May 13, 2009
Lobos’ NCAA West Regional Golf Notes 
NCAA West Regional Live Scoring
THE SAUER FILE
Who: Jon Sauer
Honors: All-MWC Academic
Year: Senior
Born: May 27, 1986
Hometown St. Cloud, Minn.
Parents: Ray & Kathy Sauer
Up Next: Lobos at NCAA West Regional
When/Where: May 14-16, Daly City, Calif.
Lobo Roster: Steve Saunders, Jon Sauer, Nick Geyer, Tom Carlson, James Erkenbeck.
Online: Recaps, video reports on GoLobos.Com
By Richard Stevens — Senior Writer/GoLobos.com
Maybe if the name Minnesota Fats hadn’t been taken and maybe if golf wasn’t a family thing, Lobo Jon Sauer would be chalking up a pool cue right now instead of cleaning the grooves on his 9-iron.
Sauer can play pool. Sauer also throws a pretty mean bowling ball and he has been known to pick up a book or two. In that respect, Sauer is a product of his state and a product of the climate that hurls itself down on Minnesota for at least half a year. That’s the cold half, the snowy half, the go indoors half and escape from the howling elements of the North.
In the cold half, Sauer often picked up a pool cue. “I’m pretty good,” said the New Mexico senior. Of course, Sauer also picked up the golf clubs.
“At least half the year, you are hitting balls inside a dome,” said Sauer. “You go hit balls off a mat into a net that’s about 80 yards away. It gets kind of old hitting balls into a net a couple of hours each day for six or seven straight months. So I spend a lot of time shooting pool.”
Pool is a nice sport. It has a few things on golf. More holes to shoot at. Less sand. Errant shots are easier to find. But golf wasn’t’ the family thing for the Sauers in St. Cloud, Minn.
Sauer’s father played golf at Bemidji State and was the first golfer to be inducted into that school`s athletic Hall of Fame. Dad was Sauer`s good start with the game, but for the Lobos it got better. Sauer’s older cousin, Mike Sauer, was a Lobo.
It gets even better. Mike played at UNM with Lobo golf coach Glen Millican and convinced Millican to take a hard look at Mike`s nephew, who was hitting the ball around at Central Missouri State and doing pretty good in the classroom, too.
“When I was growing up, Mike was at UNM,” said Sauer. “At that point, when I thought of college and golf, I thought of him and New Mexico.
“I’m sure at that age I idolized him because he was doing what I wanted to be doing. He was making the steps I was trying to follow in. So, I always wanted to come to New Mexico.”
When Millican checked out the younger Sauer, the UNM coach liked what he saw. And Sauer always wanted to be a Lobo. Sauer said maybe the biggest transition for him came on the fairways of New Mexico. Where had all the trees gone?
“It was different, playing on what was a desert to me,” he said. “I came from tree-lined courses in Minnesota where you look at a hole a different way. You shape your shot, curve it with the fairway. In the desert, there a lot of things you can just go over; cut a corner.”
Sauer, always the thinking man, also said he toyed with his swing off and on as a Lobo. But while using your brain too much in a classroom is rarely a bad thing, sometimes you can over-think the nuances of a golf swing.
“I probably work on too many things I shouldn’t be working on,” said Sauer. “To get better, you sometimes think you should be fixing or changing something in your swing. Sometimes I think I should just go out and play.”
Most of the time, Sauer has been a rock-solid Lobo on the golf course. All of the time, Sauer has been a rock-solid Lobo in the classroom. He will graduate with a GPA around 4.01. His major is finance and he will have a minor in Spanish and economics.
Sauer’s next big step is to figure out the economics of life after UNM. Does he want to be like the vast majority of NCAA athletes and pursue a living in something other than his sport of choice? Or does he want to give pro golf a shot?
“It’s an individual’s decision,” said Millican. “There are a lot of stories out there on the (PGA) Tour about guys who didn’t plan to be pros and there they are. One thing you know is that Jon will make an informed decision and whatever he decides, he’ll get it done at a high level.”
For now, Sauer is planning to push golf on a competitive level at the amateur level and put his brain to work in the world of suits and board rooms. Sauer has a good brain. Straight As in middle school. Straight As in high school. Straight As a Lobo student-athlete.
“For as long as I can remember, I have taken pride in the academic side of things from maybe a third-grade spelling bee or a fifth-grade science project and on up,” said Sauer. “I just realized early that achievement in academics leads to big things as well.”
“I’m a little torn, but I think I’ll either come back here to graduate school or go explore job opportunities in Minneapolis. But I do think about it a lot. I ask myself if I want golf to be my money maker or should it be some other job?
“For most golfers, you have to give it four, five, six years before you make it (PGA). I’m not sure if that life is right for me.”
Editor’s Note: Richard Stevens is a former Associate Sports Editor and sports columnist for The Albuquerque Tribune. You can reach him at rstevens50@comcast.net. Previous articles are available at The Richard Stevens Corner