Tiger One Step Closer To Third Amateur Title

Tiger Woods overpowered the Witch Hollow course at Pumpkin Ridge in Cornelius, Ore., Wednesday and dismissed J.D. Manning 3 and 2 to win his first-round match in the U.S. Amateur Golf Championship.

A deadly driver that consistently split fairways 320 yards out made up for a shaky putter early in the match as Woods came back from 1-down after six holes.

The match ended on the 16th green when Manning missed an 8-foot birdie putt that could have kept it going.

Woods, trying to become the first player to win three consecutive Amateur titles, plays Jerry Courville, 37, a longtime amateur with the kind of experience that could prove troublesome in today’s second round.

Manning, a senior at Colorado State, didn’t have that kind of experience, but he did stick with the 20-year-old Stanford student longer than expected.

The key shot was a 40-foot chip-in from the back fringe on No. 8 that put Woods 1-up and rattled Manning enough to lead to a bogey on the next hole.

“That was really the turning point of the match,” Woods said about the intentionally bladed wedge down the slope from the back fringe. “With the speed it was going, it would probably have gone off the green.”

Courville, the 1995 U.S. MidAmateur Champion and a Walker Cup team member along with Woods, defeated Roger Tambellini 3 and 2.

“I’m even with him right now,” Courville said about his match with Woods. “I’m going to go out and play as hard as I can and see what happens.”

Also advancing Wednesday were Robert Floyd, the son of PGA Tour veteran Raymond Floyd, and Bo Van Pelt, runner-up to Woods in the 36-hole stroke-play qualifier.

The longest match of the day was won by Charles Howell on the 24th hole over Jeff Golliher.

“If someone plays well and starts making putts they can give him a run for his money,” Manning said when asked if anyone could beat Woods. “It won’t be a cakewalk.”

Woods knows that as well, saying that “any one of the 64 people” who qualified for match play can beat him. After Wednesdays’s play, there were 32 players left. And Woods needs to win five more victories for his unprecedented third U.S. Amateur title.

Davis nabs sectional PGA title

Mike Davis, playing out of Eagle Ridge Golf Course in Bend, Ore., shot a steady final round of 2-under-par 70 at Tacoma Country and Golf Club and won his second Pacific Northwest Section PGA Championship.

Davis, who first won the prestigious PGA sectional title in 1978, finished with a 36-hole total of 5-under-par 211 - one stroke better than Bart Turchin, from Seattle, and Ron Rawls, from Salem, Ore., - and won $5,000.

The top Spokane finisher was Indian Canyon Golf Course assistant David Christenson, who fired a final-round of even-par 72 to finish in a four-way tie for fifth at 214. Christenson won $1,162.50 and Mark Gardner, the head pro at The Creek at Qualchan, picked up $550 for finishing in a tie for 19th at 217.

Holt among junior leaders

Spokane’s Britney Holt added a 4-over-par 76 to her first-round 78 and stayed close to the lead in the American Junior Golf Association’s Southwestern Junior Classic at the University of New Mexico Golf Course in Albuquerque, N.M.

Holt’s 36-hole total of 154 put her in a tie for sixth place, just three strokes behind leader Wendy Martin, from Oklahoma City.

Nancy Abiecunas, from Fort Collins, Colo., was alone in second place at 152, followed by three others at 153.