Teesdale falls, Logue, Smith play on at U.S. Amateur

     A few thoughts on some goings-on at the U.S. Amateur, which basically got bumped from Thursday’s Daily Times when Tiger Woods announced he was taking himself out of consideration for the U.S. Ryder Cup team.

   Temple senior Matthew Teesdale saw his U.S. Amateur bid halted in the first round of match play with a 6 and 5 loss to Ollie Schniederjans, a Georgia Tech senior who is the top-ranked amateur player in the world, Wednesday.

   Still, it’s been a very good summer for Teesdale, the former Hatboro-Horsham standout, who won the Philadelphia Open last month and reached the semifinals of the Philadelphia Amateur earlier this summer.

   And he did a good job making match play at the Atlanta Athletic Club, outshining his more decorated Temple teammate, Brandon Matthews, who was the 2010 PIAA champion at Pittston. Teesdale has a very good chance of succeeding Matthews as the winner of the Golf Association of Philadelphia’s William Hyndman III Player of the Year award.

   In fairness to Matthews, though, he was playing on the national amateur circuit this summer, as a player of his caliber should.

   Another guy who made match play in Atlanta was Will Betts, the Hartford junior who was a co-medalist in the local U.S. Amateur qualifier at Stonewall. A resident of the Pittsburgh area, Betts had a conflict with the western Pa. qualifier and drove to Stonewall and got in and then got into match play. Betts fell, 3 and 2, Wednesday to Eli Cole, a former TCU standout from Los Angeles.

   A survivor of that Stonewall qualifier who is still very much alive, though, is Isaiah Logue, the two-time PIAA Class AA champion from Fairfield in District Three. Two-time as in the last two times for the recently graduated senior who is headed for Liberty University.

   Not only did Logue earn a spot in match play, Wednesday he knocked off Sam Horsfield, 2 and 1. The 17-year-old Horsfield is a Florida recruit who moved to the Sunshine State from England at age 4 and has become one of the top junior players in the country.

   Which brings us to Nathan Smith, the western Pennsylvanian who has become the Jay Sigel of his time. Smith has won four U.S. Mid-Amateur titles and has played on the U.S. Walker Cup team three times, helping captain Buddy Marucci retain the Cup on his home course, Merion Golf Club’s East Course, in 2009.

   Smith won the 1994 PIAA title as a sophomore at Brookeville High School in a four-man playoff which included Haverford High’s Kevin McDermott.

   Smith has never had much luck in the U.S. Amateur. But maybe that’s about to change. He survived a 17-for-4 playoff to get into match play then rallied from 1-down on the 18^th tee to oust co-medalist Lee McCoy on the 19^th hole.

   “It was a long day,” the 36-year-old financial adviser told The Associated Press. “That was a lot of fun. You know I think it was one of those, I was so excited to be there. Kind of nothing to lose and I just got lucky.”

   I can remember wondering why Marucci chose Smith to be the veteran to round out that 2009 U.S. Walker Cup team. But Smith keeps proving over and over again what a wise choice it was.