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Sunday, August 18, 2019

Ogletree rallies to beat Augenstein and claim U.S. Amateur title at Pinehurst


   In a remarkable display of patience, Georgia Tech senior Andy Ogletree gave Mississippi its first U.S. Amateur champion as Ogletree, trailing for a long time in the scheduled 36-hole final Sunday at the Pinehurst Resort & Country Club in Pinehurst Village, N.C., got back in the match and surged at  the finish to a 2 and 1 victory over Vanderbilt senior John Augenstein.
   The 21-year-old Ogletree of Little Rock, Miss. is Georgia Tech’s first U.S. Amateur champion since Matt Kuchar put his name on the Havemeyer Trophy in 1997.
   The only other Georgia Tech man to wear the U.S. Amateur crown was the immortal Bobby Jones, who won it five times. You get yourself mentioned in the same breath with Bobby Jones in any kind of golf context and that’s big.
   The U.S. Amateur final was contested on two courses for the first time in its 119-year history. And the 21-year-old Augenstein of Owensboro, Ky. and No. 38 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR) made an early statement in the morning round on Pinehurst No. 4.
   Augenstein, who helped the Commodores reach the semifinals of the NCAA Championship at The Blessings Golf Club in Fayetteville, Ark. before falling to eventual national champion Stanford in the spring, won the second hole with a par and then the third, fourth and fifth holes with birdies to put Ogletree in a quick 4-down hole.
   Ogletree, who led Georgia Tech to the team title in the Atlantic Coast Conference Championship with a runnerup finish in the individual standings, got on the board by winning the eighth hole with a birdie, but Augenstein quickly restored his 4-up advantage by winning the 11th hole with a birdie.
   Ogletree kept grinding, taking the 12th and 13th holes with pars to cut his deficit in half. Augenstein won the 16th hole with a birdie to go 3-up. But Ogeltree got that one back with a birdie at the 18th.  With the scene shifting to the Donald Ross classic No. 2 course for the afternoon round, Ogletree was only 2-down, having withstood a 5-under 65 morning-round salvo from Augenstein as well as could be expected.
   In the afternoon, Ogletree kept cutting his deficit to 1-down and Augenstein kept answering and restoring a 2-up advantage.
   Ogletree won the 19th hole, but Augenstein took the 22nd hole with a par. Ogletree won the 25th hole with a par, but Augenstein took the 28th hole with a birdie. Augenstein was 2-up again, this time with just eight holes to go.
   Ogletree, however, just kept hitting quality shots and making clutch putts.
   He won the 29th hole with a par and then backed it up by winning the 31st hole with a birdie to even the match for the first time since the first hole in the early morning on Pinehurst No. 4.
   On the next hole, the 32nd of the match, Ogletree took his first lead all day when he won the hole with a par.
   He carried his 1-up advantage to the par-3 17th hole and hit one more quality shot, hitting the green. Augenstein was on the front fringe, just behind Ogletree’s ball.
   Feeling like he needed birdie, Augenstein blew his putt past the hole. He missed twice more before conceding the hole and the match to Ogletree. But nobody lost this match, Ogletree won it.
   “I showed a lot resilience out there and never gave up,” Ogletree told the USGA website. “I kept telling myself I’m going to win this championship and just always believed that.”
   Both players earned exemptions to next summer’s U.S. Open at Winged Foot Golf Club, the A.W. Tillinghast gem in Mamaroneck, N.Y. In a rule change, Ogletree’s exemption is still good even if he turns pro. Augenstein’s exemption is only good if he remains an amateur.
   Augenstein also got another pretty nice consolation prize as he was one of the seven picks to round out the United States team that will compete for the Walker Cup against Great Britain & Ireland Sept. 7 and 8 at Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Hoylake, England.
   Augenstein is a proven match-play performer, a point he pounded home with his run to the U.S. Amateur final at Pinehurst.
   There were three automatic selections to captain Nathaniel Crosby’s 10-man team, the top three Americans in the WAGR as of July 24, No. 1 Cole Hammer, a 19-year-old sophomore at Texas from Houston, Texas, No. 5 Akshay Bhatia, the 17-year-old star from Wake Forest, N.C., and No. 7 Stewart Hagestad of Newport Beach, Calif., winner of the 2016 U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship at Stonewall. At 28, Hagestad will be the “old man” of Crosby’s team.
   None of three played particularly well at Pinehurst with Hammer failing to survive a playoff for the final three spots. But all three are proven commodities, as their standing in the WAGR would indicate.
   By winning the U.S. Amateur, Ogletree also earned himself a trip across the pond to play in the Walker Cup Match.
   The two players who led Stanford to the national championship in the spring, 22-year-old Brandon Wu of Scarsdale, N.Y. and No. 11 in the WAGR, and 22-year-old Isaiah Salinda of South San Francisco, Calif. and No. 20 in the WAGR, were also named to the U.S. team.
   Both played well at Pinehurst, Wu claiming medalist honors in qualifying before falling in the opening round of match play and Salinda reaching the round of 16 before being stunned by upstart Palmer Jackson, the PIAA Class AAA champion as a senior at Franklin Regional last fall.
   Florida State junior John Pak of Scotch Plains, N.J. and No. 25 in the WAGR made the grade. The 20-year-old Pak, the ACC individual champion in the spring, fell in the round of 16 at Pinehurst.
   Steven Fisk of Stanbridge, Ga., the runnerup to Oklahoma State’s Matthew Wolf in the individual chase in the NCAA Championship at The Blessings in the spring as a senior at Georgia Southern, got the call. The 22-year-old is No. 12 in the WAGR. Stanbridge fell in the second round of match play at Pinehurst to Australian teen Karl Vilips.
   Rounding out the 10-man team Alex Smalley of Greensboro, N.C. and No. 18 in the WAGR, who wrapped up an outstanding career at Duke in the spring. The 22-year-old Smalley was a crucial player in the Blue Demons’ surprising run to the semifinals of the 2018 NCAA Championship at Karsten Creek Golf Club in Stillwater, Okla.
   The 2019 U.S. team has a tough act to follow after a powerhouse 2017 team, playing on home soil at Los Angeles Country Club, handed GB&I a resounding 19-7 setback. Hagestad is the lone returning player from that team.
   Crosby is the 1981 U.S. Amateur champion and, of course, the son of the late, great Bing Crosby, the legendary entertainer and golf afficionado. Crosby resides in Jupiter, Fla. and plays out of Seminole Golf Club, yet another Donald Ross classic and the site of the 2021 Walker Cup Match.
   It seems likely that Crosby will get a chance to captain the U.S. team on his home course in much the same way that George “Buddy” Marucci did a decade ago on his home course, the famed East Course at Merion Golf Club in the Ardmore section of Haverford Township.




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