RANCHO SANTA FE and LA JOLLA, Calif. (June 22, 2010) -- Scott Almquist of Coto de Caza and Kevin Fitzgerald of Riverside each shot 70-71--141 in stroke-play rounds, to earn co-medalist honors at the 99th California State Amateur Championship at Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club and La Jolla Country Club.
Almquist, 45, will be the No. 1 seed in tomorrow's match play competition, which will pit him against the No. 32 seed Sam Yi of Northridge. Fitzgerald, 22, is No. 2 seed and will tee off against Robert Funk, No. 31 seed, of Canyon Lake. Both Funk and Yi qualified in a 10-for-3 playoff for the final spots.
"I didn't putt well today, and three-putted on 17 because I was being aggressive," said Almquist after his medalist status was final. "All I wanted to do was make match play, but I don't have any expectations on how I'll finish. I just think Rancho Santa Fe is a fantastic course."
Fizgerald, a Political Science junior at UC Riverside, has "only played one match in my life, and that was in November," he said. "It should be interesting. Today's round at La Jolla was a tough one, I felt like I really had to defend par."
Southern California defended its Roger Lapham team title, a competition against a six-man team from Northern California that is played concurrently with stroke play. With the best five of six scores counted toward the team total, the Southern California team defeated Northern California, 723-727.
After today's stroke-play qualifying, the field was cut to the low 32 for match play seeding, with a cutline at 4-over-par 148. Twenty-one of the 32 match play contestants are from Southern California. Matches tomorrow include:
7:30 a.m.: Almquist (No. 1) versus Sam Yi (No. 32) of Northridge.
7:39 a.m.: Jason Bittick of Ladera Ranch (No. 16) versus Spencer Fletcher (No. 17) of Los Altos.
7:48 a.m.: Kevin Marsh (No. 8) of Henderson, Nev., the 1996 and 2008 SCGA Amateur champion, versus Dan Jennings (No. 25) of Los Angeles.
7:57 a.m.: Taylor Travis (No. 9) of Fremont, the 2008-09 NCGA Four-Ball champion, versus Pete Fernandez, Jr. (No. 24) of Bakersfield.
8:06 a.m.: Eric Mina (No. 4) of Fremont, the 2010 Pac-10 Conference champion, versus Estanislao Guerrero (No. 29) of San Diego, the 2010 Southwestern Amateur champion.
8:15 a.m.: Justin Warthen (No. 13) of Arroyo Grande versus Johnny Baxter (No. 20) of Pleasanton.
8:24 a.m.: Harry Rudolph III (No. 5) of La Jolla, the 1991 California State Amateur champion, versus defending champion Geoff Gonzalez of San Luis Obispo (No. 28).
8:33 a.m.: Anton Arboleda (No. 12) of La Canada versus John Kollus (No. 21) of San Diego, a U.S. Open Sectional qualifier.
8:42 a.m.: Fitzgerald (No. 2) of Riverside versus Robert Funk (No. 31) of Canyon Lake, the 2006 SCGA Mid-Amateur champion.
8:51 a.m.: Michael Drake (No. 15) of Riverside, the 2010 Long Beach Match Play champion, versus Scott Clayton (No. 18) of San Bernardino.
9:00 a.m.: Grant Norton (No. 7) of Rancho Murieta versus Kevin Dougherty (No. 26) of Murrieta, the 2009 CIF-SCGA Southern Regional and State champion.
9:09 a.m.: Tyler Crawford (No. 10) of Rancho Mirage versus Josh Dupont (No. 23) of Poway.
9:18 a.m.: Todd Pieri (No. 3) of Simi Valley versus Matt Williams (No. 30) of San Jose.
9:27 a.m.: Maximilian Greil (No. 14) of Irvine versus Scott Travers (No. 19) of Trabuco Canyon.
9:36 a.m.: Patrick Cantlay (No. 6) of Los Alamitos, the 2010 CIF-State High School Boys champion, versus Jake Johnson (No. 27) of Cameron Park.
9:45 a.m.: Randy Haag (No. 11) of Burlingame, a multiple NCGA champion, versus EJ Kahn (No. 22) of Los Angeles.
ABOUT THE California Amateur
The Championship is open to amateur golfers
who have established current indexes of 4.4
and are members in good standing of the
Southern California Golf Association, the
Northern California Golf Association, or the
Public Links Golf Association of Southern
California. Nonexempt players must qualify. An
entrant may play in only one qualifying event,
even
if
the golfer
belongs to clubs in both Southern California
and Northern California. The 18-hole
qualifying
rounds will determine the qualifiers.
The championship field will play 36 holes of
qualifying at a Northern or Southern California
Location, with the low 32 golfers from that
combined field moving on to match play (with
a
playoff, if necessary, to determine the final
spots).
Two rounds each of 18-hole match play will
follow on Thursday and Friday and the 36-hole
final match will be on Saturday.
The location will rotate yearly between
Northern and Southern California locations.
View Complete Tournament Information