Blakley beats Moore on clutch final putt
It wasn’t like Brad Blakley failed to show proper respect for the tricky 15-foot birdie putt he was facing late Thursday afternoon on the 18th green at Spokane Country Club. He surveyed it from all sides, crouched behind it for one last look and even took the time to check with his caddy to see if he was in agreement with the line he had chosen.
Moments later, however, Blakley admitted his deliberate pre-putt routine had been primarily ceremonial in nature.
“I’m still taking a look at my putts out here,” he said after jarring the right-to-left slider to close out Puyallup’s Jason Moore 1 up in the semifinals of the Pacific Northwest Golf Association’s Junior Boys Amateur Championship. “But it isn’t like I haven’t seen them all before.”
Blakley, a senior-to-be at Gonzaga Prep, figures he has played the country club layout at least 400 times in the last eight years. And the 17-year-old son of SCC head professional Les Blakley has parlayed that local knowledge into a spot opposite Issaquah’s John Wise in today’s 36-hole final that will determine this year’s PNGA junior boys’ champion.
“(Knowing the course) is a huge advantage, especially on the greens,” said Blakley, who needed 20 holes to hold off Gig Harbor’s Kyle Stanley in Thursday morning’s quarterfinals before disposing of Moore, the brother of U.S. Amateur champion Ryan Moore. “And it was nice having some of the members hanging around watching, too.”
Blakley struggled a bit early against Moore and was 2 down after 10 holes of their semifinal match. But he won the 11th with a par and pulled even on the par-5 12th when Moore, after settling for bogey, conceded a 5-foot birdie putt.
Blakley also won the 14th and 15th, where he tapped in a 3-foot birdie putt, to go 2 up. But Moore got a hole back by making birdie on the par-5 16th and then extended the match to the final hole by running in a greasy 5-foot par putt on the par-3 17th.
The two wedged their approach shots to within 15 feet on No. 18, but Blakley – putting first – put the match away when his 18-inch breaker died into the hole.
“It was a good head-to-head battle,” said Moore, who earned his spot in the semifinals by beating Boise’s Jake Skinner on the 19th hole in their morning quarterfinal match.
“Brad played really well. I had him down at the turn, but he really turned it on on the back nine and got it going.”
Blakley said it was a brief discussion with his caddy, Clarkston’s Joel Dahmen, who picked up Blakley’s bag after losing to Moore on Wednesday, that spurred his back-nine charge.
“We decided to start grinding on the 10th hole and not wait until 16 or 17 when it really mattered,” he explained. “That seemed to help a little bit – that we got it going a little earlier.”
Blakley said he liked his match-winning putt the moment he looked up.
“That was a great putt,” Moore said. “Hats off to him for making it on the last hole like that. It was close the whole match. He just made a couple more birdies than me.”
Wise, who earned his spot in today’s finals with a 1 up semifinal win over Tyson McFarland, from Rexburg, Idaho, said he’s only slightly concerned about Blakley’s familiarity with the country club layout.
“It will probably give him sort of a comfort factor,” he said. “But other than that, you still have to go out and hit the shots and make the putts. We’ll just have to see what happens tomorrow.”
Today’s 36-hole championship match will start at 7:30 a.m., with the two finalists expected to start their second 18 at approximately 11:30.