U.S. Amateur Final Set

I was wrong when I posted that Colt Knost wants to be the next Tom Scherrer. He wants to be the next Chris Patton. Holy guacamole is he, well, uhhh...let's just say I hope they pad that U.S. Walker Cup budget so Buddy Marucci can meet Colt's dietary needs.

Ryan Herrington blogs about Colt's so-called Masters dilemma, and Colt says no matter what there is no chance he's remaining an amateur to the U.S. Open should he win Sunday.

Meanwhile there is this unbylined game story on Saturday's matches, while Dave Shedloski also looks at Knost, Ken Klavon writes about the other finalist Michael Thompson and Alex Miceli posts notes.

U.S. Amateur Saturday and Other Olympic Club Observations

I'm a little behind because the matches are underway, but for those tuning Saturday at 1 on NBC, a few stories will acquaint you with the final four.

Beth Murrison has the Friday game story summing up the day's play with a nice overview of the semifinalists.  Art Spander writes about Jhonattan Vegas, whose impressive game I got to see some of Friday. There's also Dave Shedloski on Colt Knost and Stuart Hall on Michael Thompson.
A big gallery follows the Vegas-Pan match Friday (click to enlarge)

As for the event, it was my first U.S. Amateur and if you've never been, it's one of the great spectating experiences in golf. Very few ropes dot the property and you get the chance to roam a great golf course watching elite golfers. Until you see it, you forget how unique it is to get so close to such high quality play in today's game.
(click for a word from USGA sponsors)

As for Olympic, it remains one of my very favorite places in golf thanks to the atmosphere, singular design and fond memories from playing USF's collegiate event there. I was a both thrilled and disappointed in how the course looks. On the sensational side is the extensive tree removal work since the U.S. Junior Amateur that has left mostly Monterey Cypress and some pines. Vistas have been opened and the Cypress look more impressive than ever. The view from the clubhouse of No. 3 green is particularly eye-catching.

View from behind No. 8 (click to enlarge)The fairways and greens looked to be in fine playing condition, but outside the main playing areas, the course looks worn out. And there is a difference between looking natural and rugged, and appearing beat up.

Here it was the U.S. Amateur, with very limited galleries and it looked like Tuesday after a PGA Tour event. The many fescue native areas that looked so good during the U.S. Junior Amateur now look less appealing, with too many non-native weeds and a less than satisfying appearance.

Bunkers were recently resodded so it's hard to say how the sod will settle, but right now the bunkers have lost some of their gracefully aged look. Give them time and play and I suspect they'll settle back into their classic antique look.
New tee on No. 3 stretches it to 247 (click to enlarge)

Several new tees were in play since my last visit, and while the third and fourth were conceptually fine, the execution was uninspired and in the case of the third, they appeared to have been done very close to the Amateur. Two new modern and even less inspired practice greens right below No. 3 don't exactly add much ambiance either. I have a feeling this overall feel may be the reason Olympic has slipped a bit in some of the recent course rankings.

And just to be the broken record I am, the fairway widths were incredibly depressing. On a course where the slopes and trees are such a prominent part of the design, the confining widths just seem to keep errant balls in play instead of taking missed shots to greater trouble. When firm and a lot wider, Olympic is infinitely more interesting to play or watch. I would contend that when it is firm enough, as it was Friday, it is far more difficult the wider it gets. I have played it when it's wider and it was exhausting! In a good way.

Rough around and behind No. 6. What a contrast to Southern Hills (click to enlarge)Two narrow fairway examples come to mind: No. 2, with it's beautiful helping slope to the right and steep fall off to the left was reduced to a meaningless sliver, while No. 6, at a paltry 22 yards wide and featuring the lone fairway bunker, offers nothing but rough over that bunker, even though a player should want to hug the hazard and the left side to get at right side hole locations (and tee shots missed left trying to secure this angle find serious trouble).

Of course it would help if the guys weren't hitting wedges into a 440-yard hole, but that's an issue for another department in Far Hills. I hope that by the 2012 U.S. Open some of the fairways are tweaked.

Still, for overall tournament golf atmosphere, I don't think there are many better places than The Olympic Club. 
One of the game's great scenes, No. 18 at Olympic Club (click to enlarge image)

U.S. Amateur Quarterfinals Set

Ron Balicki offers this story at Golfweek.com while Ryan Herrington sets up the four Friday matches, that include one player whose identical twin also played this week.  And Golfweek offers this slideshow courtesy of our friends in Fairhaven.

U.S. Amateur Blogging

Ryan Herrington is blogging from Olympic Club and considers the plight of recent U.S. Amateur champions who haven't fared too well after turning pro. There are also blog entries at USAmateur.org.

Colt Knost Contemplates Becoming The Next Tom Scherrer

Ron Kroichick reports on the uh, dilemma that the current U.S. Amateur Public Links champion faces...

Knost, unlike so many ambitious young golfers, already has qualified for next year's Masters. He can drive down Magnolia Lane, stay in the Crow's Nest, stroll alongside the azaleas, walk across Hogan Bridge and try to keep his ball out of Rae's Creek.

