Fab Four

Reigning PGA CPC Champion Mike Small and fellow PGA Professionals Darrell Kestner, Steve Schneiter and Ron Philo Jr. each played well enough over the first two days to earn two more rounds at the 87th PGA Championship.

SPRINGFIELD, N.J. -- Darrell Kestner was muttering to himself. He had just double-bogeyed, and he'd already had one in the first round, too, and now the issue became clear.

"I told myself, 'I've got to play great to make this cut,'" Kestner said Friday, after a sweaty, grinding hour on the practice tee that followed a sweltering, grinding day at Baltusrol. This was after his round. On Friday afternoon, the guys you find on the practice tees are the guys who are still going to be around for the weekend.

Yes, after missing the cut in all nine of his previous PGA Championships, Kestner finally made the cut, one of four of the 25 club professionals in the field to do so.

This PGA Championship, after all, is the club professionals' championship, there being no tour to speak of back in 1916. But the clubhouse and the tour became separate entities decades ago, and the distinction is that club professionals -- tending to the business of the club, the lesson tee and the pro shop -- don't have the time to develop tournament-level games. Hence, making the cut in the PGA Championship is a tribute to a club pro.

The other club professionals who made the cut were Mike Small, the head golf coach at the University of Illinois, 74-68--142; Steve Schneiter, of Schneiter's Pebblebrook, Sandy, Utah, 72-72--144; and Ron Philo Jr., of Kittansett Club, Marion, Mass., 71-73--144.

Small is the first reigning Club Professional Champion to make the cut in the PGA since Larry Gilbert in 1982.

About that talk Kestner had with himself ...

Kestner, 51, the PGA head professional at Deepdale Golf Club in Manhassett, N.Y., was 1 under par through the 11th hole Friday and riding high. Then he double-bogeyed the par-3 12th. He bunkered his tee shot, took two to get out, and two-putted from 12 feet. That's enough to leave anyone talking to himself. More -- this was a good time to let the shoulders slump. Instead, Kestner decided he had to bear down.

He blew a good chance at the 13th, missing a birdie putt from 3 1/2 feet, but he got the 14th -- a driver, 6-iron to 8 feet, and one putt for his third birdie of the round. And all this after starting with a bogey at No. 1 out of the rough, and getting back-to-back birdies at Nos. 5 and 6 on medium-range putts.

So Kestner wrapped up a 72-70--142, 2 over par, and made the cut for the first time in 10 PGAs and eight U.S. Opens.

"I was hitting it straight," said Kestner. He hit 10 fairways "and most of the ones I missed, I was only in the first cut of rough."

He also hit 12 of the 18 greens, which was another accomplishment. He averages about 270 yards with his driver, so at the 7,392-yard Baltusrol, he had to hit fairway woods to most of his greens, instead of the more accurate irons.

And his putting was strong. He had seven one-putt greens, no three-putts, and needed just 26 putts in the second round, 29 in the first.

This was also Small's first cut in the majors.

"This is what I've been hoping for," said Small, a former PGA Tour player and two-time winner on the Nationwide Tour. "I've always wanted to know whether I was good enough to do it, and now I've made a cut. This is my fourth major, and I didn't want to keep going along, because the more you go, the harder it becomes."

But it didn't come easy. Small started shakily, with bogeys at Nos. 1 and 3, and after a birdie at No. 5, another bogey at the sixth. He made up for lost time on the back nine, getting birdies at the 10th, 12th, 13th and 18th (which he'd eagled in the first round).

It was a tough ride. He dropped a 35-foot putt for the birdie at No. 5, then three-putted No. 7 for his third and last bogey of the day.

"After being 5 over after six holes [Thursday]," Small said, "it feels good to come back and play like this."

One club professional who was sure not to feel good after Friday was Chip Johnson. The PGA head professional at Hatherly Country Club in North Scituate, Mass., birdied the 380-yard, par-4 eighth to get to 3 over par and under the cut line. But he promptly double-bogeyed the difficult 212-yard, par-3 ninth to finish at 5-over and miss the cut.