Robert D. Thomas photo
CHULA VISTA, Calif. (Aug. 6, 2007)-- Cameron Tringale of San Juan Capistrano, Calif. and Adam Hagen of Scappose, Ore. each shot 5-under-par 67 today at San Diego Country Club and share the first-round lead at the 41st Pacific Coast Amateur Championship.
The 19-year-old Tringale, a rising junior at Georgia Tech, and the 24-year-old Hagen, the 2007 Oregon Amateur and Oregon Public Links champion, are a shot in front Ryan Posey of Dallas, Tex. and Nick Geyer of Albuquerque, NM, who each posted 68 today.
Five golfers are tied for fifth at 3-under-par 69, including three-time Southern California Golf Association (SCGA) Amateur champion Scott McGihon of Bermuda Dunes, Calif. and 51-year-old Brady Exber of Las Vegas, one of two 50+ golfers in the tournament.
Hagen joined with John Cassidy of Yelm, Wash. to send defending champion Pacific Northwest Golf Association to a 5-shot lead over Sun Country GA and the Northern California GA after the first round of the annual Morse Cup Team Competition, held concurrently with the first two rounds. Cassidy was one of those who posted a 69 today.
With the best two of three individual scores each round counting for the team total, the PNGA is at 136, 8-under-par. Sun Country, bolstered by Geyer’s 68, is at 141, 3 under par, tied with the NCGA, which was led by a 2-under-par 70 from defending champion Patrick Nagle of Pacifica, Calif.
The second round of the Pacific Coast Amateur will be played tomorrow (Wednesday), with play continuing on Thursday and Friday. Morse Cup play wraps up tomorrow.
Under warm, sunny skies in suburban San Diego, 17 of the 84 golfers overcame the 7,033-yard course and its lightning-fast greens to break par. Tringale, who won the 2006 Atlantic Coast Conference championship as a freshman, had seven birdies and two bogeys on his round, while Hagen, a southpaw, posted six birdies and a bogey.
Posey, who was in day’s first group that started on the first hole, could have made it a three-way tie but he made bogey 5 on the 17th hole, his second bogey of the day. Geyer posted five birdies and a lone bogey en route to his 68.
Nagle’s round of 70 put him in a tie for 10th place after the first round. Nagle, the 2003 California Amateur champion, is bidding to become just the third golfer to win back-to-back championships (the last to do so was Billy Mayfair in 1987-88).
After making a cross-country flight yesterday from the Western Amateur and landing in San Diego at 10 p.m., 2005 Pacific Coast Amateur champion Alex Prugh of Spokane, Wash., opened with a 2-over-par 74 today.
--Story by Robert D. Thomas, SCGA
View results for Pacific Coast Amateur
ABOUT THE Pacific Coast Amateur
Although its present history only dates from
1967, the Pacific Coast
Amateur Championship's roots make it one of
the
oldest amateur
golf championships in American history. The first
tournament was
held on the links of San Francisco Golf Club at
The
Presidio, April 24-
27, 1901. Championships were held annually
through 1911, all being
conducted in California except for the 1909
championship, which was
held at Seattle Golf Club in Washington. The
Pacific Coast Amateur
then ceased to exist, only to be reconstituted at
Seattle Golf Club on
August 10-12, 1967 with the Pacific Northwest,
Northern California,
Southern California, Oregon and Arizona golf
associations
participating.
Today, 15 member Pacific Rim golf
associations comprise
the Pacific Coast Golf Association. Players can
be
invited to this 72-
hole stroke play event by their Pacific Coast G.A.
member golf
association, or as an individual.
View Complete Tournament Information