Jon Platz watches his drive during the 2005 Mid-Amateur Team Championship at Alvamar Country Club. Platz, a Lawrence High graduate living in Olathe, will open defense of his 2007 Kansas Golf Association Public Links Championship today at Eagle Bend.

Jon Platz has at least one thing going for him: He’s playing on the same course on which he won the 2007 Kansas Golf Association Public Links Championship.

That’s just about all the good news for Platz.

He will tee off today at Eagle Bend Golf Course with a field loaded with proven KGA champions gunning to dethrone him.

“If I don’t play well this year, I can always say I won it last year,” Platz said. “That’s kind of the way I look at it. I know in golf you can’t expect to win back-to-back titles – unless you’re Tiger Woods. That’s just how golf is.”

Platz, a Lawrence High graduate and current Olathe resident, is part of the 8:30 a.m. foursome with Mac McFarland, Bill McLaughlin and Bob Bezek of Baldwin.

Platz need look no further than the foursome that tees off 20 minutes before him.

The group includes two-time KGA Mid-Amateur champ Jon Troutman and 2005 Public Links champ Kyle Smell, who also won the 2007 Kansas Junior Amateur Championship.

Smell and Troutman are joined in the 8:10 a.m. foursome with 2007 Four-Ball champ Conrad Roberts and 2006 Junior Team champion Matt Lazzo.

“In the two years he (Troutman) won those tournaments, he pretty much blew the field away by a big margin,” Platz said. “He’s a good player, and he can go real deep, I know that. So I’m going to have to make a lot of birdies and have to get it clicking with the driver and the putts.”

In the foursome following Platz will be reigning Four-Ball champion Cameron Bishop, while Baldwin resident and Lawrence native Mike Grosdidier, defending champion of the KGA Senior Series Championship, will tee off at 8:50 a.m.

Another Four-Ball champion is also in the field. Zac Potter, 2006 Four-Ball champ, will tee off at 7:50 a.m.

Platz, who has been working on a few swing changes, said he hopes returning to a course where he has had success can put him back in the same form which he had much success with last year and earlier this summer.

“Last year was just a heck of a summer,” Platz said. “I also made the U.S. Amateur and the U.S. Public Links. I won multiple tournaments last year, also winning the Mid-Am Team for the Kansas Golf Association. So two state titles there, and this year I won three of my first four tournaments. But the last three I haven’t done so well.”

But Platz stressed Eagle Bend wasn’t a pushover.

“It’s a fun course, but it’s one of those courses that can kind of play mind games with you,” Platz said. “You can go deep, and everybody knows that. But you get a little bit off, and you can go the wrong way on the scoreboard. There’s a couple of holes that you have to be careful because you can go O.B. (out of bounds) and get a two-shot penalty pretty quick.”