Just days after his teammate Michael Thorbjornsen recorded the best finish by an amateur in a PGA Tour event since 2016, Karl Vilips earned medalist honors at the 122nd North & South Amateur at Pinehurst, N.C.
The native of Australia and rising junior at Stanford shot rounds of 66 on course No. 2 and 68 on course No. 4 to top a strong field by one shot at 6 under par.
Vilips made a run to the quarterfinals in 2021 and hopes to win two more matches this year. He will start match play as the top seed.
Ross Steelman, Frankie Capan and Maxwell Ford shot 5 under to take the next three match play seeds.
Capan has good memories of Pinehurst, having won the 2017 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball with Ben Wong.
-Pinehurst photo
“I had no clue what the course record was,” Koivun told Alex Podlogar of Pinehurst . “I didn’t even think it was even in reach until after I made the putt on 18. Someone said, ‘Course record!’ and I was so confused. I thought it might’ve been lower, but, what do you know?”
We at AmateurGolf.com are not surprised -- we have seen Jackson up close at seven of our Winter Tour events.
Jackson Van Paris, last year's runner-up to Dobbelaar and a home-town favorite, made it through to match play at 1 under 139.
The cut for match play came at even par, and no playoff was needed as there were exactly 32 players at that number or better.
Andrew O'Leary, who made headlines by shooting a 68 in round 1 that included both a 9 and a hole-in-one, saw his roller-coaster ride take a steep drop in round two, shooting a 77 that put him outside of the cut line.
Match play begins early Thursday morning, with Vilips going out first against Leo Oyo.