Georgia Collegians Among Top Players In Field
The U.S. Amateur Championship returns to the Atlanta area this month for the first time since 2001, with Atlanta Athletic Club the host of the 2014 event.
The tournament will be played August 11-17, with two days of stroke play qualifying, followed by five days of match play. A field of 312 players will play both the Highlands and Riverside courses in stroke play qualifying, with the top 64 advancing to match play, which begins Wednesday of tournament week on the Highlands course.
This will be the fifth USGA championship for Atlanta Athletic Club, which hosted the 1976 U.S. Open, 1984 Mid-Amateur, 1990 U.S. Women’s Open and 2002 Junior Championship. The club has also been the site of the PGA Championship in 1981, 2001 and 2011.
“The club has hosted tournaments of national and international significance,” says PGA Master Professional Rick Anderson, Atlanta Athletic Club’s Director of Golf. “It’s always been a part of our heritage. It’s in our mission statement.”
Unlike 2001, the entire 2014 U.S. Amateur will be conducted at Atlanta Athletic Club. East Lake was the tournament host 13 years ago, with Druid Hills Golf Club serving as the second site for stroke play qualifying.
With two championship courses, Atlanta Athletic Club can keep both qualifying rounds on site, with Riverside a worthy tournament host. Highlands has been the club’s primary championship course, but the 1990 U.S. Women’s Open was played on Riverside, as was the 1995 Georgia Amateur.
Riverside, which has several holes that border on the Chattahoochee River, is not quite as demanding as Highlands, but at 7,381 yards is still plenty of course. It will play to a par of 72, with Highlands playing as a par 71. For the first time in a championship event, Highlands’ famous 18th hole will play as a par 5.
Anderson said that will “make for some interesting possibilities in match play.” Even with the second hole playing as a par 4, Highlands can be stretched to 7,490 yards, but is unlikely to play that length in any round.
“The USGA likes to use a lot of tees, and we have a lot of tees they can use, especially Highlands,” Anderson pointed out. The USGA also likes drivable par 4s, with Highlands’ 425-yard sixth hole serving that role during the 2011 PGA with the use of a forward tee.
Thanks to the conversion of the club’s greens to UltraDwarf Bermuda prior to the 2011 PGA, the putting surfaces will be firmer than in the past, and will enable Director of Golf Courses and Grounds Ken Mangum to keep the rough at a more manageable height while retaining the challenge of the two layouts.
Anderson says the preference is for conditions that allow the tournament participants “to play shots out of the rough to the green. With firm Bermuda greens, the rough does not have to be that high.”
The match play schedule begins with the first round on Wednesday, with the second and third rounds scheduled for Thursday. The quarterfinals are set for Friday, followed by the semifinals Saturday and the finals Sunday.
Golf Channel will broadcast the first three days of match play, with NBC taking over on the weekend. The two finalists will earn spots in the 2015 Masters.
Past champions of the event include some of the great players in modern golf history, including Arnold Palmer (1954), Jack Nicklaus (1959, ’61), Lanny Wadkins (1970), Craig Stadler (1973), Mark O’Meara (1979), Hal Sutton (1980), Phil Mickelson (1990), Justin Leonard (1992), Tiger Woods (1994, ’95 and ’96) and Matt Kuchar (1997). All but Kuchar have won major championships as professionals.
There have also been a number of less prominent U.S. Amateur champions, particularly since Kuchar’s victory, among them Bubba Dickerson, who won at East Lake in 2001.
U.S. Amateur champions David Gossett (1999), Jeff Quinney (2000), Nick Flanagan (2003) and Colt Knost (2007) have been unable to live up to expectations as professionals. Two of the most recent winners (Kelly Kraft in 2011 and Steven Fox in 2012) were not among the pre-tournament favorites.
Flanagan’s win in ’03 started a stretch of five non-American champions in a seven-year stretch that included European Tour regulars Eduardo Molinari and Richie Ramsey. England’s Matthew Fitzpatrick won last year, but has since turned pro after a brief college stint at Northwestern.
With Fitzpatrick one of several top amateurs to recently turn professional, Georgia Tech senior Ollie Schniederjans of Powder Springs has taken over as the top-ranked amateur in the world.
After an outstanding junior season capped by a playoff loss for the individual title in the NCAA Championship, Schniederjans has distinguished himself this summer in a variety of settings.
Schniederjans tied for 5th in a Web.com event in Wichita in his first start against the pros. He made the cut in the Scottish Open on the European Tour, playing steadily in all four rounds, and was one of the few bright spots for the American team in a Palmer Cup loss to Europe.
Georgians have not fared particularly well in the U.S. Amateur in recent years. Schniederjans tops a sizeable list of Georgia residents and collegians who hope to change that this month.
The last Georgian to advance to the third round was current PGA Tour player Harris English, who won his first two matches in 2010. English and then teammate Russell Henley made it to the second round in 2011, with just three golfers from the state making it as far as the second round the last two years.
Schniederjans qualified for both the 2012 and ’13 U.S. Amateurs, but lost in the first round two years ago and missed qualifying for match play by one shot last year.
Duluth’s Seth Reeves, a recent Georgia Tech graduate and Schniederjans’ teammate for three seasons, won his opening match last year after failing to reach match play in 2011.
Reeves was exempt from sectional qualifying this year, along with Savannah’s Doug Hanzel, the 2013 U.S. Senior Amateur champion. Hanzel became one of the oldest players in recent history to advance to match play in the U.S. Amateur, winning his opener two years ago before losing to eventual champion Fox.
The only other Georgian in the field with a match play victory in the U.S. Amateur is Scott Wolfes of St. Simons Island and Georgia Southern, who joined Reeves in winning in the opening round last year.
Bo Andrews, a recent Tech grad like Reeves, reached match play last year and is in the field at Atlanta Athletic Club. Keith Mitchell, a recent UGA grad and a member of the Bulldogs’ golf team, qualified for the U.S. Amateur in 2011 but did not advance to the match play.
Both Georgia Tech and Georgia have four current or recent players in the field. Among them are Georgia Tech signee Jacob Joiner of Leesburg and UGA signee Zach Healy of Peachtree Corners. Healy will join Mitchell and current UGA golfers Mookie DeMoss of Duluth and Lee McCoy of Clarkesville, who will be one of the higher ranked American players in the field along with Schniederjans and Reeves.
Kennesaw State had two players qualify – 2013 Georgia Amateur champion Jimmy Beck of Columbus and Austin Vick of Evans.
Other qualifiers included Mercer’s Hans Reimers, Armstrong Atlantic’s Travis Williamson of Brunswick, Oglethorpe’s David Kleckner of Cumming, Savannah’s Joe Lewis, who plays at Ole Miss, and Alpharetta’s Zack Jaworski of Vanderbilt, who qualified for the U.S. Amateur in 2012 but did not advance to match play.
Georgia will also have two mid-amateurs in the field – St. Simons’ Butler Melnyk, a sports agent, and Atlanta resident Chris Waters, a U.S. Amateur qualifier two years ago.
At least six Georgians are first alternates from their qualifiers, including Kennesaw State teammates Kelby Burton of Evans and Chris Guglielmo of Cumming, Mercer’s James Beale, Roswell’s Will Mitchell, Augusta’s Davis Parker and Tyler Joiner, Jacob’s younger brother.
Tickets for the U.S. Amateur are $20 per day and $75 for a week-long badge. Juniors 17 and under get in free with an adult, with each ticketed adult able to bring three juniors. Parking is also free and will be in the grass lot across the street from Atlanta Athletic Club.