Putting lets down Welch
Classical graduate cards a 76 Thursday to drop to 66th place
EAST PROVIDENCE — Only 31 golfers at the 57th annual Northeast Amateur Invitational managed to shoot par 69 or better during Wednesday’s first round, but exactly 10 did it Thursday.
Recent Classical High graduate Patrick Welch, who’s bound for the University of Oklahoma, wasn’t one of them, and he believes he knows why.
“I putted a lot better (Wednesday),” stated the disappointed soon-to-be Sooner, who mustered a one-under 68 in his opening 18 but ballooned to 76 while covering the plush Wannamoisett Country Club links on Thursday morning. “I felt I hit the ball well, but I didn’t make any putts. I also didn’t get many breaks. The pins were really tough.
“(Tourney officials) really tucked them away, so if you hit to the middle of the green, you’d have a tough two-putt for par,” he added.
Actually, Welch had a respectable start to his round; he birdied the 137yard third, then sustained bogeys on the par-4 sixth and ninth holes. He also sat at one over through the parfour 11th, but then disaster struck. He bogeyed the par-3 12th “bowl hole” and parred the 13th before recording five straight bogeys on the way in.
After notching a 1-over 35 on the front side, he exploded to 41 on the back.
“I knew I was up there on the leaderboard (after Wednesday), so I’m a little disappointed,” he said.
“I know a lot of other good golfers who shot high numbers (here), so what I want to do is shoot a couple of low ones and make the cut (after today’s third round).
“I want to do well to get me ready for college.”
After the Northeast Am and the R.I. Amateur, Welch will travel to the U.S. Junior Amateur qualifier at Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield, N.J.
Unlike Welch, Hayden Buckley of Belden, Miss. admitted being rather pleased with his one-under 68 in the second round at Wannamoisett.
After registering a threeover 72 during his initial 18, he claimed a one-under 68, doing so with a trio of birds and a scant two bogeys. Because of that, he believes he’s right back in the event.
“”I was a little bit better,” he noted. “I started on the 10th and made a 15-footer
for par, and that was huge. I thought that was a confidence booster for me. I had plenty of birdie opportunities on the bad side; I hit one to within three feet on (No.) 14 and made it, but then bogeyed 16.
“I also bogeyed the first after hitting my tee shot down the middle, which kind of stunk, but I came back with a bird on the third (draining a 20-foot curler),” he continued. “On the (345-yard, par four) seventh, which is brutally tough, I hit to within three feet from the rough and sank that for birdie. I also had great chances at the eighth and ninth, got it up there close but left them short.
“I’ll tell you, 1-under here isn’t a bad score. Hopefully, it’ll get me in the top 25 (he’s knotted with seven others for 28th); that should get me ready for a push over the next two days. This was a good bounce-back round for me, but there’s still a few shots I left out there, like wedges I could’ve got closer.”
Likewise, Denzel Ieremia, an Iowa State graduate from Hamilton, New Zealand, flipped his script from Open-
ing Day to Thursday, moving from a “terrible” 75 to a two-under 67 after manufacturing four birds and a bogey.
Two golfers, including Josh Whalen of Ontario, Canada and Andy Ogletree of Little Rock, Miss., provided quite the conversation in the scorers room at Wannamoisett on Thursday. Both started within 20 minutes of each other on the front nine, and both rallied to stunning five-under 29s.
They seemed en route to notch a seven-under 62 or better, but it didn’t last. Still, Whalen finished with a 68 and two-day total of 138 (tied for 24th) and Ogletree a 65 (140 and tied for 36th) … Other area golfers didn’t fare as well as Attleboro’s Davis Chatfield and Brockton’s Matt Parziale. Warwick’s Tyler Cook shot 74 (146 total), and fellow city resident Brad Valois 71 (147), while Bobby Leopold of Coventry managed 72 (148) and Rumford’s Billy Forcier 77 (150).