Yenser knocked out in second round of U.S. Junior Amateur by Patel at Saucon Valley

 

   Recent Daniel Boone graduate Chase Yenser saw his U.S. Junior Amateur bid halted in Thursday morning’s second round of match play at Saucon Valley Country Club’s Old Course in Bethlehem.

   Yenser, who will join the program at Big 12 power Baylor later this summer, dropped a 4 and 3 decision to Sohan Patel of Weston, Fla., one of the three co-medalists in 36 holes of stroke-play qualifying for match play earlier in the week.

   Patel, who will join the program at Southeastern Conference power Vanderbilt at the end of next summer, came back in the afternoon to claim a 4 and 2 victory over Brayden Forte of Denver, Colo. in a round-of-16 match that sent Patel into a quarterfinal showdown with Tyler Mawhinney of Fleming Island, Fla. Friday morning.

   Patel jumped on Yenser right from the outset, building a 4-up lead with wins at the first, second, fourth and fifth holes.

   Yenser, a repeat winner of the Pennsylvania Junior Boys’ Championship last month at Hershey Country Club’s East Course, cut his deficit to 3-down with a win at the seventh hole.

   Patel, however, won the eighth and ninth holes to take a commanding 5-up lead into the incoming nine at the Old Course.

   Yenser battled back with consecutive wins at the 10^th and 11^th holes to cut his deficit to 3-down, but Patel closed out Yenser when he took 15 with a par.

   The other Pennsylvanian still alive in the match-play bracket when a gorgeous Thursday morning in the Lehigh Valley dawned, Nico Ward, a senior at West Allegheny, ran into a buzzsaw while suffering an 8 and 7 setback at the hands of Mawhinney.

   Taking into consideration the usual match-play concessions, Mawhinney was 5-under for the 11 holes of the match. When you’re trying to win two matches a day Thursday and Friday while trying to get to a scheduled 36-hole final Saturday, any chance you get for a quick match, you take it.

   In the afternoon, Mawhinney, pulled out a 2 and 1 victory over Louis Klein, a talented player from Czechia.

   The bottom of the match-play bracket, which includes the Patel-Mawhinney matchup, is loaded. Mawhinney is joining the program at Vanderbilt next month, so it’s a meeting of possible future teammates in his match with Patel.

   The other quarterfinal Friday morning at the bottom of the bracket will feature the star of this U.S. Junior Amateur, Miles Russell, the left-hander from Jacksonville Beach, Fla. who is No. 7 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR).

   Russell was locked in a tough round-of-16 match with Reed Arnaldo of Encinitas, Calif. who is coming off a solid freshman season with San Diego in the West Coast Conference. Arnaldo birdied the 17^th hole, his third birdie of the round, to send the match to the final hole with Russell clinging to a 1-up lead.

   The USGA loves them a drivable par-4 and so the tees were moved up on the Old Course’s finisher to 324 yards. Russell obliged by driving it over the trees on the left side of the hole, his ball finishing two feet from the hole.

   The conceded eagle gave Russell a 2-up victory and a spot in the quarterfinals against Dylan Baenning of Scottsdale, Ariz. and a sophomore on the Washington State golf team.

   Baenning reached the quarterfinals by pulling out a victory over Owen Coniaris of Glen Ellyn, Ill., an incoming freshman at national champion Auburn, on the 19^th hole.

   In the top half of the bracket, Noah Maclauchlan of Moseley, Va. pulled off the biggest upset of the day with a 2 and 1 victory over Brayden Jones of Seal Beach, Calif., the third co-medalist along with Russell and Patel in 36 holes of qualifying, in a round-of-16 match Thursday afternoon.

   Maclauchan’s quarterfinal opponent will be Kuan Zhou of Houston, Texas, who will join the program at Big Ten power Northwestern next month.

   Zhou knocked off Michael Asselta of Ramsey, N.J., who will join the program at Loyola of Maryland in the Patriot League next month, 2 and 1, in another round-of-16 match Thursday afternoon.

   The final quarterfinal will be an all-Kiwi affair as New Zealanders Ryan Xie and Cooper Moore will meet for the right to take on the Maclauchan-Zhou winner in Friday afternoon’s semifinals.

   Pretty good week for the Kiwis with Ryan Fox becoming just New Zealand’s third major champion with his Open Championship victory Sunday at Royal Birkdale.

