Sizing Up the Field

Healthy Swilor sees success for Westerners at Twin Warriors

By Roger Graves, PGA Magazine

Milan Swilor

Milan Swilor, teaching professional at Mountain View G.C. in West Jordan, Utah, isn't one of eight former Champions hoping for a repeat in The 36th PGA Club Professional Championship on June 19--22. Swilor is not one of four 2002 CPC Regional Champions -- Kevin Burton, Rick Hartmann, Jeffrey Lankford, Brad Westfall -- who automatically become CPC favorites at Twin Warriors Golf Club. Nor is he among the lengthy list of PGA Section Champions or former PGA Tour and Nationwide Tour travelers who will tee it up in The 2003 CPC.

But Swilor, The 1999 CPC runner-up who will be competing in his 15th PGA Club Professional Championship, likes his chances and those of other "westerners" at Twin Warriors.

"This golf course is going to be good for the guys out West, because it is so much like what we're used to playing every day, every week, every month," says Swilor. "The players from this part of the country won't have to adjust much to the high elevation or ball flight that might be tough for guys coming from sea level. It's like last year at Valhalla, in The 2002 CPC. By the time I figured out how to play Valhalla, it was the final round and the tournament was over. I'll feel more comfortable at Twin Warriors."

Swilor's optimism can be traced to three additional reasons. He is injury-free for the first time in five years, he is hitting the ball longer than he ever has at 45, and he is fairly familiar with the multiple challenges that face the 156-player field at 7,624-yard Twin Warriors, the longest course in CPC history.

"I'm looking forward to it, and I'm working my back side off to get ready for The CPC," says Swilor. "I'd really love to get back to Oak Hill in Rochester (the top 25 CPC finishers qualify for the 2003 PGA Championship at Oak Hill), and with The CPC being played in my own back yard, this could be the year. I've always tried to peak for The CPC, and I had a pretty good streak going until it was interrupted by injuries. But everything is coming back together now and I feel good. "It seems like I've been going through rehab for one injury or another for the past five or six years, but everything is pretty much back to normal now."

Swilor's medley of maladies began in 1998 when he had surgery on his right shoulder. Along the way, he has endured Achilles injuries, hip injuries, shoulder problems and a hernia operation last January.

"I lost 10 to 12 percent of my clubhead speed after I had shoulder surgery, but now it's almost back to where it was originally," says Swilor. "With the new equipment technology, I'm hitting it farther than ever. But so is everybody else. "On paper, it looks like a long golf course, but it's up there in elevation and a lot of the shots are downhill and downwind, so it didn't seem to play that long when I was down there. One thing you have to do is drive it into play. There is a lot of desert at Twin Warriors. You have to hit fairways and greens."

Since no Sun Country PGA Section members qualified for The 2003 CPC, Swilor believes New Mexico's northern neighbors in the Utah Section could carry the torch. That means 1995 CPC Champion and 1997 runner-up Steve Schneiter of Schneiter's Pebblebrook Golf Links in Sandy, Utah; 16-time CPC competitor Kim Thompson of Mulligan's South, who tied for 12th last year at Valhalla; 11-time CPC participant Jimmy Blair of Mulligan's North who shared 12th last year at Valhalla; Ryan Rhees of Eaglewood G.C. in North Salt Lake, who was the college teammate of Masters Champion Mike Weir at BYU; and Henry White, a physical therapist-PGA Professional from Salt Lake City who finished ninth in The Western CPC, will carry the western banner. "It wouldn't surprise me if someone from our (Utah) section wins it again," assures Swilor, "just like Stevey (Schneiter) did in 1995.

"You can make a good argument that our Section might be the best, one through five or one through six, in the country. Our guys have played in a lot of national competitions, a lot of CPCs and PGA Championships, and I don't think we'll have much trouble adapting to the conditions in New Mexico. The fact that we have six players in The CPC finals from the Utah Section says something."

Of course, the last time The CPC was conducted in the West, an Easterner took home the championship. Wayne DeFrancesco of Woodholme Country Club in Baltimore, Md., was a three-shot winner in 2001 at the Crosswater Club at Sunriver Resort in Oregon on a course that previously ranked as the longest in CPC annals. But the Crosswater Club is not a high-desert course a la Twin Warriors, which is situated at 5,400 feet in the shadow of New Mexico's Sandia Mountains. More indicative of a high-desert CPC venue would be the La Quinta Mountain Course, one of three California desert courses on which Utah resident Schneiter won The 1995 CPC.

"I've played a lot of golf in that Santa Ana Pueblo area -- on the Nike Tour, Buy.com and Nationwide Tour," says Swilor, "and so have a lot of guys from the West. If it's a hot, dry early summer at Twin Warriors, the course will play pretty fast. At that high elevation, it might take some getting used to, but I think the guys out West will be pretty comfortable there. A lot of guys have played the New Mexico Open down the street at Santa Ana (Golf Club), and we played four holes of a pro-am at Twin Warriors before it got rained out. So we know the lay of the land pretty well."