The 120th U.S. Amateur Championship has seen nine of the top 10 seeds knocked from the competition, including medalist and top=seed Wilson Furr from the University of Alabama.
Bandon Dunes has become Upset City as nine of the top 10 seeds are gone along with last year’s runnerup, John Augenstein.
Furr was knocked out of the tournament in his Friday morning match with Harrison Ott, the 32nd seed. Ott birdied the 18th hole to send the match into sudden-death and Furr’s chances died quite suddenly when he made double-bogey on the first playoff hole. He wasn’t the only high seed to lose on Friday. No. 2 James Piot was beaten by Evan Katz on the first playoff hole in their match. Katz made it into the round of 64 in an 18-man playoff on Monday.
After the first round upsets and the Friday losses, nine of the top 10 seeds are gone. The only one remaining is No. 5 seed Aman Gupta. Gupta, who plays for Oklahoma State, was fortunate to get into the tournament. He got in as an alternate when a player dropped out before the start of the 36-hole stroke-play qualifier. Gupta survived a tense match with Jonathan Yaun and squeezed out a 1-up win to move to the round of 16.
Guptaaa had an easier time making it to the round of eight. He beat Sam Bennett 5-and-3 to advance in the windy afternoon conditions. Ott’s good play didn’t carry over. He lost to 29-year-old Stewart Hagestad in the afternoon, 4-and-3 while the youngest player in the field, 18-year-old Michael Thorbjornsen, a freshman to be at Stanford, beat Mateo Fernandez de Oliveira from Argentina, 3-and-2.
Friday’s quarterfinals will reduce the field to the final four. They will play on Saturday with the 36-hole finale on Sunday.
Danielle Kang Four Back At Ladies Scottish Open:
Biggest question at this week’s Ladies Scottish Open — can Danielle Kang win three-straight?
Kang was the first to admit that links golf isn’t her forte but she managed to birdie the last hole Thursday at the Renaissance Club to shoot even par 71 and is just four back of first round leader Nicole Broch Larsen from Norway.
Larsen played early and shot 67 and was a shot better than fellow Norwegian Emily Kristine Pedersen.
Kang, the world’s No. 2 and the highest-ranked player in the field, overcame two early bogeys at the third and fourth holes with bookend birdies at the 10th and 18th. She admits that links golf isn’t her first choice in style of courses:
“I’m actually having a lot of thoughts on the golf course,” Kang said. “It’s not something that I’m used to, at all. So, it’s bringing a lot of difficult parts of my game into play. So, I’m a little bit uncomfortable, to be quite honest, but always got to learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable.”
Ladies Scottish Open Scoreboard:
Thomas Pieters Returns In A Big Way At Celtic Classic:
Thomas Pieters hasn’t played on the European Tour since last March but he had one heckuva round Thursday at the Celtic Classic.
Pieters showed no signs of rust as he return with long hair and became a father for the first time during the layoff. The four-time European Tour winner played his final nine holes at Celtic Manor in just 29 strokes to shoot a dazzling seven-under par 64. He had just one bogey on his card and was only one-under at the turn. But he lit things up with a half-dozen back nine birdies that took him to a one-shot lead over Toby Tree and Jake McLeod.
