Weather continued to dominate the 42nd U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship on Sunday at Sleepy Hollow Country Club and stroke-play co-host Fenway Golf Club in nearby Scarsdale, N.Y. Just like the day before, a mid-day storm system caused a suspension in play – 72 minutes at Sleepy Hollow and two hours at Fenway – and brought nearly a quarter inch of rain to Sleepy Hollow and .63 inches to Fenway, creating adjustments in starting times and forcing the maintenance staffs and volunteers, especially at Fenway, to do yeoman’s work to get the courses ready for play.
The one silver lining was the stifling heat and humidity that were omnipresent for the two practice rounds on Thursday and Friday, and Saturday’s first round disappeared and replaced by comfortable conditions, albeit a bit soggier.
Only Sunday morning’s originally scheduled wave at Sleepy Hollow completed the second and final round of stroke play. At Fenway, eight groups (24 players) still have to complete Round 2 on Monday morning, while the entire wave that was originally scheduled for Sunday afternoon, has not hit a single shot. At Sleepy Hollow, a few of the groups from the originally scheduled afternoon wave are nearly done with their stroke-play rounds.
Once stroke play is completed, the match-play cut will be made to the low 64 scorers with any possible playoff for the final spots taking place at Sleepy Hollow.
By the time play was called on Sunday due to darkness at 7:07 p.m. EDT at Fenway and two minutes later at Sleepy Hollow, 2014 champion Scott Harvey, 45, Greensboro, N.C., had put himself in position to be medalist for a remarkable fifth time. Already in the championship record book for being medalist/co-medalist the most times since the event was created in 1981, Harvey is hoping to add to his legacy.
Knowing he was easily going to qualify for match play, the 2015 USA Walker Cupper converted a clutch par putt on Sleepy Hollow’s par-4 18th hole to shoot 2-under 69 for a 36-hole total of 5-under 136, which gave him the clubhouse lead by one stroke over Harry Bolton, 26, of Australia, who posted a 67 on Sunday at 6,850-yard Sleepy Hollow.
Two-time titleist Stewart Hagestad, who beat Harvey in a memorable 37-hole final in 2016, finished two strokes back after a 69 on Sunday at Sleepy Hollow, along with Jack Schultz, of Milwaukee, Wis., Chris Devlin, 48, of Hoover, Ala., and Jimmy Castles, 27, of Cupertino, Calif.
Schultz, 33, and Devlin each shot 69s at Sleepy Hollow, while Castles registered a 68 at 6,578-yard Fenway after posting a 70 at Sleepy Hollow earlier on Sunday. He played a total of 28½ holes due to the weather delays.
Harvey, who opened the championship on Saturday with a 67 at Fenway just moments before darkness enveloped the property, hasn’t competed a lot this summer, choosing instead to follow his teenage son, Cameron, to junior golf events.
“It’s not necessarily important but it is something that I started doing years ago,” said Harvey about earning medalist honors, including the year he claimed his lone title. “It’s really neat, I like the history of it. Any time your name is associated with any sort of record, it’s pretty cool.
“Once you get that close this late in stroke play you want to do it. I still think I needed to get to 6 or 7 [under]. This gives me an outside chance.”
Bolton, competing in his second U.S. Mid-Amateur (he lost in the Round of 64 last year at Erin Hills), had to play two holes at Fenway on Sunday morning before making the 16.5-mile drive over to Sleepy Hollow, where an eagle on the par-5 15th and subsequent birdie on the iconic par-3 16th led to the best score this weekend on the C.B. Macdonald design that was recently renovated by Gil Hanse.
“Today, it wasn’t great, but I kept it in play really well,” said Bolton, the 2019 South Australian Amateur runner-up who was exempt into the championship based on being one of the top 40 age-eligible points leaders in the World Amateur Golf Ranking®/WAGR®. “My misses have gotten a lot better. So I kept it in play and hit a lot of greens. The greens are really big. This type of golf is my type of golf. I thrive off hitting a lot of greens and then being a pretty good putter.”
A four-time victorious USA Walker Cupper, Hagestad arrived fresh off going 2-1 in the biennial competition last weekend at St. Andrews, including a pair of singles wins that helped the Americans rally for a three-point victory on the Old Course at St. Andrews. Through 12 holes of stroke play, he was 3 over par, but he grinded out a 1-under 69 at Fenway, thanks to four birdies over his last six holes just before play was halted for the day, and then on Sunday, he produced four birdies against two bogeys.
“I made some nice putts,” said Hagestad, who is competing in his seventh Mid-Amateur, where he’s made two finals (both wins) and reached the semis on two other occasions (2018 and 2019). “With exception of a few holes, I did a pretty good job of managing how spinny the ball was with the soft conditions. There were potentials for mud balls or just the potential to spin back and not be pin high. I would say that more than anything else I scored well. I got it in at 2 under. Given the circumstances it was a great round.”
Schultz, a data engineer who was the 2010 Big Ten Freshman of the Year while playing at the University of Michigan, got off to a hot start, playing the first six holes of the inward nine at Sleepy Hollow in 3 under par before playing his final 12 holes in 1 over par, his lone blemish coming at the par-4 eighth, his 17th of the day.
