Brandon Knight and Olivia Duan
Two Bay Area high school standouts came away with the biggest wins of their young careers on Sunday as Brandon Knight and Olivia Duan captured the men's and women's divisions of the 107th playing of the San Francisco City Golf Championships at TPC Harding Park.
Knight, a senior at Foothill High School in Pleasanton, holed out a wedge shot on the short, par-4 16th to defeat Mitchell Hoey, 1 up while Duan, a junior at Cupertino High School, had a little easier time of it with a 4 and 3 win over Michelle Ho.
Northern California Golf Association Hall of Famer Randy Haag won the senior division while Matt Vukicevich took home the title in the super senior division.
• • • • •
Men's Championship Division
Brandon Knight had little if anything in common with two-time major champion Collin Morikawa until late Sunday afternoon in the men's championship match against Saint Mary's sophomore Mitchell Hoey.
For 33 holes and nearly eight hours, Knight and Hoey engaged in a tightly-contested final that had very little give, less take and definitely no gimmes, as one-and-half foot putts were met with distant, blank stares.
The two combatants were separated by more than one hole just once and that came early in the match when Knight won holes 5 and 6 to take a 2-up lead. Mitchell bounced right back with a win on the seventh and from then on, the two friends from the East Bay kept a close eye on each other on a crystal clear and cool day on the bluffs overlooking Lake Merced.
Following Hoey's win on the seventh, the two players were never separated by more than a hole in a grinding and tense championship match that neither player could take by the horns.
After trading pars on the 33rd hole, Knight and Hoey went to the short par-4 16th, a terrific match-play hole that tempts fate and punishes wayward drives. Hoey, who was fighting with his driver all day, pushed his tee shot to the right of the large cypress trees. Knight, who was steady off the tee all day, followed with a textbook tee shot that left him just 89 yards to the flag.
Knight was first to play, leaving Hoey to ponder his options with his caddy and Saint Mary's teammate Jonathan Curran, a redshirt junior from Scottsdale, Ariz.
Knight hit a gap wedge short of the hole and watched as the ball took one hop and momentarily hung on the edge of the cup before disappearing into the hole for an eagle two and a 1-up lead.
"I had 89 yards into the wind and I think I played it at 95 and I was a little undecided whether to hit a hard sand wedge of an easy gap wedge. I hit the gap wedge and it came off perfectly. I pulled a lot of wedges today and wanted just one good one to put the pressure on him a bit. It took one hop and then hung on the hole for a bit before dropping in."
It was just three years ago when Morikawa eagled the same hole after hitting an epic drive to seven feet on his way to winning the PGA Championship.
Stymied by the trunk of a large cypress tree, Hoey had no other option than to take the gut punch, pick up his ball and head to the 17th tee.
The last two holes were halved with pars, with Knight calmly rolling in a three-footer on the last to join a list of distinguished City champions that includes former major champions Ken Venturi, Bob Rosburg and George Archer.
"Mitchell had a real hot putter going in the morning and I was fortunate to be only 1 down at lunch. We halved a few holes with birdies in the afternoon and I think I shot a bogey-free 66 to his 69."
Knight and Hoey counterpunched all day until the Colorado-bound Knight threw what turned out to be the deciding haymaker on the 34th hole. Hoey took the loss in stride.
"Brandon is friend and a heck of a player," said Hoey. "I didn't have my best stuff off the tee today and I was grinding a lot just to stay in the match. I was happy to be 1 up at lunch and I have to give a lot of credit to my caddy and teammate Jonathan Curran for keeping me in the present the entire match. It was a lot of hard work today, to say the least. I was just grinding for pars."
Hoey will return to Harding Park with his Saint Mary's teammates on Thursday as the Gaels take part in The Goodwin hosted by Stanford.
• • • • •
Women's Championship Division
Olivia Duan pulled away from Michelle Ho, a sophomore at Dougherty Valley High School, for a 4 and 3 victory to capture the women's championship division.
Duan, a junior at Cupertino High School who has verbally committed to play her collegiate golf at Princeton, took a 1-up lead into lunch and closed out the match on the 34th hole. Her win at The City comes on the heels of a strong showing at the Fortinet Girls' Championship two months ago at Stanford Golf Course, where she tied for 10th in a field that featured some of the top juniors on the west coast.
