Colt Knost Wins His First Major Amateur Tournament

Former SMU golfer Colt Knost won the biggest tournament of his life last week when he won the US Amateur Public Links Championship in Illinois. His achievement was quickly recognized at Royal Oaks Country Club a day later, when he arrived for an interview at the practice range.

“What's up Buddy? I'm proud of you,” said one of the club members.

Knost is just the sixth player from Texas to have won the amateur tournament. “I feel like I needed a big amateur win, to get me going and that was a good one to win,” said Knost.

The win enhances his chances of making the USA Walker Cup team.

“Ever since the EDS Byron Nelson Golf Championship, things have just totally changed for me, but winning US Amateur Public Links Championship just totally changed my life it feels like,” said Knost.

Golf fans who were in Irving for the EDS Byron Nelson Golf Championship remember watching Knost set a new amateur standard for the tournament with a 6-under par 64 to become the first non-professional to make the cut at the tournament since University of Texas golfer Justin Leonard in 1993.

“He's a very, very consistent player,” says Randy Smith, the Head Pro at Royal Oaks Country Club. “He's not a big high and low guy, he shoots consistently good scores.”

But now, he has a new dilemma. His latest win earns him exceptions to the US Amateur and the Masters, two invitations he would lose if he turned pro.

“All the people that play golf dream about playing at the masters,” says Knost. “It’s a nice problem to have. I have to turn professional, or go play at Augusta National, so, it’s a nice problem to have, but it’s a tough one to have too.”

Knost was going to turn professional this fall, but now he's reevaluating his options. First up, will be his selection to the USA Walker Cup team.

“I feel like I should be on there, I mean like I told the people up there, the USGA selects people to play and I just won one of their national championships.

Todd Dodge Is Helping Ticket Sales at The University of North Texas

New York Giants defensive end Adrian Awasom knows it’s tough to earn respect after playing college ball at North Texas. He always hears thinks like “Is that D-1 football, do you all have a stadium, you all this and that, I'm fighting them off though man. I'm fighting them off,” he says.

But the hiring of former Southlake Carroll Head Coach Todd Dodge as the schools new field boss during the off season may change all that.

To take advantage of the surge in ticket sales, season ticket holders have to make a bigger donation to the Athletic Department.

“We need to take advantage of a product that is valuable, that people put a value on, and will help us to continue to increase our funding,” says Rick Villarreal, Athletic Director for the University of North Texas. “We wanted to put a situation in that protected fans that didn't allow people to come off the street, being a new fan, and getting 50-yard line seats.”

What they have done is added a priority points system used by other Universities around the country for their most loyal fans. In this case, an extra 5-hundred dollars will allow fans to buy seats on the 50-yard line in section E. They've added this system because there is more demand on tickets now, since Dodge was hired.


Larry Collister of Denton, Texas, is one of those season ticket holders who have already secured his seats. “Dodge and his staff, they were meeting and greeting everybody. It was unbelievable watching how all that was going on,” said Collister as he recalled a gathering of season ticket holders. “I thought it was great what they did. When they hired Todd Dodge, we decided to double our pledge immediately, because of the buzz that was going on and having watched him stop Denton Ryan all the time.

In the meantime, donations are up and so are ticket sales.

“We've sold just about every seat in the center section and are now starting to both sections on the other side,” says Villarreal. But what start it will be, when they travel to Norman, Oklahoma for the season opener on Saturday, September 1, 2007.

Sat, Sep 01 Oklahoma at Norman, OK 6 p.m.
Sat, Sep 08 SMU at Dallas, TX 7 p.m.
Sat, Sep 22 Florida Atlantic Denton, TX 6 p.m.
Sat, Sep 29 Arkansas at Fayetteville, AR 6 p.m.
Sat, Oct 06 Louisiana-Lafayette at Lafayette, LA 6 p.m.
Sat, Oct 13 Louisiana-Monroe Denton, TX 6 p.m.
Sat, Oct 20 Troy at Troy, AL 2:30 p.m.
Sat, Oct 27 Middle Tennessee * Denton, TX 6 p.m.
Sat, Nov 10 Navy Denton, TX 3 p.m.
Thu, Nov 15 Arkansas State at Jonesboro, AR 6 p.m.
Sat, Nov 24 Western Kentucky Denton, TX 3 p.m.
Sat, Dec 01 Florida International at Miami, FL 6 p.m.