Foushee, Ziegler medalists at U.S. Am Four-Ball; other NW players make match-play
Oregonians Zach Foushee and Robbie Ziegler continued their torrid play on Sunday at the 9th U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship at Philadelphia Cricket Club, backing up their first-round 62 with a 6-under 64 to tie the 36-hole scoring record en route to earning medalist honors.
Their two-round total of 16-under 126 matched the totals shot in 2016 by Brandon Matthews and Patrick Ross at Winged Foot Golf Club, and year ago at Kiawah Island Club both by teenagers Carter Loflin and Wells Williams as well as eventual champions Aaron Du and Sampson Zheng.
The two ex-University of Oregon standouts and longtime friends began the championship on the 7,204-yard, par-72 Militia Hill Course, the stroke-play co-host venue, before moving over to the 7,013-yard, par-70 Wissahickon Course, a classic A.W. Tillinghast design that opened in 1922.
Other Northwest players to make match play are Reid Hatley of Hayden Lake, Idaho and Jake Koppenberg of Bellingham, Wash.; and Jarred Gomez of Portland and Dane Huddleston of Woodland, Wash., who survived an 11-for-6 playoff for the final spots.
TJ Bordeaux of Fircrest, Wash. and Kellen Eakin of Tacoma were eliminated in a playoff for the final seeds in the bracket.
Koppenberg is the reigning WA Golf Men’s Mid-Amateur Player of the Year, while Hatley has garnered several Player of the Year honors from both WA Golf and the Pacific Northwest Golf Association.
Foushee is the reigning PNGA Men’s Mid-Amateur Player of the Year, an honor that Ziegler also received after the 2021 season.
Foushee, 29, of Lake Oswego, and Ziegler, 33, of Tualatin, finished two strokes better than first-round co-leaders and Indiana residents Kenny Cook, 44, of Noblesville, and Sean Rowen, 50, of Greenwood, and ex-Middle Tennessee State teammates Payne Denman, 32, of Murfreesboro, Tenn., and Brett Patterson, 32, of Oxford, Miss.
The cut for match play came at 7-under 135 with 11 sides playing off on Monday morning at Wissahickon for the final six spots in the 32-team draw.
For a second consecutive day, the competitors were greeted with chamber-of-commerce weather and idyllic scoring conditions, with virtually no wind and temperatures in the 80s.
“We’re going to get everyone’s best shot, being the one seed,” said Ziegler. “So, we’re going to have to keep playing well.”
Foushee, a real estate agent who was on Oregon’s 2016 NCAA title team, and Ziegler, a marketing representative for adidas Golf who oversees NIL deals for college and amateur players, had a chance at the 36-hole scoring mark after consecutive birdies on Nos. 12 and 13, but they registered five consecutive pars coming home.
“We came in just hoping to make match play, honestly,” said Foushee, who briefly played on PGA Tour Canada before regaining his amateur status five years ago. “We played the last couple of weeks out in Oregon, and it wasn’t our best, but we came in, practiced, got a couple of good range sessions in and we both hit the ball really nicely. We gave ourselves two good looks on most of the holes out there, and when we didn’t, the other person picked it up.”
