Crowder goes extra mile to win Match Play title

A flare for the dramatic served Austin Crowder well this week at the IGA Match Play Championship.

To separate himself from the field at Purgatory Golf Club in Noblesville, the 21-year-old Greenwood resident needed extra holes to win three of the five matches he played.

Crowder, a 2015 Center Grove graduate about to start his senior season at IUPUI, needed 20 holes to outlast Keegan McKinney of Avon in Thursday’s championship match.

“It’s pretty much links golf. There are a lot of bunkers and every hole has a name,” Crowder said of Purgatory. “It’s a fun course. I typically play pretty well there.”

On Monday, Crowder started the week by shooting a 3-under-par 69 in stroke play, a score that earned him the No. 3 overall seed in the 32-player event.

The next day he played his first 20-hole match when he downed good friend Baylor Payne of Martinsville in the second round. In the semifinals, Crowder trailed Carmel’s Michael Walters by four shots after 11 holes, but rallied with an eagle on the par-5 18th hole to extend the match. He then birdied the first playoff hole, the par-4 10th, to win.

Overall, Crowder played 113 holes of golf in four days.

Crowder’s big week helped Johnson County continue its dominance at the IGA Match Play Championship. Greenwood resident Sean Rowen took first in 2016, while Zack Carrabine, a former teammate of Crowder’s at Center Grove, won in 2015.

“I’m exhausted,” Crowder said. “It’s tiring, for sure, but it was fun.”