Huff rides hot putter to top seed in PNGA match play

DUPONT, WA (July 10, 2018)– Graysen Huff of Eagle, Idaho, shot rounds of 65-66 to easily win medalist honors in stroke-play qualifying for the 117th Pacific Northwest Men’s Amateur Championship, being held this week at The Home Course in DuPont, Wash. Huff will be the No. 1 seed entering the match-play portion of the championship. The Round of 64 will be played Wednesday July 11, followed by the Rounds of 32 and 16 on Thursday, the quarterfinals and semifinals on Friday, and the championship match on Saturday, July 14. Each match will be contested over 18 holes, with the exception of the final match, which will be played over 36 holes. Huff blistered the back nine at The Home Course in stroke play, going a combined 10-under par over the past two days. His only hiccup in Tuesday’s round was a double-bogey on the par-4 seventh hole, but he eagled the next hole, a 561-yard par-5, to immediately make up for it. “I guess I just feel at home here,” Huff said after today’s round. “My putting was the difference. I made a lot of putts today and yesterday. And I was hitting the driver very well. It’s open off the tee here and that helps, but you have to put the shots in the right spots.” Huff, a rising senior at the University of Auburn, was named PNGA Junior Boys’ Player of the Year in 2014, and in 2015, while still in high school, was given an exemption to play in the Web.com Tour’s Albertsons Boise Open.

🎤 We talk with @Graydog121 (Eagle, ID) who fired rounds of 65-66 at @TheHomeCourse to finish at 13-under, earning stroke play qualifying medalist honors at the #PNGAMensAm@IdahoGA @AuburnMGolf pic.twitter.com/aXDqjYigme

— PNGA Championships (@PNGALIVE) July 11, 2018

“I’m part of a really good team at Auburn, a good bunch of guys and that really helps,” he said. “We practice and play as much as we can together, and it’s really starting to show up in my game.” In looking toward match play, Huff said, “Match play is hard. It’s very different. You have to start fresh in every match. From now on (in the bracket) it’s just a grind to make it through, but I’m looking forward to it.” The cut to make it into match play came at 4-over par. Some of the 64 players to make it into the match-play bracket include Derek Bayley of Rathdrum, Idaho, a recent graduate of Washington State University who finished runner-up finish in last year’s championship; Colby Dean of Eagle, Idaho, who won the Idaho State Amateur last month; Joe Neuheisel of Scottsdale, Ariz., the 21-year-old son of former Washington and UCLA football coach Rick Neuheisel; Reid Hatley of Hayden Lake, Idaho, who was the PNGA Men’s Mid-Amateur Player of the Year for three consecutive years (2015-17); and Gabe Spach of Seattle, who won the 2016 PNGA Junior Boys’ Amateur, held at The Home Course. This is the second time The Home Course has hosted the PNGA Men’s Amateur, having previously been the venue in 2009.