And he's not sure he will.

Knost, 22, recently completed a standout college career at SMU. He's coming to San Francisco next week for the U.S. Amateur, which begins Monday at the Olympic Club, and soon thereafter, he will travel to Ireland to represent his country in the Walker Cup.

All the while, lingering in the back of Knost's mind - and sometimes in the front - will be Augusta National. He won the U.S. Amateur Public Links last month outside Chicago, landing him a berth in next year's Masters. His name is right there on the tournament's Web site listing 2008 invitees, wedged between Jerry Kelly and two-time Masters champion Bernhard Langer.

Here's the caveat: The Public Links champion must remain an amateur to keep his spot in the Masters. All along, Knost planned to turn pro after the Walker Cup in September and pursue his PGA Tour card at qualifying school.

"Everyone who plays golf dreams of playing in the Masters, and now I have a chance," Knost said in a telephone interview. "And playing in the Masters as an amateur would be such a different experience - they treat amateurs extremely well.

"It definitely would be difficult to pass that up. You never know what could happen. I could never make it there again."

History tells Knost few players turn down a Masters invitation - Tom Scherrer, the 1992 U.S. Amateur runner-up, was the last to decline. Scherrer didn't make it to Augusta National until 2001 and he hasn't been back since then (Scherrer now plays on the Nationwide Tour).

Knost recently talked to Phil Mickelson, who praised his talents, encouraged him to turn pro and predicted Knost will qualify for the Masters several times in the future. But therein lies the risk: What if he doesn't make it back? What if his career sputters and skipping the '08 Masters becomes a lifelong regret?

Well, he'd really, really hate Phil Mickelson for starters.

Walker Cup captain Buddy Marucci bluntly told Knost he would be crazy to pass on a whirl around Amen Corner.

I think so too. You all?
 

"No, Weaver didn't qualify for the US Open. He qualified for the British Open, which will forever be older, richer in flavor, and better in scope than the US Open."

Thanks to reader Brian for noticing this Jim McCabe rant:

Oh, they've got two picks left and can easily make amends, but US Golf Association officials have committed a terrible oversight. Shame on them for overlooking Drew Weaver with one of the first eight picks for the upcoming Walker Cup team.

Weaver is merely the best amateur golf story of the year, a quality kid with a superb game. The problem is, USGA officials merely look at a small, insulated picture that revolves around their own tournaments.

No, Weaver didn't win the US Public Links Championship. Colt Knost took that honor. He won something miles more impressive: The British Amateur.

No, Weaver didn't qualify for the US Open. He qualified for the British Open, which will forever be older, richer in flavor, and better in scope than the US Open.

No, Weaver doesn't have the luxury of the plush, inner-circle network connections such as Trip Kuehne. He merely has hard-earned results under trying circumstances.

As a sophomore at Virginia Tech, Weaver was within a couple of hundred yards of the tragedy that unfolded April 16 -- a gunman opened fire and when the bloodshed was over, 33 people were dead. In the aftermath of such horror, it would have been easy to crumble emotionally, but Weaver didn't. He saw in golf a chance to help heal deep wounds and even though snobbish amateur tournaments in the United States didn't open up for Weaver, he was undaunted. He did what many American kids would never consider -- he took on the challenge of questionable weather and links golf.

As for how he met the challenge, take note that Weaver won, which got him into the British Open at Carnoustie where he nearly made the cut. Oh, and for added reference, he and his Virginia Tech teammates found the inner strength to finish as co-Atlantic Coast Conference champs a short time after the massacre.

All of it made for a compelling human story, only when you come out of the private clubhouses that make up the USGA world, you don't have any feel for what is real. Instead, you tighten the tie and straighten the blue blazer and ask for the list of those young men who did things the "predetermined right way" and played well in closed-shop tournaments called the Azalea, Sunnehanna, Porter, and Monroe, and, of course, let's not forget someone who 13 years ago reached the US Amateur final.

Let's see, the British Amateur champ is such a coveted title that it earns you a spot into the Masters -- but not into the Walker Cup? What in the name of Bobby Jones is that about? (As a reminder to those picking the Walker Cup team, Jones thought enough of the British Amateur to make it part of his historic Grand Slam in 1930.)

Sure, Weaver can still make the team, but officials have more or less forced him to win the US Amateur, scheduled for Aug. 20-26 at The Olympic Club. Maybe he only has to make the final, or the semifinals, or the quarterfinals, or even match play. Who knows? But the fact that he's been overlooked with one of the first eight picks is a shame.

It's enough to make you root like heck for Great Britain & Ireland when the Walker Cup tees off at Royal County Down in Northern Ireland. I'm sure Francis Ouimet -- who devoted his golf life to the Walker Cup -- would forgive you.

Kimberly Kim Shoots 62

Uh, she's 15 and she did it at the U.S. Girls Junior, tying a USGA scoring record held by Christina Kim.

And of course Kimberly already has a U.S. Women's Amateur trophy on the shelf.

