Round One Notes: Voke fires 63 for Northeast Amateur lead
Nick Voke shot 63 in his opening round at Wannamoisett
AmateurGolf.com photo
RUMFORD, Rhode Island (June 21, 2017) --
One Epic Summer week three heads for the greater Providence, Rhode Island area to cover the Northeast Amateur.
This historic event typically fields one of the strongest list of players in all of competitive amateur golf. 2017 is no different.
In Wednesday's first round at Wannamoisett Country Club, players fought winds all day, but you would never know it by looking at the scores.
Maybe that's because they still managed to hole out twice from the fairway for eagle and take advantage of some of the shorter holes by sticking their approach shots -- Scottie Scheffler said all of his birdies were under 5 feet, for example.
Iowa State’s Nick Voke opened his tournament with a 6-under-par round of 63. It's the second week in a row that the New Zealander has held the top spot after his first round of play in an amateur "major."
ROUND ONE VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS AND INTERVIEWS
He's coming off a T3 finish at the Sunnehanna, where he narrowly missed a putt on No. 18 to join a three way playoff. We expect him to be "hanging around" near the top this week.
Voke carded seven birdies on the day, with his only bogey coming on the fifth.
Colin Morikawa of Cal Berkeley (a member of the winning USA Palmer Cup team earlier this month) made some noise of his own in this morning’s round. He currently sits alone in second at 5-under-par.
Morikawa’s most crucial shot of the day came on the par-4 11th hole, where he holed out from ninety yards for one of the day’s few eagles.
The three players tied at 65 include Scottie Scheffler, the low amateur Sunday in the U.S. Open.
If you're interested in getting an insider's look at the Northeast Amateur, be sure to watch our video highlights and preview below.
ROUND ONE HIGHLIGHTS
- Ben Wolcott shot one of the most topsy-turvy rounds of even par you'll ever see. After a fairly ho-hum front nine of even par 34 on the par 69 layout, Wolcott's train got derailed on the back and he was 4-over standing on the 15th tee. On the 444-yard 16th he holed his second shot for eagle, and made a second-straight eagle on the par-5 17th to get back to even par and stay a factor heading into Thursday's second round. Nice comeback!
- It's Scottie Scheffler's 20th birthday and he celebrated the day by starting with back-to-back birdies on the 10th and 11th holes.
-- Doing Scheffler one better on the start was Auburn's Jacob Solomon. He began his day by birdieing the first hole, then making an ace on the par-3 3rd hole to get to 3-under-par ... very quickly indeed! Solomon shot 66 on the round.
Here is our tournament preview video to give you a taste of the course from a drone's eye view.
ABOUT THE
Northeast Amateur
The Northeast Amateur has a historic list of winners,
including Ben Crenshaw, Dustin Johnson, Collin
Morikawa, Luke
Donald,
Scott Hoch, John Cook, Hal Sutton, and David Duval.
It
has been annually held at the Donald Ross-designed
Wannamoisett Country Club since 1962. The event
is
limited to 90 elite players; there is a cut after 54
holes
and the entire tournament is played in twosomes.
View Complete Tournament Information