CARLSBAD, Calif. (June 17, 2014) -- Jason Anthony earned medalist honors at the California State Amateur on Tuesday, and with it, the top seed for match play.
Anthony shot a 1-under 71 at the Legends Course at Omni La Costa Resort & Spa, posting 140 for two rounds of stroke play qualifying to win medalist by a stroke.
He started well today, birdieing the third and seventh holes, but bogeyed the eighth and ninth after a spell of bad luck.
He then birdied 11 and bogeyed 14, and made a clutch birdie on the difficult 18th hole, which ended up being the difference between himself and those who finished at 141.
As medalist, Anthony now joins the likes of Corey Pavin, Craig Stadler, Ken Venturi, and Gene Littler, to name a few.
“To see the names on the trophy, it’s pretty awesome,” Anthony said.
Beau Hossler, Paul Smith, and Will Brueckner all finished at 3-under 141 to tie for second. Smith shot 68 on the Champions Course on Tuesday, vaulting up the leaderboard with his strong play.
The most interesting round of the day came from Byron Meth, who made six birdies on the front nine of the Champions Course, turning in only 30 strokes. He birdied 10 to get to seven-under for the day, but gave most of them back on the way in, making three bogeys and a double to post 2-under 70 and 143 for the tournament.
Defending champion Cory McElyea earned the 32 seed after he survived an 8-for-7 playoff this evening, and will face Anthony in the first round of play on Wednesday.
AmateurGolf.com staff member Jack Persons shot 3-over 147 in stroke play qualifying and also made it through the playoff. He will be the 29th-seeded player entering match play, and will face Paul Smith of Turlock tomorrow at 8:06 am.
In the North/South Matches, the South team defeated the North Team by only five strokes, shooting 4-over 724 over the two rounds of stroke play qualifying.
The match play portion of the event begins tomorrow, with sixteen matches set for the morning.
No player is safe in match play, even the medalist, but Anthony is confident heading into tomorrow. So how does he plan on playing?
“Be aggressive,” Anthony explained. “I think the Champions Course provides a lot of birdies with good shots, and I’m excited about it.”
For stroke play results and live scoring for tomorrow’s round, follow the link below.
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