Eight golfers with Utah ties take aim at the Korn Ferry Tour's Utah Championship, including incoming BYU freshman Kihei Akina.
OGDEN — After an eight-year run at Oakridge Country Club in Farmington, the Korn Ferry Tour’s Utah Championship has a new home this year.
The annual golf tournament, presented by Zions Bank and Intermountain Health, will be contested for the first time at Ogden Golf & Country Club, the venerable layout just off Washington Boulevard and a few blocks from downtown Ogden.
However, the change of venue doesn’t mean the PGA Tour-brand event will lack the usual Utah flair. No fewer than eight golfers with Utah ties will compete in the 72-hole tournament that begins Thursday and runs through Sunday, nine if you count tour veteran Scott Piercy, who started his college career at BYU.
“It’s just cool to be here. Obviously, I am very lucky and blessed to be able to be here. These don’t come very often, so you can’t really take them for granted.”
future BYU golfer Kihei Akina on playing in the Utah Championship
“It is going to be a lot of fun competing against some of the guys I grew up playing with and against,” said Ogden’s Connor Howe, who attended Weber High and then Georgia Tech and is in his third year of professional golf. “I tell people all the time there are a lot of good golfers from Utah.”
Howe will tee off on the No. 1 tee at 2:30 p.m. Thursday with Hunter Eichorn and Andrew Chu.
Another Ogden native, former University of Utah star Mitchell Schow, will also start Thursday at 2:30 p.m., but on the No. 10 tee. Schow survived a playoff Monday night at nearby Glen Eagle Golf Course to get the final Monday qualifying berth in the tournament.
Salt Lake City’s Hayden Banz, a former Weber State golfer, also qualified Monday with an 8-under 64 to tie for fourth.
The other five golfers with Utah ties are former BYU golfers Peter Kuest, Cole Ponich and Daniel Summerhays, future BYU golfer Kihei Akina and former Arizona State standout Preston Summerhays, the nephew of Daniel. Ponich and Preston Summerhays are new pros, with Ponich having won the Provo Open last month and Summerhays having already played six events on the KFT this season, with one top-10 finish.
Kuest, Howe and Akina received sponsor exemptions a couple weeks ago, but when Kuest qualified on his own merit this week, Ponich received the exemption.
“Yeah, I got in on my own number,” said Kuest, who is 150th on the points list. “Jeff Robbins (of the Utah Sports Commission) was gracious enough to give me a spot in case I needed it. I got in, so they gave that opportunity to (Ponich), which was good to see.”
Tuesday, tournament officials allowed reporters to get inside the ropes and follow Kuest, Akina, Howe and Preston Summerhays on the first two holes of their practice rounds and do interviews as the Utahns navigated what are usually the 10th and 11th holes.
Ogden G&CC’s nines have been flipped for the tournament, mostly because the regular No. 9 hole is a better finishing hole for crowds/grandstands than the regular No. 18, which is a par-3. Two par-5s, one on each nine, will be called par-4s this week, meaning that the 7,097-yard layout will be considered a par-70 for tournament play.
Howe, who grew up 15 minutes away from the club and has been a member since 2005, has played it “hundreds” of times and says he was thrilled when the tournament that was originally called the Utah Classic on the inaugural Ben Hogan Tour in 1990 and played in Provo was moved to Ogden.
“I am not sure about being the favorite, but I am definitely the hometown kid, I guess you could say,” he said.
His twin brother, Hunter, who played at Weber State and Utah, will be on his bag this week.
His scouting report: “It is not an overly long course. That doesn’t mean it is not tricky. You can kind of hit driver everywhere out here. But if you are not hitting it in the right spots, you are going to have a tough time.
“That’s especially true with how thick this rough is,” he continued. “You are going to have some difficult shots around the greens, or wedge shots into greens where you have to hit it over a bunker, and it is hard to stop.
“Some of these greens, if you get above the hole, they can be pretty slick. Yeah, it is a fun little course. Maybe not as long as some of the courses we play on the Korn Ferry Tour, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be just as challenging,” he concluded.
Last year’s winner, Karl Vilips, is a rookie on the PGA Tour this year and won’t be defending his title. A purse of $1 million is up for grabs in the 34th playing of the Utah Championship. Past champions competing this week include Roger Sloan (2023), Andrew Kozan (2022), Joshua Creel (2021) and Josh Teater (2009).
For Akina, 19, who will play in the U.S. Amateur at Olympic Club in San Francisco in two weeks, the tournament is an opportunity to improve upon his 49th-place finish last year (-13) at Oakridge.
“It’s just cool to be here,” said the recent Lone Peak High graduate. “Obviously, I am very lucky and blessed to be able to be here. These don’t come very often, so you can’t really take them for granted.”
Akina also played in the PGA Tour’s Black Desert Championship in St. George last fall. He shot 69-69 but did not make the cut.
“I don’t have too many expectations,” Akina said. “I am just sticking to my process this week and will see where that puts me at the end of the week.”
Kuest and Akina toured Ogden G&CC for the first time on Monday.
“There is a lot of character to it,” Akina said. “It is a good, old-school style golf course. So yeah, it should be fun this week.”
Thursday’s tee times of golfers with Utah ties in Korn Ferry Tour’s Utah Championship
At Ogden Golf & Country Club
- Peter Kuest, former BYU golfer, American Fork, 7:55 a.m., No. 1 tee
- Kihei Akina, BYU golfer, Alpine, 9:15 a.m., No. 1 tee
- Hayden Banz, former Weber State golfer, SLC, 9:15 a.m., No. 1 tee
- Cole Ponich, former BYU golfer, Farmington, 9:15 a.m., No. 10 tee
- Daniel Summerhays, former BYU golfer, Kaysville, 1 p.m., No. 10 tee
- Preston Summerhays, former Arizona State golfer, Farmington, 2:20 p.m., No. 10 tee
- Connor Howe, former Georgia Tech golfer, Ogden, 2:30 p.m., No. 1 tee
- Mitchell Schow, former University of Utah golfer, Ogden, 2:30 p.m., No. 10 tee
Category: General Sports
