Miles Russell, the top-ranked junior amateur player in the world, advanced to the quarterfinals of the 125th U.S. Amateur Championship on Thursday afternoon following his victory over Pepperdine’s Mahanth Chirravuri, 2 and 1, in the Round of 16 at The Olympic Club’s Lake Course in San Francisco, Calif.
Russell went 2 down early in the match after a bogey on the first and a winning birdie from Chirravuri on the downhill par-3 third. The two halved the next three before Russell fired off four birdies in a row from hole Nos. 7-10 to take a 2-up lead.
“I didn’t get off to the best of starts. Actually, I felt like through five, six holes… I should’ve been 6 down,” said Russell, who won the 2025 Junior Invitational at Sage Valley in April. “But I was only 2 down and I took that as a positive for the way I was playing.”
Chiravurri fought back, winning both of the inward nine’s par 3s with birdies, but Russell answered on each occasion with birdies of his own to regain a 2-up lead, including on the par-5 seventeenth to close the door.
During the morning’s Round of 32 match, Billy Davis recovered from a 3-down deficit against Russell in what was a rematch from the AJGA’s 2023 Wyndham Cup, where Davis won 1 up. With Davis holing winning pars on Nos. 15 and 17, having birdied the par-5 sixteenth in between, the match reached the eighteenth green all square.
With Davis just outside of Russell and both players above the hole, Davis missed, and Russell converted a dramatic 12-foot, right-to-left slider to advance, 1 up.
“The crowd is awesome. It really helps momentum, I feel like, or it can at least. It’s a good crowd to have,” Russell said.
Earlier in the afternoon, Niall Shiels Donegan, of Scotland, eliminated 21-year-old medalist and world No. 4 Preston Stout, 1 up, to punch his ticket to the quarterfinals.
Shiels Donegan, whose family relocated to the Bay Area when he was three years old, was 2 down early in the match following a bogey and a double on hole Nos. 2 and 4, respectively. He steadied ship with a winning par on the par-4 fifth and then won three in a row from Nos. 7-9 to take a 2-up lead heading into the turn.
The two would halve No. 10 with routine pars before Stout, who has already been named to the 2025 USA Walker Cup Team, won Nos. 11-13 to take the lead once again. The Scottish national answered back with winning birdies on Nos. 15 and 16, and after both birdied the par-5 seventeenth, the match arrived to the eighteenth green with Shiels Donegan 1 up. Both players left themselves short par putts after missed birdie attempts, and Stout conceded.
“Elated, ecstatic. Yeah, it’s amazing. Just trying to enjoy the moment right now and get ready for tomorrow,” said Shiels Donegan, who recently joined the University of North Carolina men’s golf team following two seasons with Northwestern. “It’s hard [controlling the adrenaline] sometimes when you’ve got – the crowd around this amphitheater of the 18th green, you’re shaking a little bit. Those were three putts that I’ve holed to win my matches on 18. It’s been great.”
Minutes after Shiels Donegan’s match had cleared the green, 19-year-old Jimmy Abdo, of Edina, Minn., punched his own unlikely ticket to the quarters by taking down Swede Daniel Svärd, 1 up. Ranked No. 4292 in the WAGR, Abdo cruised to his afternoon tee time with a 4-and-3 victory on Thursday morning over Wolfgang Glawe of Germany, who played without a caddie this week.
“Being the underdog, I feel like there’s way less pressure on me to perform well,” said Abdo, who just wrapped up his freshman season at Gustavo Adolphus College in Minnesota. “I feel like I can go out there and play pretty free. That’s what we did for most of the holes out there.”
What’s Next
The quarterfinal matches on Friday are scheduled for 1:30 p.m. PDT, with the last match teeing off at 2:15 p.m. Saturday’ssemifinals are set for 11 and 11:20 a.m., and the first 18 of Sunday’s 36-hole championship match is scheduled for 10:15 a.m. Tickets are available for purchase, and Peacock will be streaming live on Friday at 3 p.m., with Golf Channel picking up the coverage at 4 p.m.
Notable
All eight quarterfinalists are now exempt into the 126th U.S. Amateur, which will be contested at Merion Golf Club in Ardmore, Pa. Merion is a five-time U.S. Open site and the club that has hosted the most USGA championships in the country.
2025 U.S. Open qualifier and U.S. Junior Amateur medalist Mason Howell, 18, of Thomasville, Ga., advanced to the quarterfinals following victories over world No. 2 Ben James, 1 up, and Max Herendeen, 2 and 1, in the Rounds of 32 and 16, respectively.
Two matches went to extra holes on Thursday. In the morning Round of 32, Germany’s Tim Wiedemeyer fell to Josh Duangmanee on the 19th, and in the afternoon Round of 16, 2024 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball runner-up Jackson Herrington defeated 21-year-old Caleb Bond, of Williamston, Mich., in 20 holes.
John Daly II birdied five of the last 10 holes of his Round of 32 match against Nate Smith en route to his 2-and-1 victory. He won his Thursday afternoon Round-of-16 match against Daniel Bennett, 19, of South Africa, 3 and 2, to advance to the quarterfinals.
Walker Cup captain and five-time USGA champion Nathan Smith has been on property since the championship began, eyeing potential players for the 2025 Match at Cypress Point Club in Pebble Beach, Calif. Smith played on three USA Walker Cup Teams.
Following his Thursday morning match against John Daly II, reinstated mid-amateur Nate Smith has now played competitive rounds against both Daly Jr. and Sr., having competed against John Daly in the final round of the Travelers Championship in 2011. Smith recorded an ace during the third round that week at TPC River Highlands’ par-3 fifth. With his Round-of-32 exit, no mid-amateurs remain in the championship.
Quotable
“Never back down from anybody. Ready to play against anybody. I’m not even sure who I have tomorrow, but I’m ready to put up a fight against whoever it is.” – Jimmy Abdo on his mentality ahead of Friday’s quarterfinal match
“Probably hit Chipotle again and abuse those Normatec boots.” – John Daly II on how he plans to rest and recover after Thursday’s 33-hole day
“My dad does a pretty good job of that. He reminds me that I’m just human, like at the end of the day, this is just golf. 10 percent of my life is golf. 90 percent of my life is my family, my friends. Just keep the 10 percent where it is and live the other 90 like anybody else.” – Niall Shiels Donegan on staying grounded moments after sinking the winning putt in the Round of 16
“It did. It did feel like a roller coaster match. If you look at how the matches have played out this week, a lot of times it’s a roller coaster with pars, and it was a roller coaster with birdies today… It was awesome.” – Jacob Modleski on his Round-of-16 match against Paul Chang
No comments:
Post a Comment