He was the only amateur in the 132-player Barbasol field in July, just missing the cut in his PGA Tour debut finishing 1-over 70-71-141, one stroke off the cut line.
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“Conditions are ideal now”, Hughes said Tuesday evening after he was done. Those 64 move on to single-elimination match play, culminating in a 36-hole championship match.
Lipscomb’s Dawson Armstrong leads the field a 6-under. He averaged 72.57 last season with four top-10 finishes last season after becoming the first freshman in Auburn history to earn honorable mention All-America honors.
Riley reached the semifinals of match play at the 2016 Western Amateur championship. He leaves soon for Penn State University, where he’ll be a sophomore and teammates with Dornes.
“I don’t think it has any weight to it now”, he said afterward. It’s going to be a challenge every single match, but I feel like I’ve done very well in the past in match play, so I feel really confident. “And this was a great test for me leading up to school, where I will play similar setups”. “I was scrambling for pars and birdies have been sparse”. He shot a 3-over on the South Course on Monday. Among the previous winners are five-time champion Bobby Jones, two-time champion Jack Nicklaus, 1990 champion Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods, who is the only player to ever win the U.S. Amateur title three years in a row.
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The tournament moves into match play Wednesday, with a champion expected to be crowned Sunday.
