made one mistake in my qualifier where I hit driver where I didn’t need to. I ended up with a seven, and that was the reason I shot a 75. Managing the course a little bit better will be one of my main goals this week.”

This will be Snipes’ second Georgia Amateur, having played at The Landings Club in Savannah in 2010. He made the cut and finished tied for 62nd with a 309 that year, when Noll finished sixth.

Jones, a 2011 Murray County graduate, will be playing in his first Georgia Amateur, and it is part of a busy summer for the Darton State golfer, who helped his team to a fifth-place finish at the National Junior College Athletic Association tournament in May.

He will play in a Georgia Open qualifier at Coosa Country Club next week, a U.S. Amateur qualifier the following week at Piedmont Driving Club and end the month at the Oglethorpe Invitational on Wilmington Island off the coast of Savannah.

“I am trying to get a lot of experience this summer, and hopefully it will give me an edge when I go back to college,” Jones said. “I have been getting a lot of practice in this summer, and I learned a lot of things about my game and about golf in general this past year.”

Jones, who said he has been talking Noll’s ear off whenever the two are on the course together, is anxious to put his game up against the state’s elite.

“I feel like my game is good right now, but you never know until you get on the course,” he said. “I will be playing some of the best players from across the state, and I am hoping to make the cut and be a factor on the weekend.

“If you are ever going to get better, you have to play your best against the best and learn how to win.”

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