Eight Pac-12ers advance to Wednesday at U.S. Amateur Championship
With stroke play in the books, eight Pac-12 golfers have either advanced to match play or a playoff to get into match play at the 2013 U.S. Amateur Championship in Brookline, Mass. Washington, Cal and Stanford each have two golfers moving on to Wednesday, while UCLA and USC each have one continuing on.
Charlie Hughes might not be the highest-profile golfer out of Matt Thurmond’s bunch, but boy he is having a high-profile kinda week thus far in Brookline. “Repeat that kind of effort on Tuesday and he’ll have no trouble moving on to Wednesday,” a Pac-12 Post blogger wrote after Hughes shot a stout 71 on Monday to get him into a tie for 37th. Well he did more than “repeat that kind of effort on Tuesday,” instead upping the ante by taking three strokes off his first-round effort and carding a 68 in his second go-around. With a 1-over on Monday and 2-under on Tuesday, Hughes is 1-under after stroke play and finished tied for ninth when stroke play was all said and done. Needless to say, Hughes will be playing in Massachusetts a little bit longer. #rednumbersbaby
Charlie Hughes will be joined on the golf course Wednesday by his now-former teammate Gerrit Chambers. The rising senior has had a tough time cracking the very strong lineup in Seattle, having played in only four tournaments in his collegiate career thus far, but this week he is right above the snip-snip at 4-over after 36 holes. As such, Chambers will be one of 17 golfers playing off for 15 spots in the field of 64 tomorrow, with the playoff taking place reaaaaallllly early over here; 7 a.m. EDT.
Unfortunately the stay in Brookline is over for Cheng-Tsung Pan, Jonathan Sanders and Trevor Simsby. Pan couldn’t remain on the cut line like he was on Monday, shooting three strokes worse on Tuesday to tally a second-round 75 (+5) and 7-over-par 147 for the 36. Sanders also finished 7-over for his two rounds, but shaved five strokes off his first round en route to a Tuesday-71, while Simsby improved from a Monday-77 to a Tuesday-73 to finish his tournament at 10-over.
“Anything you can do, we can do just as well,” said Cal’s fearsome fivesome in Brookline, as the Golden Bears also sent two players on to Wednesday. Those two would be Brandon Hagy and Michael Weaver, both of whom finished 3-over par for the stroke-play portion of the event. Another similarity between the two is that Hagy and Weaver both improved upon their opening rounds, with Hagy posting a 71 on Tuesday after a 72 on Monday and Weaver carding a 69 on the heels of a four-over-par 74 on Monday. As such, those two Desimone disciples shared 38th place with 10 other guys to finish safely above the cut line.
Homa, Johnson and Kim all played better on Tuesday as well, but their shavings were not enough to crack the reduced field of 64 (or 66, as it currently stands before the playoff). Johnson shot a 72 to finish 7-over par for his 36, while Kim lowered his Monday total by eight (81 to 73, +14 total) and Homa trimmed his by seven (78 to 71, 9-over par) to end their Brookline experience on a more positive note, but too high to the right of the plus sign to do any further damage.
Monday’s round revealed a top-64 and ties field of 2-over and better, so deductive reasoning would have it that 4-over would be the overall number to shoot for at the conclusion of Tuesday’s round. If this were to be the case, Stanford’s Patrick Rodgers would have to register a 71 in his second round to stay in the match-play hunt. This turned out to be exactly the case: 4-over was indeed the cut line, and Rodgers indeed shot 1-over par on Tuesday to hit that 144 total for stroke play and get into that 17-dude playoff. What’s better, he’ll have Cardinal company on Wednesday, as incoming frosh Jim Liu also improved upon his Monday round by two strokes. The only difference here is that Liu went from a 72 to a 70, so he posted a 2-over-par 142 that left him in a tie for 27th. Cameron Wilson had the best Monday out of all three Stanford golfers in Brookline with an even-par effort for his first round. However, the rising senior who shot a course-record 61 at CordeValle last fall posted a 79 on Tuesday, leaving him at +9 after 36 and well off the cut line.
Two of the Pac-12’s lone rangers are moving on to match play, those being USC incoming frosh Rico Hoey and UCLA’s Matt Pinizzotto. Both shot 73 on Monday, and Hoey carded a 68 (-2) on Tuesday at the Charles River Country Club while Pinizzotto put up a 70-spot (E) on the same course as Hoey (other golfers played at The Country Club) to finish stroke play at 1-over and 3-over, respectively.
Although Washington State’s only representative didn’t make the cut, Blake Snyder had the best Tuesday round out of any Pac-12 golfer, blasting his way to a 67 at Charles River. Unfortunately for him, he was 13 strokes worse in his previous round, and his two-day total of 147 (+7) was not enough to make it in the top 64. Oregon’s Brandon McIver looked to be in good shape heading into Tuesday after posting a 71 on Monday, but he couldn’t keep up the pace with a Tuesday-round 78 to finish at 9-over. Lastly, Oregon State’s Brian Jung bowed out of the tournament with a 6-over-par-effort on Tuesday to finish his Brookline stay at 10-over after 36 holes.