First American To Win British Amateur In 28 Years...

Drew Weaver of Virginia Tech is the man, as Alistair Tait reports for Golfweek.

Lucky '13 for TCC?

Jim McCabe notes Trevor Immelman's ace on the par-3 8th in practice and says this about The Country Club and the 2013 U.S. Amateur.

When US Golf Association officials meet today with reporters, expect confirmation of what has been reported by some publications -- that the 2014 US Open will head to Pinehurst No. 2. Nothing will be announced about the 2013 US Amateur (dates for that are out only through 2010), but all indications are it will go to The Country Club in Brookline, Mass., as a way of commemorating the centennial of Francis Ouimet's historic US Open victory. As most Bostonians know, Ouimet walked across the street from his home to win the 1913 Open, a stunning triumph that is credited for popularizing the game in this country. The 50th and 75th anniversaries were saluted with US Opens at TCC (in 1963 and 1988), but the National Amateur would be a fitting tribute, for Ouimet was a lifelong amateur and twice the US Amateur champ. Architect Gil Hanse, his star on the rise for his design of The Boston Golf Club in Hingham, Mass., is working with TCC officials on whatever changes will be necessary for the 2013 US Amateur and possibly the US Open several years after that. Since a second club is always necessary to help accommodate a large US Amateur field, look for Charles River CC in Newton to fill the bill in 2013.

California State Am Leaving Pebble Beach

While scanning Ron Kroichick's chat with Johnny Miller in search of blatant self-references, I was surprised by this note following the piece:

State amateur moving: The California amateur championship, held at Pebble Beach every year but one since the seaside links opened in 1919 -- the course was built, in part, for the tournament -- is hitting the road.

This year's 96th edition of the state amateur will be played at Monterey Peninsula Country Club. The event will then alternate between Northern California and Southern California sites in future years.

Not surprisingly, money was a driving factor behind the departure from Pebble. The Pebble Beach Company gave the California Golf Association a discount on green fees, but the price was still significant; after all, a standard round at Pebble now costs $450 (and will rise to $475 on April 1).

The move to nearby Monterey Peninsula -- where the club will not charge the CGA for green fees -- represents a huge savings for tournament officials. They also liked the idea of holding the entire tournament at one venue, as opposed to recent years in which Poppy Hills hosted two stroke-play rounds.

Plus, match play at Pebble often led to the odd sight of tournament competitors weaving through public play. Regular folks -- well, regular folks who can afford to pay $450 to play golf -- would stop and let state amateur contestants "play through."

"There was a lot of hand wringing and a lot of anguish about this decision," said Bob Thomas, spokesman for the Southern California Golf Association. "We know how special Pebble is."

Tait On Amateur Funding

Golfweek's Alistair Tait points out that Richie Ramsay's U.S. Amateur win would not have happened had the USGA not changed it's rules on funding expenses.

In the past, players have had to pay U.S. Amateur expenses out of their own pocket. Hence the reason so few British Isles players competed.

Do the math. Ramsay is university student who often caddies at his home club of Royal Aberdeen for extra money. It would take a lot of bag dragging to afford the expenses of a transatlantic trip in peak holiday season for British travelers.

The new funding rules mean that the British Golf Unions can finance groups of players to compete in the U.S. Am. Had the old rules been in place, Ramsay would have been in Italy for the European Amateur Championship. He'd have been joined there by fellow Scot Lloyd Saltman, and English Walker Cup teammates Oliver Fisher and Robert Dinwiddie. They also took advantage of the new funding rules to compete in Minnesota.

U.S. Amateur Final Set

Stuart Hall writes about Scotland's Richie Ramsay holding off Sunnehanna winner Webb Simpson to reach the U.S. Amateur finals, not only insuring John Huggan a pre-Masters column, but making him arguably the most rules-obtuse player to ever reach such a prestigious position.

Ramsay grounding his club in the creek left of Hazeltine's No. 16 fairway has to rank as one of the most egregious violations ever caught on tape (not to mention the questionable practice swings beforehand). 

Another Scoring Record Falls

From ESPN:

Florida sophomore Billy Horschel shot a USGA-championship record 11-under-par 60 Monday to take the first round lead in the U.S. Amateur stroke play qualifying at the Chaska Town Course.

Horschel fired his round at the 6,753 yard, par 71 Arthur Hills 1997 design.

He breaks the USGA championship record by two strokes.

For more on the Am, USAmateur.org has some great coverage.

Speaking of Bickering...

Jim Achenbach reports on Mitch Voges and his shady behavior at the U.S. Senior Amateur yesterday.

I rank the 36 holes I played with Voges in the 1991 U.S. Amateur qualifier at Calabasas as one of the slowest and days of golf I ever played. Not only because I played decently and didn't qualify, but because Voges and his son/caddy gave new meaning to slow and annoying golf course gamesmanship antics. Voges went on to win the Amateur that year.

Another reminder that the USGA should have banned the long putter.

Marsh Wins Mid-Am

Kevin Marsh is going to the 2006 Masters.