ATLANTIC \u2013 It was a girl that brought Parker Etzel to the 2026 Tournament of Champions.<\/p>\n
It was a strong third day that carried the Eau Claire, Wis., native to the championship.<\/p>\n
Parker Etzel came from behind Sunday afternoon, the final day of the 67th annual event, pulling away from a tight race with a three-day score of 199. Four golfers finished second.<\/p>\n
Using a strong game down the stretch, with birdies on 16 and 17 and par on 18, the University of South Dakota senior-to-be shot a final round of 67, 2-under for the day and 8-under for the three-day run.<\/p>\n
His late surge helped him break away from a strongly competitive field that saw four golfers tie for second place to win the Open Championship Flight.<\/p>\n
So what brought Etzel to Atlantic, anyway?<\/p>\n
“Reagan Leonard and Doug Leonard, (Doug) run(s) the tournament, so, yeah, she asked me to play, and I had an open weekend and decided to throw my name in there and have some fun,” he said.<\/p>\n
And fun he had, as defending champion Zach Christianson, and past champions Ross Martens, Alec Fuhs and Jake Olsen finished in a four-way tie for second. The quartet finished with a 6-under, or 201, for the weekend.<\/p>\n
“It was another slow start,” said Etzel. “I kind of struggled on the front nine all week, but we got to the back nine. Zach (Christianson) made birdie on 10, I made birdie on 10, and I think I was one back at that point. And he made the birdie on 11, and I was two back, and I made an unfortunate double on 13 and was able to make a couple birdies coming in.<\/p>\n
“I can’t speak highly enough. Zach is a great guy. We had a great battle and hopefully do some more in the future.”<\/p>\n
Again, Eztel’s play down the stretch helped carry him to the title.<\/p>\n
“I struggled with the driver today, but I’ve been hitting it great all week and just teed one up, let it fly and hit the middle of the fairway and just pulled a 6-iron coming in and hit an OK chip,” he said. “Luckily, I had two putts to win. I honestly didn’t have any clue, so.”<\/p>\n
Christianson came into Saturday with the lead at 7-under par, a stroke ahead of Etzel, and it was a furious finish from there.<\/p>\n
“A lot of great players, a lot of past champions got second there,” observed Christianson. “And, you know, Parker made the shots when it counted. “You birdie 16, you birdie 17, you get the right to par 18 to win it. So he played really well.<\/p>\n
“Everybody played really well come down the stretch, I think, except me. So, yeah, it’s a great tournament. It’s fun to be competing with guys like that,” he said.<\/p>\n
Etzel said he is glad he was able to have been able to compete in the 2026 TOC. A true celebration was going to have to wait, as he had to return to Sioux Falls to go to work Monday morning.<\/p>\n
“I hope to compe back next year. Hopefully, it’s on the schedule,” he said.<\/p>\n
OTHER RACES<\/p>\n
Two Open Flights were added to this year’s field. Kyle Marcum topped Open Flight 1 with a 7-over 214, including 1-over for Sunday, while Matt Thielen won Open Flight 2 with a 25-over 232 for the weekend, with a 4-over for Sunday.<\/p>\n
Bret Taylor won the Senior flight with an even-par 207 for the three days. The Booneville resident used a final round of 69 \u2013 even par \u2013 to top Steven Montgomery of Des Moines and Atlantic golfers Chris Nelson and Darby McLaren. The runner-up trio was were eight strokes back.<\/p>\n
Rick Carter of Creston made it a three-peat in the Super Senior Division, winning with a 5-over 212. He shot a 1-under 68 on the final day to push past Fairfield resident Rick Thompson by one stroke.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTIC \u2013 It was a girl that brought Parker Etzel to the 2026 Tournament of Champions. It was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48577,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[18924,18912,18940,18909,18928,18926,2335,18902,18922,18910,18903,18927,18925,18937,18920,18935,18933,18931,18923,18929,18930,18941,18916,293,18908,18919,18904,18939,18936,18907,18934,18938,18917,18932,18942,18915,18905,56,3589,18913,1295,18906,18914,18921,18911,18918],"class_list":["post-48576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-open-championship","tag-anti-african-sentiment","tag-anti-arabism","tag-anti-asian-sentiment","tag-betar","tag-decolonization","tag-far-right-politics-and-judaism","tag-golf-tournaments","tag-irgun","tag-jewish-anti-communism","tag-jewish-movements","tag-jewish-nationalism","tag-jewish-organizations","tag-jewish-political-organizations","tag-jewish-polities","tag-jewish-terrorism","tag-jewish-youth-organizations","tag-jews-and-judaism","tag-judaism-and-children","tag-judaism-and-politics","tag-judaism-and-violence","tag-judaism-related-controversies","tag-league-of-nations-mandates","tag-mandatory-palestine","tag-men","tag-militant-zionist-groups","tag-national-liberalism","tag-national-liberation-movements","tag-nationalist-militant-groups","tag-nationalist-movements","tag-nationalist-terrorism","tag-palestine-region","tag-palestinian-organizations","tag-political-violence-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict","tag-politics-of-the-arab-israeli-conflict","tag-resistance-movements","tag-revisionist-zionism","tag-society-of-mandatory-palestine","tag-sports","tag-sports-competitions","tag-terrorism-in-the-israeli-palestinian-conflict","tag-the-open-championship","tag-yishuv","tag-zionism","tag-zionist-organizations","tag-zionist-political-violence","tag-zionist-youth-movements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/golf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}