(PNGA Communications)
SAMMAMISH, Wash. (July 2, 2013) – Bo Andrews, a red-shirt senior at Georgia Tech, played steady enough to push himself into the lead going into tomorrow’s final round of the 20th Sahalee Players Championship, being held at Sahalee Country Club in Sammamish, Wash. Andrews has a one-shot lead over Zachary Blair of Ogden, Utah, Kevin Carrigan of Victoria, B.C. and Andrew Yun of Chandler, Ariz. In all, 11 players are within five shots of lead. Only five players are under par.
On a day when only four players broke par, Andrews, a big-hitting North Carolina native who finished second in the prestigious Northeast Amateur two weeks ago, hit the shots when they needed to be hit. For the third day in a row he birdied the par-5 18th hole, and today’s was the most creative. After pulling his tee shot, the ball bounced along the cart path and ricocheted through the trees and out into the left rough on the dogleg-left hole. He chipped out, then hit the shot of the day, a 130-yard wedge that ended up three feet from the hole, leading to the birdie that gave him the one-shot lead over Blair, Carrigan and Yun.
Blair was the runner-up in the 2011 championship. “I don’t know if this course suits my game or not,” said Blair. “I just know you have to keep it in play, and that really was my only game. The hole locations were tough today, and I knew there wouldn’t be too many low scores.” (Watch Blair’s interview here.)
Carrigan had the best round of the day, a 2-under par 70. He won the 2012 Canadian Mid-Amateur Championship, and finished third in the Lima International Amateur, and will be at home playing in the final group tomorrow.
At one point on today’s front nine, Yun, the Stanford senior who held the lead after two rounds, stood at 7-under par and had a three shot lead, but bogeys caught him on the back nine, and an unplayable lie on the 18th hole led to another bogey, keeping him out of tomorrow’s final group.
The championship is being contested over 72 holes of stroke play. The first tee time for tomorrow’s final round will be at 8:00 a.m., with the leaders teeing off at 11:30. For more information on the Sahalee Players Championship, including final round pairings and to follow along with live scoring, visit www.sahaleeplayerschampionship.com.
This year’s field consists of 66 of the top amateur golfers from around the world. Past champions of this prestigious amateur championship include Kyle Stanley, Casey Martin, Peter Uihlein, Nick Taylor, Daniel Summerhays, Ryan Moore, Chris Williams, Arron Oberholser and Jason Gore, among others.
This year marks the 20th installment of the Sahalee Players Championship. After a brief stop at The Home Course in DuPont, Wash. in 2010 while Sahalee Country Club hosted the 2010 U.S. Senior Open, the SPC returned to Sammamish, Wash. and Sahalee Country Club. In addition to the U.S. Senior Open, which was won by Bernhard Langer, Sahalee also tested the world’s best when it hosted the 1998 PGA Championship, won by Vijay Singh, and the 2002 World Golf Championships-NEC Invitational, won by Craig Parry.
The Pacific Northwest Golf Association (PNGA) partnered with Sahalee Country Club 14 years ago to create the “Western Swing” with the Pacific Northwest Men’s Amateur Championship. The Sahalee Players Championship is the first leg of the swing, with the Pacific Northwest Men’s Amateur being played the following week. The two championships combined with a primary goal of providing amateur golfers in the West an opportunity to play two major national amateur championships without having to travel to the East Coast. This year will mark the 112th Pacific Northwest Men’s Amateur Championship, and will be held July 6-11 at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Bandon, Ore.
ABOUT THE
Sahalee Players Championship
Inaugurated in 1992, the Sahalee Players
Championship (SPC) was a major summer amateur
event until 2019 when it was
discontinued. In 2023, it was converted into a college
event hosting the top men's
teams in the country. Team (best four scores out of five
players each round) and
individual competitions.
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