   Xie reached the quarterfinals with a 4 and 3 victory over Troy Storm of Singapore in his round-of-16 match. Moore pulled out a 1-up decision over Dawson Lew of Canada in his round-of-16 match.

 

 

 

Yenser reaches second round of U.S. Junior Amateur at Saucon Valley with a victory over Smith

 

   Recent Daniel Boone graduate Chase Yenser has been one of Pennsylvania’s top junior players the last few years, a point he drove home earlier this summer by capturing the title in the Pennsylvania Golf Association Junior Boys’ Championship for the second straight summer at Hershey Country Club’s East Course.

   That victory earned Yenser a trip to the 78^th U.S. Junior Amateur at Saucon Valley Country Club in Bethlehem and Wednesday he earned a spot in the round of 32 with a 2 and 1 victory over Luke Smith of Canada at Saucon Valley’s Old Course.

   Yenser, increasingly comfortable on the national stage, will take on Sohan Patel of Weston, Fla., one of the three co-medalists in the 36 holes of qualifying for match play, which wrapped up Tuesday, in a second-round match Thursday morning.

   Yenser, who will join the program at Big 12 power Baylor later this summer, jumped out to a 4-up lead over Smith with wins at the first, second, fourth and sixth holes. Getting an early lead is often part of the formula for success in match play.

   Smith fought back as he got back-to-back wins at the eighth and ninth holes and creeped within 1-down with another win at 13.

   Yenser, who finished in fourth place in his final appearance in the PIAA Class AAA Championship last fall at Penn State, restored his 2-up lead by taking the 14^th hole, but Smith again fought back with a win at 16 before Yenser closed out the match with a birdie at 17.

   Patel, who plans to join the program at Southeastern Conference power Vanderbilt next summer, survived a tough test in his opening-round match as he dropped a 25-foot birdie putt on the 18^th hole to earn a 1-up victory over Luke Ringkamp of Palm Desert, Calif., who will join the program at West Coast Conference power Pepperdine next month.

   Patel had opened his week in the Lehigh Valley with a sparkling 5-under 66 at the Old Course that gave him a share of the lead following Monday’s opening round of stroke-play qualifying for match play.

   Patel added a solid 1-under 69 at the par-70 Grace Course at Saucon Valley in Tuesday’s second round to share medalist honors with Miles Russell, the phenom from Jacksonville Beach, Fla. who entered the U.S. Junior Amateur at No. 7 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR), and Brayden Jones of Seal Beach, Calif., each landing on 6-under 135.

   Yenser had struggled in his opening round of stroke play with a 7-over 77 at the Grace Course.

   But if that was mostly a case of first-round jitters, Yenser shook them off in a big way with a sizzling 5-under 66 at the Old Course in Tuesday’s second round that left him comfortably inside the top 64 qualifiers for match play at 2-over 143.

   Yenser’s determination was on display in that second round as he birdied half the holes at the Old Course, nine in all, to offset four bogeys.

   After opening with a birdie at the first hole, Yenser made a bogey at two, but then ripped off birdies at three, five, six and eight.

   Yenser made a bogey at the ninth hole, a birdie at 10, a bogey at 12, a birdie at 13 and a bogey at 16 before finishing with a flourish with back-to-back birdies at 17 and 18 to complete a roller-coaster ride of a second round.

   Yenser was joined in the second round of match play by another Pennsylvania standout in West Allegheny senior Nico Ward, who finished in a tie for sixth place in last fall’s Class AAA state tournament.

   Ward advanced with a 3 and 2 victory over Cody Weaver of Gilman, Iowa in Wednesday’s opening round of match play.

   That earned Ward a tough second-round meeting Thursday morning with Tyler Mawhinney of Fleming Island, Fla., who claimed a 2 and 1 victory over Rawlin Sutter of Cullman, Ala. in his first-round match.

   Russell, the left-hander from Florida, is the unquestioned star of this U.S. Junior Amateur.

   Russell rolled to a 6 and 5 decision over Eli Wessel of Indianapolis, Ind. in his opening-round match.

   Still, it’s match play and anything is possible in golf’s most inscrutable format. As I finish up this post, the second round is under way with Russell taking on Evan Liu of Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., who plans to join the program at North Carolina next summer.