Men's Senior Division
Randy Haag With over 200 victories to his credit, NCGA Hall of Famer Randy Haag is one of the winningest amateur golfers of his generation, but even he admits there's nothing like winning a flight of the San Francisco City Championship in his own backyard.
Haag, who won the 1999 men's championship in an epic battle with six-time champion Gary Vanier, downed Steve Schroeder, 5 and 4, to win the senior division for the third time since 2016.
"If it's not my favorite tournament it's definitely one of the best tournaments you can play in," said Haag, who has won the last two NCGA Senior Amateur Championships. "As a kid, I'd read about the SF City in the San Francisco Chronicle and it was a dream just to play in it, let alone t have the success I've had here.
"This (Harding Park) is sacred ground. It's special and is unlike any other tournament you can play in the country. There's nothing like winning in your own backyard."
• • • • •
Super Senior Division
Matt Vukicevich of Kenwood, Calif. defeated Jim Williams of Orinda, 2 and 1 to claim his first SF City title in the super senior flight.
ABOUT THE
San Francisco City Men's Championship
>> The weekend qualifier is now closed, except for exempt players. Please email Info@SFGolfChampionship.com to register as an exempt player. Or, you may enter the Pre-Qualifier by clicking the link below>>
PRE-QUALIFIER REGISTRATION
TOUR
PORTAL (coming soon)
*An NCGA Points Tournament*
**
Entry Procedure:
Registration opens for all players on
October 1. There will be 50 spots held for
exempt
players under the following
categories:
* The past 10 years of the San Francisco City
Golf
Champions
* 2024 San Francisco City Men’s
Championship
Match Play Qualifiers
* Top 20 men’s 2023-2024 NCGA Points
Lists
* 2024 NCGA Champions (Amateur, Mid-
Amateur,
Junior)
* The top 3 finishers in each of the 6
AmateurGolf.com Winter
Tour
events (Dec 2024-Feb 2025)
Registration for exempt players, and for non-
exempt
players with a handicap index
of
6.4 or lower as of the date of
entry, opens on October 1 and will
remain
open until the field limit (120 players including
spots
reserved for exempt players)
is reached. When the field limit is reached, all
additional registrants will be entered in
the
pre-qualifier at Lincoln Park on Friday,
March 7,
2025.
Once entries close, if there are any unfilled
spots in
the Men's Championship (due to
fewer than 50 exempt players registering
or withdrawals), they will be filled by Pre-
Qualifier
registrants in the order in which
they registered.
Players entering pre-qualifying will pay an
entry fee
of $165 for the pre-qualifier, and
those
advancing from the pre-qualifier will pay the
remainder of the entry fee (must be paid
prior to playing).
The 36-hole match play qualifier will be held
March
8-9, 2025, with
18 holes played at TPC Harding Park and 18
holes at Lincoln Park for a combined 36-hole qualifying
score.
There will be 156 players in the qualifying
round with
64 players advancing to match play. When all
qualifying has been completed, the Men’s
Championship Flight will consist of 64
contestants.
In the event of a playoff to qualify for
match
play, a
player must be present in order to retain his
right
to participate in the playoff.
Match play will begin on March 15, 2025. All
match play for the Championship Flight (Mar
15-16,
22-23) will be held
at TPC Harding Park.
A schedule of all dates of
play can be found on the tournament website
sfgolfchampionship.com.
WITHDRAWALS AND REFUND
POLICY
Players needing to withdraw should do so by
filling
out the form at
sfgolfchampionship.com/contact/. Players withdrawing
before
the entry deadline of
February 18
will
receive a
refund of their entry fee minus
$50.
There will be no refunds after the
entry
deadline.
CART POLICY
The use of carts is prohibited for players and
caddies
in the Men’s Championship Flight (Appendix I
– Local
Rule
Applies)
SPECIAL OFFER TO SF CITY PLAYERS:
SF City
players get 50% off Strackaline Yardage
Books! CLICK HERE for
details
The oldest municipal tournament in the USA.
Match
play event with scratch men's, senior men’s,
women's, senior women’s, and open flight
divisions.
Past champions include Ken Venturi, Harvie
Ward,
Juli Inkster, Bob Rosburg, George Archer, and
Dorothy Delasin. Some of the “non winners”
include
Tom Watson and Johnny Miller. Click the
“history” tab
for more about this wonderful event.
View Complete Tournament Information