Video Recap of the Final
RoundPEBBLE BEACH, Calif. (June 22, 2013) -- Last
Saturday Cory McElyea was finishing up his
weather-delayed second round at the 113th
U.S.
Open at Merion GC in Ardmore, Penn. This
Saturday McElyea wrapped up a weeklong
spectacular display of golf at Monterey
Peninsula CC in
Pebble Beach, Calif. to win the 102nd
California Amateur Championship 3-and-2
over Bryson DeChambeau.
While McElyea had a hectic week—which
included flying across the country this past
Sunday to California to play in this year’s
championship—
there’s no doubt that his experience playing on
the biggest stage in golf helped him ultimately
prevail as the latest California amateur
champion.
“I think I was a lot more mentally prepared
[coming into this event],” said McElyea. “Just
realizing that I could play with some of the
world’s
best [at the U.S. Open].”
The 21-year-old Santa Cruz native took an
early lead in Saturday’s 36-hole final and
never looked back, leading from the third hole
forward.
McElyea won his first three holes Nos. 3, 4
and 6, by making pars, while DeChambeau
made bogeys. On the par-3 seventh hole
McElyea
extended his lead further with a birdie to go
4-up. Then at the beginning of the back-nine
things really looked to be getting out of hand
when
McElyea won the first three holes (Nos. 10-12)
with a made birdie putt on No. 10, a conceded
birdie on No. 11 and a conceded par on No. 12
to go 7-up.
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However, the rest of the nine wasn’t smooth
sailing for McElyea as DeChambeau cut his
lead to 4-up at the end of the first 18 holes by
winning Nos. 14, 15 and 18, two of those
holes with birdies. When the second 18 holes
began, DeChambeau continued his momentum
by
winning the second hole with a birdie and the
third with a par cutting McElyea’s lead to 2-up.
“Playing with a big lead you just have to keep
doing the same thing,” said McElyea. “But I
didn’t feel like I was playing that bad, Bryson
was
just playing great, he made a lot of putts.”
The lead looked like it may have been cut
down to a single hole on the par-4 sixth with
McElyea under a tree in the right rough and
DeChambeau in the middle of the fairway.
With McElyea hitting his approach first, he
advanced his shot to 20 yards short and right
of the
green with the flag in the back left;
DeChambeau then got aggressive with his
second shot and went over the green short-
siding himself.
McElyea was then able to get up-and-down
from his location, while DeChambeau chipped
to six feet and missed his par putt, going 3-
down. In
many ways that hole was a microcosm of
DeChambeau’s day.
“It was just bad management,” said
DeChambeau of the shot. “In the end I just
didn’t manage my game as well as I should
have.
McElyea and DeChambeau then traded holes
with McElyea winning the seventh with a par
and then DeChambeau winning the eighth with
a
birdie. Then came the shot of the day on the
par-5 ninth when McElyea holed-out for an
eagle-3 from 60 yards with a 60-degree
wedge to
retake a 4-up lead with nine holes to go.
“That was definitely the turning point by far,”
said McElyea of the importance of the shot.
DeChambeau would go on to win the 28th hole
with a conceded five-foot birdie after McElyea
missed his par putt, then the Clovis resident
looked to be in great position to cut the lead
once again to two holes, but he missed a four-
foot birdie putt on the 29th hole to halve.
McElyea
would then win the 30th and 31st holes to go
up dormie-5, but DeChambeau made back-to-
back birdies on the 32nd and 33rd holes to
extend
the match a little further. Then on the 34th
hole after DeChambeau missed a 15-foot
birdie putt, McElyea had a 10-foot par putt to
close out
the match that found the bottom of the cup.
With his win McElyea now joins at elite group
of golfers and will have his name added to the
Edward B. Tufts Trophy alongside the likes of
major winners Johnny Miller, Ken Venturi,
Gene Littler and Mark O’Meara, and he couldn’t
be more thrilled.
“It’s awesome,” said McElyea. “Looking at
some of those names, it’s pretty cool that my
name will be etched on that trophy.”
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.
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