And Then There Were Two

Peck and Reimers to meet in final match at 112th Pacific Northwest Men’s Amateur Championship

Hans Reimers of Albany, Ore. and Cameron Peck of Olympia, Wash. will meet tomorrow in the final match of the 112th Pacific Northwest Men’s Amateur Championship, being held at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Bandon, Ore. The final match will be contested over 36 holes, with the first 18 to be played on the resort’s Bandon Dunes course and the second 18 to be contested on the Bandon Trails course. The first tee time tomorrow is 7:30 a.m., with the second 18 scheduled to begin at 1:00 p.m.

Both Reimers and Peck survived today’s Quarterfinal and Semifinal matches, which were held on the resort’s Bandon Dunes course.

Peck had the hot hand in his Quarterfinal match. Pitted against Kyle Bowser, who plays on the University of Washington golf team, Peck blistered the front nine, making the turn at 6-under par before closing out the match 6 and 5.

He continued his stellar play in his Semifinal match against Carl Jonson, jumping out to an early lead that he never relinquished, closing out Jonson 4 and 3 with a par on the par-3 15th hole.

Peck put his name on the national golf scene when he won the 2008 U.S. Junior Amateur. He has just completed his collegiate playing career at Texas A&M. Last month he won the Washington State Amateur, and intends to play in the PGA Tour’s Q-School in the fall. His march through this championship’s bracket has been impressive, with victories over Nick Chianello, the reigning Oregon Amateur champion, Dylan Wu, the 16-year old wunderkind from Medford, and now Jonson, who was the runner-up in last year’s championship.

“I played a lot of junior golf with Carl,” said Peck after their match. “The wind was a real factor this afternoon, and I couldn’t be as aggressive as I was this morning (in the Quarterfinal match). Watch Peck’s interview here.

Reimers’ day was not as easy as Peck’s. After surviving his Quarterfinal match against Riley Hayfield of Kennewick, Wash. 1-up, he faced Justin Keiley, a junior on the BYU golf team, in the afternoon’s Semifinal match. At one point in the match, Reimers was 3-down. “I really had to grind it out,” said an exhausted Reimers afterward. “I just had to keep going.” He said the key to the match was on the par-4 11th hole, when he had to hit a provisional tee shot but was able to find his first drive and save par to halve the hole and remain only 2-down at the time. He closed out the match, 1-up, with a birdie on the par-5 18th hole.

Last month, Reimers won the Oregon Open. He is a fifth-year senior at Mercer University in Georgia, having transferred there after Portland University dropped its golf program. He’ll play in the Pacific Coast Amateur later this month at Capilano Golf and Country Club in West Vancouver, B.C., then head to Mercer for his final season.

Bandon Dunes Golf Resort has previously hosted this championship in 2000, and it was won by current PGA Tour player Jeff Quinney.

Past champions of the Pacific Northwest Men’s Amateur Championship include Tiger Woods, Jeff Quinney, Ben Crane, Jeff Coston, Nick Flanagan, Jim McLean and PNGA Hall of Famers Chandler Egan, Harry Givan, Jack Westland, Bud Ward and George Holland, among others. After winning the 1994 championship, Woods said, “The PNGA Men’s Amateur will always be very special to me since it’s my first men’s amateur victory.” Watch preview here.

Bandon Dunes Golf Resort opened with one course in 1999, the Bandon Dunes course, and has since added three courses – Pacific Dunes, Bandon Trails and Old Macdonald – as well as a 13-hole par-3 course, Bandon Preserve. The resort has developed a worldwide reputation as a golf destination, as well as for hosting regional and national amateur championships. It has hosted the 2006 Curtis Cup, 2007 U.S. Mid-Amateur, 2011 U.S. Amateur Public Links and Women’s Amateur Public Links, and last year hosted the 46th Pacific Coast Amateur.