Leavitt, Salo to meet in N.H. Amateur championship match
From the New Hampshire Golf Association
Goffstown, N.H. (July 18, 2014) - Joe Leavitt and Damon Salo will play for the 111th New Hampshire Amateur Championship tomorrow at Stonebridge CC. Both endured two more rounds of match play today to earn a place in the 36-hole final.
Leavitt faced off against his good friend Nick Pandelena in his morning quarterfinal match. The match went to the 18th hole where Leavitt hit a key approach shot to earn a 2 up victory. In his semifinal match, his opponent was 2011 NH Amateur Champion Jim Cilley. Leavitt lost the first hole, but was in control from that point on. Errant shots on the par-3 13th and par-5 14th ultimately did Cilley in, and Leavitt cruised to a 5 & 4 victory.
Salo took on 2010 NH Amateur Champion Nick MacDonald in the quarterfinals. The match was all square headed to the 12th hole when Salo made his move. Consecutive birdies on #12 and #13 gave him a 2 up lead. After the duo halved #14 with pars, Salo made a par to MacDonald's bogey on the par-4 15th. Needing only to halve the 16th to win the match, Salo did just that with a par and captured a 3 & 2 victory.
Salo's semifinal opponent was against Matt Paradis who had run roughshod through the match play portion of the event. Paradis had won his previous matches 3 & 2, 6 & 5, 5 & 4, and 6 & 5. Salo took advantage of a couple of early Paradis mistakes to jump out to a 2 up lead through 6. It was a lead he wouldn't relinquish. After losing the 8th, he quickly won back 9th and also won the 11th to get to 3 up. From there he coasted to 2 & 1 victory.
View results for New Hampshire Amateur
ABOUT THE New Hampshire Amateur
Competition will be held at ten pre-qualifying
sites and will be 18 holes at Stroke Play.
The
low qualifiers and ties from all the sites
along
with the players exempt from
prequalifying, will
be eligible for the 36-hole qualifying on
the
first two days of the tournament proper.
Sixty-four players will begin match play the
following day. Entries are open to males
who
are members in good standing of member
NHGA
Clubs who are legal residents of New
Hampshire. An eligible non-resident can
play in
NHGA Championships if he has been a
member
in good standing of an NHGA member club
for
the last three complete golf seasons and
has
played a minimum of 25 rounds of golf at
this
club in each of the three seasons. A letter
signed by the President of the member
club
must accompany his first entry, stating
that
the player complies with NHGA eligibility
requirements.
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