Eight Players Advance After Grueling Day at 112th PNGA Men’s Amateur Championship

After completing the Rounds of 32 and 16 at the 112th Pacific Northwest Men’s Amateur Championship, being held this week at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Bandon, Ore., eight players advanced to tomorrow’s Quarterfinal round. The championship, which started with an elite field of 168 amateurs, is conducted by the Pacific Northwest Golf Association.

Both the Round of 32 and 16 were held today on the resort’s Bandon Trails course.

In the Round of 16, the match that was followed closely was that between Carl Jonson and Tim Tucker. Jonson, of Bainbridge Island, Wash. who will be a junior at UNLV, was the runner-up in last year’s championship. Tucker, at the age of 45, is going up against the college kids, and is from nearby Coos Bay while working as a full-time caddie at the resort. Earlier in the day, Jonson had defeated Gerrit Chambers of the University of Washington, while Tucker had bested Matt Rawitzer, who plays for Oregon State University. In their tightly-contested match, Jonson was able to close Tucker out on the par-3 17th hole when Tucker flew the green with his tee shot and could not save par.

“He’s a great guy, and was great to see him play well here,” said Jonson. “I love match play because you really have to think about so many other things than stroke play.” Watch Jonson’s interview here.

Other matches to watch included both played by Dylan Wu, the 16-year old phenom from Medford, Ore. who nearly played his way into the Quarterfinals. In his morning match, he birdied the par-4 18th hole to square his match with Kyle Schrader of Western Washington University, and then birdied the first playoff hole to close it out. In Wu’s afternoon match, he faced Cameron Peck of Olympia, Wash. who just finished his collegiate career at Texas A&M. Peck had won the Washington State Amateur last month, and won a national championship with his victory in the 2008 U.S. Junior Amateur, and in his morning match he closed out Nick Chianello, the Oregon State graduate who last month had repeated as the Oregon Amateur champion. The match between Peck and Wu went extra holes, and Peck was finally able to close it out with a birdie on the 20th hole, a par-3.

Other notables to advance are Kyle Bowser of Seattle, who will be a sophomore on the University of Washington golf team; Sulman Raza of Eugene, Ore., the former state high school champion who now plays for the University of Oregon; and Hans Reimers of Albany, Ore. who last month won the Oregon Open.

The two rounds of the championship’s stroke-play qualifying were held on the resort’s Bandon Dunes and Bandon Trails courses. Match play is also being played alternately on those two courses, with yesterday’s Round of 64 held on the Bandon Dunes course, today’s Rounds of 32 and 16 played on the Bandon Trails course and tomorrow’s Quarterfinal and Semifinal rounds both being held on the Bandon Dunes course. The first tee time in tomorrow’s Quarterfinal round is 9:00 a.m. and the first tee time in the Semifinal round will be 1:00 p.m.

The 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.