CARLSBAD, Calif. (June 18, 2014) -- Medalist Jason Anthony survived quite the scare in the first round of match play at the California State Amateur on Wednesday.
Anthony went 20 holes with defending champion Cory McElyea before making birdie on the second extra hole to close out the match.
The marquee grouping teed off first at the Champions Course at Omni La Costa Resort & Spa this morning, and Anthony got off to an early lead, going two up after six holes courtesy of a birdie on the fifth and an eagle on the sixth. He extended the lead to 3-up after McElyea bogeyed the ninth, but the match turned around on the back in McElyea’s favor.
After halving the 10th with birdies, McElyea won the 11th and 13th holes with birdies to cut Anthony’s lead to 1-up. Both players made fantastic birdies on 16 to halve the hole, and Anthony went into the final hole with the lead intact. He stumbled a bit on the long par-5, however, and lost the hole to a par by McElyea, which forced the match to extra holes.
After halving the first with bogeys, Anthony sent the defending champ home early with a birdie on the short par-5 second hole.
Anthony will face Sidney Wolf of Valencia, Calif. on Thursday in the round of 16.
Other favorites who moved on Wednesday include Beau Hossler of the University of Texas, who nabbed a 3 and 2 victory over Daniel Ragsdale, and Xander Schauffele of San Diego State, who grinded out a victory over Kethan Reddy in 21 holes.
Hossler will face Shintaro Ban on Thursday in the Round of 16. Ban recently graduated from high school and will join the team at UNLV in the fall.
AmateurGolf.com staff writer Jack Persons suffered a tough loss on Wednesday at the hands of Paul Smith of USC. Smith hit his tee shot to 18 inches on the 16th hole to close out Persons 3 & 2.
Results for the round of 32 are posted below, along with live scoring for Thursday’s round of 16.
ABOUT THE California Amateur
The Championship is open to amateur golfers
who have established current indexes of 4.4
and are members in good standing of the
Southern California Golf Association, the
Northern California Golf Association, or the
Public Links Golf Association of Southern
California. Nonexempt players must qualify. An
entrant may play in only one qualifying event,
even
if
the golfer
belongs to clubs in both Southern California
and Northern California. The 18-hole
qualifying
rounds will determine the qualifiers.
The championship field will play 36 holes of
qualifying at a Northern or Southern California
Location, with the low 32 golfers from that
combined field moving on to match play (with
a
playoff, if necessary, to determine the final
spots).
Two rounds each of 18-hole match play will
follow on Thursday and Friday and the 36-hole
final match will be on Saturday.
The location will rotate yearly between
Northern and Southern California locations.
View Complete Tournament Information