Writing from Olympia Fields, Illinois
Friday, August 21, 2015
It was the heavyweight matchup of the quarterfinals in the 115th U.S. Amateur, and Bryson DeChambeau threw the better punches.
His 3 and 2 victory over Ireland’s Paul Dunne advanced him into Saturday’s semifinals at Olympia Fields Country Club, and an 8:20 a.m. showdown with Sean Crocker.
Both DeChambeau and Crocker are from California, but they may as well be from different worlds.
DeChambeau, a senior at Southern Methodist who won last season’s NCAA individual title in June, wears a Ben Hogan-style cap and plays a brand of golf he calls a mix between athletic and artistic. The shafts of his irons are all the same length. He uses degree numbers, rather than 3-iron and so on, on them. He concentrates on hitting fairways and greens.
Crocker, a sophomore at Southern California, concentrates on belting the ball. Usually, that means hitting fairways, but in Friday’s 2 up quarterfinal victory over Austin James of Ontario, Crocker hit only four of the North Course’s 14 fairways.
“If I don’t hit fairways tomorrow, Bryson’s gonna kill me,” Crocker said.
Probably. Dunne, who held a share of the lead entering the final round of the British Open, was similarly erratic, and ran out of room to scramble despite sinking a couple of 30-footers to keep the match going, plus a downhill 18-footer from the back of the third green to remain all square early on.
“My swing wasn’t there,” Dunne said. “I’m disappointed I didn’t put a little bit of pressure on him. I was just trying to hang in.”
DeChambeau’s brace of birdies on the sixth and seventh holes moved him 2 up, and while he lost the ninth with a bogey, it was his only miscue of the day. He never gave Dunne an opening.
“I didn’t make very many mistakes out there today,” DeChambeau said. “He’s an incredible player; didn’t have his A game.”
Dunne’s remarkable putting kept him alive until he ran out of good fortune. That moved DeChambeau, seventh in the world amateur rankings, into the semis.
He’s more than a player with a fast stride and a cool hat. DeChambeau plays with a remarkable combination of power – bunkers in play for most players are mere decorations for him – and grace. Comparatively, Crocker, ranked 64th, is just another player, but he rallied from a 2-down deficit at the turn to overhaul James.
“I went to the bathroom, washed my face a little bit, took a breath and stepped on the tee thinking I was all-square with him and had to go from there,” Crocker said.
He won the 10th hole with a birdie, the 12th with a par to square the match, the 16th with a par to go 1 up, and finally birdied the last from 35 feet for his 2 up margin.
As erratic as Crocker was, James was more so. But Crocker lives on.
“It’s just timing,” he thought of his driving trouble, which he hoped would be fixed with a call to his coach, Neal Smith. “I usually have a problem going left but the driver is going right right now.”
Kenta Konishi of Tokyo faces Derek Bard of New Hartford, N.Y. in the day’s first semifinal at 8 a.m. Konishi beat Matthew Perrine of Austin, Tex., 1 up, and while Bard beat Spain’s Jon Rahm-Rodriguez by the same margin.
Bard, a junior at Virginia, been something of a giant killer. Ranked 51st in the world, he’s bumped off fifth-ranked Hunter Stewart and now the top-ranked amateur in Rahm-Rodriguez, a senior at Arizona State, the last two rounds. Now he gets to play Konishi, ranked No. 632.
Rahm-Rodriguez was 3 up through 10 holes, but Bard birdied the 11th and 12th holes to cut the margin to 1 hole, squared the affair when Rahm-Rodriguez bogeyed the par-4 16th, and took the lead with a bogey 4 to a double-bogey 5 on the 256-yard par-3 16th. A par at the last sealed the victory.
“He had me early; just kind of grinded away at him,” Bard said. “Three-down, eight to go, it’s not a good position to be in. I just tried to keep it as simple as possible.”
A wedge close to the pin on the 11th set up the first birdie, and the momentum began to shift.
“I kept a positive outlook, stayed patient, and it fell my was,” Bard said.
Konishi trailed Perrine, ranked 333rd, through five holes, but pars on Nos. 6 and 7 moved him one up. It came down to the last four holes, the match swinging between all square and Konishi 1 up, with Perrine’s par winning the 17th to force it to the 18th tee. Konishi’s par won the match.
If he won the title, he’d be the first Japanese winner of the U.S. Amateur.
“I don’t feel any pressure,” Konishi said through a translator. “I can focus on one tournament, one match. So I just want to focus in on (the) match tomorrow and do my best.”
Around Olympia Fields
Saturday’s telecast on Fox at 2 p.m. is on delay. Fans coming to Olympia will want to be at the club early for the 8 a.m. tee off. Sunday’s 36-hole championship match starts at 8:30 a.m., with the afternoon round starting at 12:30 p.m. ... The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle reported late Thursday that the USGA had rebuffed Oak Hill Country Club in Pittsford, N.Y., as a future U.S. Open site, calling the Rochester market too small. USGA president Tom O’Toole said Friday the mailbox was open for invitations from the club. “We think we’ve had great partnerships with them and look forward to exploring whatever they’d like to include us in in the future,” O’Toole said. Oak Hill will host the 2023 PGA Championship, the Democrat & Chronicle reported. ... If Konishi wins, he’ll be the second straight winner to come out of nowhere. Gunn Yang won last year at Atlanta Athletic Club while ranked 776th in the world amateur survey.
– Tim Cronin