   Liu was an equally impressive opening-round winner as he cruised to a 6 and 5 verdict over Paxton Lane of Benton, Ark.

   Russell plans to join the program at Florida State at the end of next summer, although I suspect he’s seriously considering bypassing college golf and turning pro. He was recently added to the roster for the U.S. Walker Cup team under captain Nathan Smith that will take on Great Britain & Ireland in early September at Lahinch Golf Club in Ireland.

   Russell, who survived the cut and played the weekend in last month’s U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills on Long Island, flashed his considerable talent in the second round of qualifying for match play with a sizzling 5-under 66 at Saucon Valley’s Old Course Tuesday that gave him a share of medalist honors with Patel and Jones at 6-under. Russell had opened with a 1-under 69 at the Grace Course.

   Jones, the third qualifying co-medalist, reached the second round of match play with a 4 and 3 victory over Hudson Kutchma of Westfield, Ind. in his opening-round match.

   Jones, who plans to join the program at Big 12 power Arizona State next summer, is facing Ronin Banerjee of Irvine, Calif. in Thursday morning’s second round. Banerjee rolled to a 5 and 4 decision over Max Emberson of Thousand Oaks, Calif., in his opening-round match Wednesday.

   Four other local junior standouts failed to advance to match play.

   There were 14 players tied for 63^rd place at 5-over 146 involved in a playoff early Wednesday morning for the final two spots in the match-play bracket. One of them was Charlie Woods, the son of Tiger, but he was unable to survive the bulky playoff.

   By the way the trophy that goes to the winner of the U.S. Junior Amateur has been renamed the Tiger Woods Trophy in honor of Charlie Woods’ dad, who won the title in this event three straight times.

   Dane Mohap, who finished in a tie for ninth place in last fall’s PIAA Class AAA Championship for Nazareth, and Logan McGinn, the 14-year-old phenom who will be a freshman on the Williamsport golf team in about a month, both landed among the group tied at 10-over 151 following two rounds of stroke play.

   It was basically a home game for Nazareth’s Mohap and he bounced back from an opening round of 7-over 78 at the Old Course with a 3-over 73 at the Grace Course.

   McGinn got the late call that he was in the field as an alternate. He struggled to an 8-over 79 at the Grace Course in Monday’s opening round, but recovered nicely with a solid 1-over 72 at the Old Course in Tuesday’s second round.

   McGinn will be right back on a national stage when the Boys Junior PGA Championship tees off Tuesday at Fields Ranch East and West at PGA Frisco at the PGA of America headquarters in Frisco, Texas.

   McGinn earned his trip to Frisco by capturing the title in the Philadelphia Boys Junior PGA Championship at Bellewood Country Club across the Schuylkill River from Pottstown last month.

   Ridley senior Declan Conner opened with a 3-over 74 at the Old Course and added an 80 at the Grace Course to finish with a 13-over 154 total.

   Conner punched his ticket to the U.S. Junior Amateur with a runnerup finish in a Golf Association of Philadelphia-administered qualifier at Saucon Valley’s Weyhill Course last month.

   Conner was the runnerup to McGinn in the Philadelphia Boys Junior PGA Championship at Bellewood and I’m pretty sure he will be joining McGinn in the field for the Boys Junior PGA Championship in Frisco next week.

   Jake Hollerback, a senior at Sussex Central who finished in fourth place in the Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Association Championship at his home course at Baywood Greens in the spring, was also in the field for the U.S. Junior Amateur.

   Hollerback opened with an 8-over 78 at the Old Course before adding a 7-over 77 at the Grace Course for a 155 total.

   The winners of Thursday morning’s second-round matches will be right back at it in the afternoon for the round of 16 in the afternoon. Only eight quarterfinalists will remain standing by the end of the day Thursday.

   If you’re in the Philadelphia area, it’s a short ride up the Northeast Extension or Route 100 to see the best junior golfers in the world battle it out.

   There will be quarterfinal and semifinal matches Friday with the scheduled 36-hole final teeing off Saturday.

   If you’ve never been up to Saucon Valley for a U.S. Senior Open or a U.S. Women’s Open, trust me, they know how to put on a golf tournament in the Lehigh Valley.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gross punches his ticket to the U.S. Amateur at Merion by grabbing a share of medalist honors at Llanerch

 

   Nick Gross hadn’t quite turned 15 when he teed it up in the Pennsylvania Amateur Championship in the summer of 2021 at Merion Golf Club’s historic East Course.

