Karl Vilips (Matt Gibson/Pinehurst photo)
Stanford men's golf is on a roll.
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 is attempting to be the second-straight Aussie to win the North & South, following
Louis Dobbelaar, who unlike Vilips did not play college golf in the U.S. and instead traveled here for a summer of golf last year. He has since turned pro.
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 had the round of the day, a course-record 7-under 63 on course No. 4, to finish at 4 under. The Auburn commit's round included six birdies and an eagle on the par-4 16th.
“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.
ABOUT THE
North & South Amateur
The North & South Amateur Championship is the
longest consecutively run amateur tournament in
the
United States. Its past winners list includes names
like
Walter
Travis, Francis Ouimet, Billy Joe Patton, Jack
Nicklaus
and Curtis Strange. The field is made up of invited
players as well as open applications. Two rounds of
stroke
play are followed by five rounds of match play
(32
qualifiers) to determine the Champion. All stroke
& match play rounds are contested on
Pinehurst No. 2.
View Complete Tournament Information