{"id":11400,"date":"2019-01-16T22:56:53","date_gmt":"2019-01-16T11:56:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.springvalleygolf.com.au\/cms\/?p=11400"},"modified":"2023-06-20T17:48:42","modified_gmt":"2023-06-20T07:48:42","slug":"ausam-men-field-report-final-day-of-the-ausam-qualifying","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.springvalleygolf.com.au\/cms\/ausam-men-field-report-final-day-of-the-ausam-qualifying\/","title":{"rendered":"2019 AusAm Men field report – final day of the AusAm qualifying"},"content":{"rendered":"

Article taken from: Golf Australia<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a truism that great stories can come at any point among the top 64 men who qualify for the Australian Amateur match play.<\/p>\n

But at the top and bottom of tomorrow\u2019s batting order are the undoubtedly top two yarns of day two.<\/p>\n

World No.7 David Micheluzzi set a second course record in as many days to stamp his authority on the national championship he so covets and win the medal by an astonishing seven shots at 16 under.<\/p>\n

At the other end of the day, and with qualifying\u2019s very last putt, St Michael\u2019s youngster Harrison Crowe remarkably took the 64th<\/sup> and last match play berth for the second year running.<\/p>\n

Crowe had been five over par for the tournament through 27 holes and thinking about his flight home to Sydney.<\/p>\n

Four hours later, he\u2019d made the third and final birdie of an 11-man playoff with a curling downhill putt on the first at Woodlands to breathe life into his campaign.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter nine holes today I was looking really ordinary, (but I) had four under on the back nine and had to make a birdie up the last just to get into the playoff,\u201d Crowe said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo hole that (playoff) putt there down the hill felt really good.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just ground it out, tried to make birdies and pushed \u2026 and it worked out in my favour.<\/p>\n

\u201cI made it tough for myself two years in a row, but I\u2019m still here and still going.\u201d<\/p>\n

Crowe knew instinctively that his heroics set up a Thursday morning clash with Victorian powerhouse Micheluzzi.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know he\u2019s had 16 under \u2026 but anything can happen in match play and I just need to play my own game and see what happens tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Micheluzzi, off an eight-under 63 at Spring Valley on Tuesday – an amateur course record – couldn\u2019t find the bottom of the cup early after teeing off 10, carding seven pars to begin his round.<\/p>\n

But the 22-year-old caught fire from the 17th, rattling off an astonishing seven birdies and an eagle in his next nine holes.<\/p>\n

The Australian Open joint low amateur was left with 4m on the ninth hole, his last, for a round of 63 and to hold the Woodlands course record alone, but it wasn\u2019t to be.<\/p>\n

But the Victorian\u2019s second straight eight-under round shot him to 16 under and locked up stroke play honours.<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt like I had no idea what I was doing \u2013 I felt like I was on repeat,\u201d Micheluzzi joked post-round.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom 17th to 7th hole, it felt like it went for an hour and it probably went for two and a half hours, it just went so quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome shots I don\u2019t really remember hitting. I must have been so in the zone that nothing could stop me which is pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Min Woo Lee turning pro this week, Blake Windred has become Australia\u2019s second-highest ranked amateur – and he played like it on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The New South Welshman followed Micheluzzi into the clubhouse with a seven-under 65 of his own to sit outright second on the standings at nine under.<\/p>\n

That means Australia\u2019s top two men will enter the match play as the No.1 and No.2 seeds.<\/p>\n

Also carding stunning 65s at Woodlands were international duo Conor Purcell, of Ireland, and Canada\u2019s Joey Savoie, leaving them in a share of third at eight under.<\/p>\n

Germans David Rauch, Michael Hirmer and Jannik De Bruyn and Kiwi young gun Daniel Hillier round out the top five at seven under.<\/p>\n

A quartet of Victorians, including in-form Andre Lautee, hold a share of ninth at six under.<\/p>\n

Micheluzzi\u2019s playing partner and his conqueror in last year\u2019s final, Japan\u2019s Keita Nakajima, ground out a solid three-under 69 on Wednesday to keep his hopes of going back-to-back alive.<\/p>\n

His Japanese compatriot Ren Yonezana also fired a course-record equalling eight-under 64 to forge his way into the match play following his five-over 76 at Spring Valley yesterday.<\/p>\n

At the end of regulation play, 61 players on even par advanced automatically to the match play phase, leaving 11 men to battle for the final three spots.<\/p>\n

Remarkably, three birdies on the first hole meant New South Welshmen Crowe and James Conran, plus Queensland-based Japanese Yuji Sekito, advanced.<\/p>\n

Conran will have the chance to emulate his father, long-time professional Steve, who won the 1989 Australian Amateur at Victoria.<\/p>\n

The men\u2019s match play Round of 64 begins tomorrow at Woodlands with the first tee time 7.30am with the women\u2019s Round of 32 from 12 midday.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Article link:\u00a0https:\/\/www.golf.org.au\/newsdisplay\/ausam-its-micha-magic-v-crowe-karma\/102619<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a truism that great stories can come at any point among the top 64 men who qualify for the Australian Amateur match play<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[29,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guests-news","category-public-latest-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.springvalleygolf.com.au\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.springvalleygolf.com.au\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.springvalleygolf.com.au\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.springvalleygolf.com.au\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.springvalleygolf.com.au\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11400"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.springvalleygolf.com.au\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11406,"href":"https:\/\/www.springvalleygolf.com.au\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11400\/revisions\/11406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.springvalleygolf.com.au\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.springvalleygolf.com.au\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.springvalleygolf.com.au\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}