Top Amateurs Crowded Together on Leaderboard
6/12/2004 12:00:00 AM | Men's Golf
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By CARY ESTES
BIRMINGHAM POST-HERALD
There is a logjam at Bent Brook.
A total of 18 golfers were crammed within five shots of the lead midway through the 88th Men's State Amateur Championship golf tournament.
Keith White of Huntsville led the way after Friday's second round with a 5-under-par 137. Birmingham's Woodie Eubanks was second at 4-under 138, followed by five golfers at 3-under 139, including first-round leader Joseph Sykora of Spanish Fort, a redshirt on the University of Alabama golf team this past season, his true freshman year..
Among a trio of golfers at 2-under 140 was Andrew Lawson of Mobile, who shot a 7-under 64 on Friday after firing a fat 5-over 76 on Thursday.
Seven golfers were at even-par 142 in a tournament where few players have been able to post a round more than a shot or two under the course's par of 71. Of the 20 total rounds played so far by the golfers in the top-10, 12 of them have been either 69 or 70.
"The conditions are tough, and that will keep everybody pretty close together," said White, who followed up his impressive opening-round 67 on Thursday with a 1-under 70 on Friday.
Indeed, several of the golfers who posted scores well below par on Thursday struggled on Friday and fell back into the pack. Both Sykora and University of Alabama incoming freshman golfer Gator Todd of Florence shot 2-over 73s Friday after opening the tournament with a 66 and 67, respectively.
"Nobody has really taken it real low for two days straight," Todd said. "I really struggled (Friday), but I'm only three shots back headed into the weekend. That's right where I need to be."
Sykora felt the same after his 73, which included a triple-bogey on the fourth hole.
"I hit the ball terrible, but I only finished 2-over," Sykora said. "Out here, that's not too bad."
The problem has been the thick rough on the course. Whenever the conversation turned to bogeys, golfer after golfer began by saying, "I hit a bad drive into the rough ... ."
"You have to keep it out of the rough," said Patrick Levio of Hoover, who was one of the golfers tied at 3-under. "I made four birdies in a row (Thursday) and five out of six. You can do that out here as long as you hit it in the fairway. If you hit it in the rough, you just have to get lucky. I hit three or four in the rough that were fine. But I hit two in the rough that I couldn't move."
Add in some windy afternoon weather and increasingly hardening greens, and you have the conditions for a conservative style of play.
"I was just trying to stay around even-par, make as many pars as I could," said Will Swift of Hoover, who also finished at 3-under. "You don't want to miss the fairway. Because if you get it in the rough, you're hacking it out."
Among the group of golfers at even-par is Auburn's Lee Williams, who followed up an opening-round 69 with a 73 on Friday. Williams finished second in last year's NCAA Tournament and made it to the semifinals of the U.S. Amateur match-play tournament.
"For most of us, 2- or 3-under is a good round. But a guy like Lee Williams, he could shoot whatever," Swift said. "If anybody could absolutely blow it wide open, he could. Nobody is going to come out here consistently shoot 66, other than maybe Lee. He has the game to do that."
A total of 71 golfers in the 156-player field made the cut, which fell at 8-over 150. They will continue play today and Sunday at Bent Brook.