Devlin, who also qualified for last month’s U.S. Amateur, offset a double bogey on No. 8 with four birdies, three of which came on Sleepy Hollow’s first nine. Devlin, a healthcare executive, has battled a neuromuscular disease called Myasthenia Gravis since being properly diagnosed 17 years ago. He also had open heart surgery to remove a large thymoma, which had been causing his muscle fatigue. He returned to competitive play in 2008 and qualified for the U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, which he played despite pulling a muscle in his chest in the days leading up to the championship.
Castles, who didn’t turn professional after playing four seasons at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and now works for a tech company in San Francisco, got off to an inauspicious start when his first round resumed on Sunday morning at Sleepy Hollow, having to hack out of the fescue on the par-4 eighth hole that led to a bogey. He then bogeyed No. 11 before making consecutive birdies on 14 and 15 to get into the clubhouse with a 70.
After a short drive over to Fenway for lunch and then Round 2, Castles, who began on No. 10, turned in 34 thanks to three birdies in a five-hole stretch and then came home in 34 with a closing birdie on the par-4 seventh.
“The greens break a little different,” said Castles of Fenway. “We had to take some spin off [the wedge approaches] with the greens being a little soft. We just tried to keep the momentum and hopefully get in as many holes as we could of, and we were very fortunate and gracious to finish it up.”
What’s Next
Round 2 will resume at 7 a.m. EDT at Fenway Golf Club and 7:15 a.m. at Sleepy Hollow C.C. with any possible playoff for the final match-play spots to follow. The playoff will be contested at Sleepy Hollow, starting on No. 4, and then, if necessary, continuing to 15 and 18. Should more holes be required, the 18th hole would be repeated until the draw is finalized. No time has been announced for the start of the Round of 64.
Notable
A moment of silence will take place on Monday at 8:46 a.m. to honor the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, Pentagon and United Flight 93 that crashed in western Pennsylvania before it ever got to its intended destination of the U.S. Capitol Building.
Defending champion Matt McClean, fresh off representing Great Britain and Ireland in the 49th Walker Cup Match at St. Andrews, likely will miss the cut after posting 10-over 151. Lukas Michel, in 2021, was the last defending champion who failed to advance to match play.
Other notables in jeopardy of failing to qualify for match play include four-time champion and 2025 USA Walker Cup captain Nathan Smith, 2019 champion Michel, 2017 champion Matt Parziale, 2023 U.S. Open qualifier Christian Cavaliere, 2022 quarterfinalist Andrew Paysse, the brother-in-law of world No. 1 and major champion Scottie Scheffler, 2006 U.S. Amateur runner-up John Kelly.
Darin Goldstein, of New York, N.Y., nearly made a double eagle on the par-5 15th hole at Sleepy Hollow during the weather-delayed first round. He hit a 5-wood cut from 230 yards to a foot for a tap-in 3. Goldstein, competing in his sixth Mid-Amateur, posted a 1-under-par 70.
Mike McCoy, the 2013 champion who just captained the USA Walker Cup Team to a fourth consecutive victory at the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland, withdrew midway through his opening round at Sleepy Hollow C.C. due to a medical issue. His son, Nathan McCoy, opened stroke play with a 2-under 69 at Sleepy Hollow.
Jon Rush, of Yardley, Pa., also withdrew halfway through his second round at Sleepy Hollow.
The weather-delayed first round was concluded at Sleepy Hollow at 11:40 a.m.
Stroke-play co-host Fenway Golf Club played slightly more difficult in Round 1 than Sleepy Hollow Country Club. Fenway, a par-70 layout, had a stroke average of 74.7, while Sleepy Hollow (par 71) had a scoring average of 74.8.
Quotable
“One hundred percent, especially USGA setups. It’s not like back home where you just blow it up there somewhere and don’t think about it. You have to navigate, think your way around and still execute too.” – Scott Harvey on his vast experience of playing the U.S. Mid-Amateur
“It was way more of a battle. The weather got iffy and I was battling that a little bit. I was definitely not hitting it anything close to yesterday. But I made some good par putts. I missed it in the right spots and got away with a few things.” – Harvey
“It wasn’t ideal. The toughest part is all the things that people don’t see. You get off the golf course at 7:30 [p.m.], we had dinner with friends, and I got five hours of sleep. You are waking up at 5 [a.m.], you try and get ready. A lot of people see the golf, especially after all the travel, all the practice rounds, all the [competitive] golf and the [weather] delays, it certainly adds up. With that in mind I was super happy how I played today.” – Harry Bolton
“There’s a couple of different ways to look at it. You could say that they got a great wave since we played in the pouring rain this morning versus they get a perfect day. I wouldn’t really read too much into that. Rest is a bigger deal. I think that helps a lot. It will be nice to get a good night sleep again.” – Stewart Hagestad on his late-early draw
“When you have some weather delays, you have to take what is given to you. We tried to do that today. I definitely got off to a slow start this morning but bounced back nicely.” – Jimmy Castles
“It is not easy. I am trying to look at it as it may eliminate some guys in a way that maybe they get frustrated. I am trying to stay as positive as possible. And knowing that at some point as the week goes along, we are going to catch up. It’s a marathon anyway.” – Dan Walters on the weather delays
No comments:
Post a Comment