SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (June 26, 2012) -- Bhavik Patel took a step towards defending his California Amateur Championship title Tuesday, earning medalist honors after shooting a two-day score of 13-under par 129. He and 31 others advanced on to the match play portion of the championship, which is being held at La Cumbre CC in Santa Barbara.“The game plan was to stay aggressive, and I was able to do that. The course allows you to really succeed on the par 5s, especially if you hit the fairways,” said Patel, who birdied three of the four longer holes. “I enjoy match play because you can really feed off of your opponent, so I’m excited to get back out here tomorrow.”Patel had an outstanding 17 birdies throughout the two-day stroke play event, while only carding four bogeys. He finished T16 in last year’s stroke play competition, before going on to win the championship with an impressive match play performance.
The first round of match play will begin at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday morning, with 16 matches being held throughout the day.
Narrowly missing out on medalist honors was Santa Barbara’s Niall Platt, who put together rounds of 66 and 65 to finish at 11-under par 131. Platt enters match play with quite the home course advantage, as his house sits just feet away from La Cumbre CC’s second tee.
Other Santa Barbara natives who advanced to match play were Round 1 co-leader Kevin Marsh and 19-year-old Jack Perry. Perry finished stroke play tied for third, carding rounds of 68 and 67, while Marsh faltered a bit, following up Monday’s spectacular round of 64 with a 72.A playoff occurred following Tuesday’s round, with nine individuals battling it out for the final seven match play spots. The playoff only took one hole, and was highlighted by Peter Gibbs’ eagle on the par 5 9th hole.
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