All five Irish qualifiers made it through to round 3 at the Amateur Championship at Royal Aberdeen.
In an exciting finish on the 19th hole, Ireland’s James Sugrue booked his place in the third round after Australian Michael Kyle lost his tee shot. With last year’s leading qualifier Caolan Rafferty on the bag, the Cork golfer parred the final hole to take advantage of his opponent’s mistake.
Fellow St Andrews squad member Robin Dawson followed him through with a 4&2 win over David Ravetto from France, while John Murphy, Conor Purcell and Rowan Lester also progressed to Thursday’s third round with 4&2, 2&1 and 6&5 wins respectively.
Wilco Nienaber also eased his way into the third round of The 123rd Amateur Championship with a comfortable 5&4 victory over Niclas Weiland at Royal Aberdeen with the 18-year-old South African continuing the dominating form which saw him lead both rounds of stroke play qualifying to progress to the last 32. His countryman Matt Saulez recorded the championship’s first hole in one at the 11th during his match with Benjamin Jones but it failed to inspire him to victory as he went down by 2 holes to the Englishman.
The highest-ranked player in the field, Viktor Hovland booked his place in the third round after coming through his match against Lukas Euler 5&4. The Norwegian, fifth in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, dispatched the German, who defeated Mexican Alvaro Ortiz in the preliminary round to set up the match with Hovland.
The third round gets underway on this morngin at Royal Aberdeen at 7.30am and to keep up with the scores visit www.RandA.org
Leave a comment