   The kid, going into his sophomore season of scholastic golf at Downingtown West, made the cut – a tough cut as only the top 40 and ties survived to play the final 18 holes of the 54-hole event – on the number at 8-over-par 148.

   That experience will come in handy next month when Gross, now 19 going on 20 and a junior at Alabama, returns to Merion to tee it up in the U.S. Amateur.

   Gross, returning to competitive golf after taking some time to get a left knee injury right and his mind a little better focused, carded a sizzling 5-under 66 Monday at Llanerch Country Club, the underrated layout in Havertown, only a little more than three miles from Merion, to share medalist honors with recent Princeton graduate Riccardo Fantanelli, a native of Italy, in a U.S. Amateur Final Qualifying administered by the Golf Association of Philadelphia (GAP).

   It was in the U.S. Amateur that Gross made his biggest splash to date. It was just a year after his solid showing in the Pennsylvania Amateur when Gross earned a spot in the field for the 2022 U.S. Am at Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, N.J. and proceeded to reach the quarterfinals a week before his 16^th birthday.

   Gross struggled to make the lineup for Southeastern Conference power Alabama last fall, then dislocated his left knee in a workout during college golf’s midseason pause.

   Gross gutted it out in the spring, the Crimson Tide ending up one frustrating shot out of advancing to the NCAA Championship with a sixth-place finish in the Marana Regional at the Gallery Golf Club in Arizona.

   But Gross decided to shut it down for the summer, preferring to work out some kinks in his game. I’m guessing most of that work happened at Kennett Square Golf & Country Club, where he became a member a couple of years ago and played in a couple of BMW GAP Team Matches in the spring of his senior year in high school in 2024.

   Gross had played very little competitive golf in that 2023-2024 winter, but showed up for the Pennsylvania Golf Association’s George Dressler Memorial at LedgeRock Golf Club that spring and erupted with a spectacular 10-under 62 in the opening round, going on to beat a pretty strong field by eight shots.

   The script was very similar Monday. Despite not playing a competitive round this summer, Gross made six birdies against a lone bogey over the 6,825-yard, par-71 Llanerch layout, home of the 1958 PGA Championship, to grab one of the coveted eight tickets to the U.S. Amateur at Merion that were up for grabs.

   Making a U.S. Amateur is pretty special in any year, but for a local player to make it to a U.S. Amateur at Merion is next-level special.

   I can vividly recall covering the local qualifier for the 2005 U.S. Amateur at Merion in my previous life at the Delaware County Daily Times back when it was a one-day, 36-hole test. The qualifier that year was at Rolling Green Golf Club and Llanerch.

   Really wanted to get down there Monday, but I was busy shooting a million in the Caddy Tournament at Stonewall’s Old Course. It is the social highlight of the summer for me and my fellow Stonewall loopers.

   Starting off the 10^th tee at Llanerch Monday, Gross nearly drove the green at the par-4 15^th hole, chipped to 13 feet and dropped the putt for his first birdie of the day.

   With his high school coach Rob Coyne, the best player in the history of Downingtown West golf before Gross arrived on the scene, on the bag, Gross got a second birdie on Llanerch’s incoming nine by hitting a pitching wedge to eight feet and rolling in the putt.

   Gross’ game heated up on Llanerch’s front side as he rattled off three straight birdies at the first, second and third holes.

   A 56-degree wedge to 12 feet on Llanerch’s opener was quickly converted into a birdie. Gross stuck a 9-iron from 162 yards to three feet at the second hole and made that putt. Gross hit a pitching wedge to 25 feet at the 465-yard, par-4 third hole and watched the birdie bomb fall.

   Suddenly, he was 5-under for the round.

   Gross’ sixth birdie of the day came at the 559-yard, par-5 fifth hole as he wedged his approach from 90 yards to six feet and made the birdie putt.

   The only blemish on his card came at the 365-yard, par-4 seventh hole as Gross laid back with a 3-wood off the tee, caught a flyer in the rough and eventually missed a six-footer for par.

   “I’m super excited,” Gross told the GAP website. “It was hard not to put pressure on myself for this qualifier, knowing where this U.S. Amateur is. It’s a fun opportunity to play at home. It’s a 35-minute drive to the course. You can’t beat that. And Merion is obviously a top-notch golf course.”

