Coro: Chanen churns to be champ

When Jake Chanen was 3, he was hospitalized for six weeks as he was diagnosed with Crohn's disease for an inflamed digestive tract.

Upon returning to his west Phoenix house, his father, Steve, was staying with him when Jake asked if he could go outside for the first time in weeks. Steve made phone calls as he chipped a plastic golf ball back and forth across the driveway.

"I was fascinated by it," Chanen said. 21275

That magnetic lure took him far in golf, including a WAC championship last week and a NCAA regional trip next week, but he did not have to go far for the places that made him an elite college player.

Chanen honed his game almost daily in his teen years at Maryvale Golf Course, which was renovated to become GCU Championship Golf Course. He chose GCU over scores of other quality programs as his college home down 35th Avenue from his childhood home.

The game always has been a lifelong passion project for Chanen but it took going back to his natural swing and usual fun to win the conference title by one stroke over Lopes teammate Michael Salazar.

"I took a step back after the fall and talked about it with the coaches and my family and realized I was putting too much pressure on myself," Chanen said. "I felt like I had to win every single week rather than just letting it naturally happen. I wanted to go to conference and put myself in position to play well. I just let the game come to me like I have my whole life."

It nearly has been a lifetime for Chanen, who was breaking plastic clubs when he was 3 and taking third place in his first competitive tournament at age 5.

Other than middle-school basketball hiatuses, golf was at the forefront of his free time with a competitive drive inside him that turned into accurate drives on courses.

"I got really good really fast," Chanen said. "Being really good at something intrigues me. The fact that I saw the progress being made, it sparked me and kept me wanting to come back every single time."

After committing to GCU, Chanen qualified for the 2015 U.S. Junior Amateur Championship and won twice in match play to reach the round of 16.

21276 Despite having every major college coach's eyes on him there, Chanen stayed loyal to GCU because of his relationship with Lopes head coach Mark Mueller.

"He has improved every year since he got here," Mueller said. "This year, he put it all together and now he understands what it takes to be really good from the mental aspect. To see him get to the point where he was mentally strong down the stretch when it got really tight (at the WAC Championship). He understands how good he is now and knows he'll be fine if he takes care of business."

Chanen won a tournament title in his second collegiate appearance in October 2016 but was just starting to understand NCAA golf, which has the grind of a year-round season and quality players at every dogleg.

"It's not anything like junior golf because you show up to these tournaments with good fields and everybody there is pretty much as good as you are," Chanen said. "There's not much separating people's games so it's much harder. You have to be focused the whole time because you can have a mistake that leads to others and end your round."

Chanen was having his greatest success in the offseason, when he captured the 2017 and 2018 Arizona Stroke Play Championships and won the Arizona Amateur Championship in August.

All the while, Chanen was maintaining a love of the game that formed on GCU's course, where his father often joined his rounds.

"People would think we're crazy for how much we were laughing and fun," Steve said. "If it becomes like work, then it's like piano lessons and nobody wants to do that. But if you're out there having fun, do it to your heart's content. He plays his best when he's having fun."

Chanen ended the WAC Championship's first round with a string of four consecutive birdies, followed by three consecutive bogeys that dropped him to seventh place. The in-round success was enough to fuel his confidence and he took the tourney lead with a second-round 67.

With a team race as a priority, Chanen stayed away from his individual status during a final round in which GCU assistant coach Brett Swedberg joined him and former teammate Vinnie Murphy walked the course. Chanen roomed with Murphy on the road for two seasons and watched him win the WAC title two years ago.

Chanen's on- and off-course dedication paid off when he dropped a 4-foot putt on the tourney's 54th hole to become the champion.

"You watch your son become a man right before your eyes," Steve said of Jake's GCU experience. "I'm more proud of the man he is than the player he is."

The work is not done with the regional tournament Monday through Wednesday and a senior season to come. In order to advance to the NCAA Championship, Chanen must finish as the top individual beyond the players from the top five qualifying teams in a 65-player field.

"I really appreciate Jake and his family and look forward to seeing if Jake can take the next step to make it an even better senior year," Mueller said. "This was a really cool step for him."

Follow Paul Coro on Twitter: @paulcoro.

Grand Canyon University Athletics

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