There is no hole too long for the elite kid golfers of the Tiger, high-tech era.
There's no hazard that can't be blasted over, no pin tucked too tight to attack.
Just because you just made two straight 20-foot birdie putts doesn't mean you can't make a third, or a fourth, or a fifth.
There's no fear.
"I don't know about that," Brandon Detweiler demurred.
This after Detweiler took a Lanco Janney Montgomery Scott Amateur championship that for 27 holes appeared to have all the drama of a member-guest scramble and turned it epic.
If there was fear at Bent Creek Country Club Saturday, there was also mastery of it.
Zak Drescher beat Detweiler in a three-hole aggregate playoff for the county championship, after each player shot a regulation total of 136, six under par.
All true, and a tiny sliver of the story.
For the rest you have to go back to the 15th hole of Drescher's final round, a massive 235-yard par-3 where Drescher thought he had pushed his tee shot out of bounds.
He also thought, with a preponderance of available evidence, that he had a five- or six-shot lead at the time.
His ball wasn't out of bounds. He whacked it out from under a tree, then hit a superb little chip and made a five-footer for a bogey that was huge, but only in retrospect.
Then somebody told Drescher that he was actually three shots behind, because Detweiler had lost his mind, shooting a tournament-record-tying 63.
"I didn't believe it [at first]," Drescher admitted.
The truth was wilder. To get to 63, Detweiler, a junior-to-be at North Carolina State, had done the back nine in 28. Twenty-eight. Eight under par.
Detweiler had played a solid front nine tee-to-green, but hadn't made many putts in shooting even-par 35.
He birdied 10. He birdied 11. He hit a nuclear 6-iron over the green at the 518-yard par-5 12th and got up-and-down for another birdie.
"After that, it was a matter of getting out of my own way," he said. It's always a matter of that, of course, but on this day Detweiler got out of his own area code.
He missed an 8-footer at 13, but then hit a fairway bunker shot to three feet and birdied 14, and made a 20-footer for another bird at 15.
At 16 his wedge (into a 457-yard hole) hit four feet from the jar but spun back, and he barely missed a 10-footer.
Seventeen is a little layup par-4. Detweiler hit a 6-iron tee shot, then a 105-yard wedge into the hole for a 2. On a par 4.
He hit 8-iron into the 523-yard par-5 18th. (This just in: He's a fairly long hitter). But the second shot caught a bunker, and his sand shot was 20 feet short.
He didn't know exactly where he stood, but had to figure the putt was a big one. He drilled it.
Putting the Titleist in Drescher's court with nuclear force.
"I just knew I had to take it one shot at a time," Drescher said.
He birdied 16. He birdied 17. When that news reached the clubhouse, Detweiler and his dad, Marlin, a three-time Lanco champ, scurried off to the range to warm up for a possible playoffs.
Drescher drove well at 18, downwind and really a par-4 for these guys. His second shot got to the back fringe, around 40 feet from the hole.
With most everyone who had played and watched ringing the green, Drescher chipped poorly, about 12 feet short. Had he missed from there, it was over. He didn't, and it wasn't.
Not exactly sensing terror here.
The playoff was over the 10th, 11th and 17th. If it was still tied after that, it'd be sudden death on 18 over and over.
Detweiler had played the three playoff holes four under par in regulation.
"I sure didn't," said Drescher, who bogeyed 10 and 11 earlier.
When it counted most, though, he drove perfectly at 10, wedged to 12 feet, and rolled in the putt for his fourth straight birdie and a one-shot lead.
Crazy, brilliant stuff.
Both players played 11 nicely, but barely missed birdie putts in the 12-15-foot range.
After all this the actual ending was an anticlimax.
Both players pulled their iron tee shots at 17, flirting with a creek. Detweiler's went in the water. Drescher's stayed up.
"I guess mine landed a little softer, which was a little surprising, because his was so high," Drescher said.
"Mine hit a little more in the fairway, and his hit on the bank."
That was about it. Detweiler took the penalty shot, wedged to about 10 feet, but missed. Drescher got his second shot to the front of the green and — he can putt a little — lipped out a sidehiller from about 45 feet.
Tap-ins, handshakes, etc.
Drescher, 19, won the Lanco Open and Junior titles last year. He was an all-conference player this spring as a freshman at Campbell University in North Carolina.
Detweiler redshirted at N.C. State this year. He's 21, but has three years of college eligibility left.
Both players will dabble on the national amateur circuit this summer and try to qualify for the Pennsylvania and U.S. Amateurs.
Both probably have a hard time explaining to their college teammates what a big deal their local amateur is.
"It's huge, because of the quality of the field and the history, all the D-1 players who've come through here," Drescher said.
"I want to win this very badly," Detweiler said. "I intend to win it."
It only seemed like the Zak and Brandon show. Maybe that was because they were nine shots clear of everyone else. No one else broke par Saturday.
Ken Phillips, a two-time champ, finished third at 145, three over par. Craig Kliewer was fourth (147) and Dave Richards, another two-time champ, fifth at 149.
Battle at Bent Creek
Mike Gross is a Sunday News sports writer. E-mail him at mgross@lnpnews.com.