   Fantanelli was the best player in the Ivy League during his time at Princeton, earning Player of the Year honors in the Ancient Eight in 2024 and again in 2025. He was a semifinalist in the Royal & Ancient’s Amateur Championship a year ago at Royal St. George’s Golf Club.

   Chuck Tragresser III, the PIAA Class AAA runnerup as a senior at Franklin Regonal in the pandemic fall of 2020, finished a shot behind Gross and Fantanelli in third place, punching his ticket to Merion with a 4-under 67.

   Tragresser began his college career at Rhode Island before transferring to Robert Morris to finish it out.

   Liberty junior Michael Lugiano, who capped his scholastic career at Lake Lehman by finishing in a tie for second place in the PIAA Class AA Championship in 2023, is headed for Merion as he finished in a tie for fourth place with ChiChun Chen, another international invader from Chinese Taipei, each posting a 3-under 68 at Llanerch.

   Lugiano played some tremendous golf in capturing the individual title in the NCAA Corvallis Regional at the Trysting Tree Golf Club by three shots in the spring. He competed as individual in the NCAA Championship at the Omni La Costa Resort & Spa in Carlsbad, Calif.

   Anyone who followed last week’s Philadelphia Open at Lancaster Country Club wouldn’t be surprised to see the two participants in the playoff for that title, Drue Nicholas, the former Drexel standout, and Josh Ryan, a teammate of Lugiano’s in his final season at Liberty in the spring, among the three players who nabbed the final three tickets to the U.S. Amateur available at the Llanerch qualifying site.

   Nicholas was a member at Galloway National Golf Club when he won the Philadelphia Open a year ago, but he has moved to Merion and will be playing on his new home course in the U.S. Amateur. Nicholas defeated Ryan in the playoff to repeat as the Philly Open champion last week at LCC.

   Ryan, a Norristown native, won the GAP Junior Boys’ Championship three straight years from 2020 to 2022. He said last week he plans to turn pro, but he would delay the start of his professional career for a few weeks if he was able to qualify for the U.S. Amateur at Merion. Well, he’s in.

   And, as I mentioned in my Philadelphia Open post last week, Ryan was in the field for that 2021 Pennsylvania Amateur at Merion and was very much in contention right to the very end.

   Ryan, who will represent The 1912 Club at Merion, had just earned his high school diploma from Commonwealth Connections Academy when he finished in a tie for fourth place in the Pennsylvania Am with a 2-over 212 total for three rounds at the East Course.

   Rounding out the trio tied for sixth place at 2-under and earning one of the final spots in the U.S. Amateur out of the Llanerch qualifier was another local favorite in Huntingdon Valley Country Club’s Patrick Isztwan.

   That gives the Inter-Ac League a second representative in the U.S. Amateur at Merion as Isztwan was a standout at Penn Charter, capturing the title in the Bert Linton Invitational for the Inter-Ac’s individual crown on his home course at Huntingdon Valley as a freshman in the fall of 2017.

   Another Bert Linton winner, Aronimink Golf Club’s Hunter Stetson, the 2021 champion as a sophomore at Episcopal Academy, punched his ticket to the U.S. Amateur by capturing the title in last month’s Delaware Amateur Championship at Rehoboth Beach Country Club.

   Isztwan went on to have a solid college career at Richmond and has twice been a beaten finalist in the BMW Philadelphia Amateur Championship, most recently falling to Nicholas a year ago at Aronimink.

   The battle for somebody to have his name inscribed on the Havemeyer Trophy begins with the first of two rounds of qualifying for match play at Merion’s East Course, in the Ardmore section of Haverford Township, and Philadelphia Country Club, in the Gladwyne section of Lower Merion Township, Monday, Aug. 10.

   Philly Country is a William Flynn design and anybody who knows the history of Merion is aware that Flynn, the first greenkeeper at Merion, had a lot to do with how the tricky green complexes at the East Course turned out.

   Match play will get under way Wednesday, Aug. 12 at Merion. It is the seventh time a U.S. Amateur will be contested at the East Course.

   If you’re a golf fan, I can’t more highly recommend getting over there to watch some golf that week. You can feel the history oozing out of the ground while the present and the future performs right before your eyes.