Mike Chu and Joe Neal, members at the host Norbeck Country Club, might have been expected to do well in the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball qualifying round, October 17, simply because of their familiarity with the course. It turned out not to be the case, but one would never know it by looking at their scorecard.
“We’re used to playing soft fairways and slower greens, and these were hard fairways and fast greens. It took awhile for us to adjust,” Neal said. Adjust they did, however, going from one birdie apiece on the front to six on the back and a runaway total of 36-30–63.
Chu, a 33-year-old salesman, produced three birdies in the first four holes on the back; Neal, 26, who works at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab, managed to get his oar in, but it took an 18-foot putt to do it. After two pars, Chu closed out the bogey-free round with an up-and-down birdie from a green-side bunker and a five-foot putt at the last.
There was a three-way tie for second at 66, and — with two places (and two alternates) available –they filled the bill.
Brandon Mader, from Greenville, N.C., and Michael Souliotis, from Boston — one year removed from graduation from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where they were members of the school’s golf team — wasted no time, as Mader stuffed a 95-yard wedge shot to eight inches at the 386-yard dogleg first hole to join Chu and Neal as qualifiers. Their nines were 33-33–66.
The play for the alternates lasted one more hole, where Billy Wingerd holed a 20-foot putt at the second green to make himself and Mountain Branch Golf Club clubmate Rusty McCready first alternates. That left Brandon Berry, a high school senior from Northern Virginia, and Patrick Welch, a 16-year-old high school junior from Providence, R.I., as the second alternates. Wingerd-McCready went 34-32. and Berry-Welch, 33-33–66.
Mader’s overtime birdie gave him four in a row, as he had finished the regulation round draining putts from 20, 30, and 10 feet to finish 33-33–66. Also in regulation, Wingerd had four birdies and McCready, two in their one-bogey tour of 34-32–66. Welch, a member of the U.S. team in the recent Junior Ryder Cup competition, had three birdies, and Berry, two.
The leaders were followed by five teams at 67 and two each at 68, 69, and 70 in the 36-team field. The championship will be held in the spring at Pinehurst Resort and country Club.
Reported by John Stewart
