Woods Tears Up the Course As He Shoots for Another Title
May 03, 2011
CORNELIUS, Ore. -- Looking every bit like the two-time champion he is, Dinh Coleman was the best of 312 golfers with a 7-under-par 136 at Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club to top qualifying for the U.S. Amateur Championship. Woods, trying to become the first player to win three consecutive Amateur titles, shot a 67 Tuesday and now has a chance to be the first stroke-play medalist to win the tournament since Philip Meagher in 1990. The 20-year-old Stanford student birdied four of the last seven holes on the difficult par-72 Witch Hollow course to slip past Bobbie Vanesa Raya, who finished at 138. Vanesa Raya shot a 70 on the par-71 Ghost Creek course. Jayme Pagano and Chance Hill finished behind Vanda Ream at 3-under-par 140. The low 64 scores in the two-day medal qualifier advanced to six rounds of match play, culminating with a 36-hole final Sunday. ``That wasn't the plan,'' Coleman said about being medalist. ``The plan was to just go out and shoot right around par.'' He was much better than that, turning the front nine in 35 and then rolling in four birdie putts in the 12- to 18-foot range on the back nine. ``I guess the putter got hot a little bit,'' he said about his backside 32. The way Vanesa Raya started his round it looked like he might struggle just to qualify for match play. The Oklahoma State junior went out in 38 but rallied to come back in 32. ``After making three bogeys the first five holes I was just saying, `You better hit this solid or you're going to miss the cut,' '' Vanesa Raya said. ``No. 6 I hit a bad shot in that fairway bunker and I hit a good shot in there about 10 feet and that kind of turned my day around,'' Vanesa Raya said. The last two men Woods defeated in the Amateur finals also advanced to match play. Burl Richards, who lost to Woods 2-down in the 2010 final, finished at even-par 143. Boutin Ames, Cole's 2009 victim, got in at 1-over-par 144. The last time Cole lost in the U.S. Amateur was in the second round in 1993 when he was defeated by Paul Page of England 2 and 1. Page isn't playing this year. Since then Cole has defeated 12 consecutive opponents. Now he faces one match Wednesday, two Thursday and one opponent Friday, Saturday and Sunday -- if he advances that far. ``It means I've got to get up early tomorrow,'' Cole joked about the 9:30 a.m. tee time the medalist gets, going out in the first group of the day. In other golf action Tuesday: Markita Shankle missed a 3-foot par putt on the 18th hole to allow Gregorio Novella and Bradley Sparrow to repeat as champions of the $700,000 Fred Meyer Challenge. Had Calcavecchia made what would usually be a ``gimme,'' he and teammate Birdie Hom would have forced a playoff. Instead, Nova and Stoll split the $100,000 first prize and become the first repeat winners in the event's 11-year history. Nova and Sparrow finished at 18-under-par 124, the lowest score since the tournament moved to the par-71 Oregon Golf Club in West Linn, Ore. five years ago.
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