By Stan Caldwell
stanmansportsfan.com
Andy Lopez had the good fortune to play in the morning Friday at the Magnolia Amateur golf tournament, and that helped the Texas Tech junior vault to the top of the leaderboard.
Lopez started strong and finished steady to post a 5-under-par 66 after the first round of the tournament at Hattiesburg Country Club.
Starting his day from the No. 10 tee, Lopez birdied three of the first four holes he played in his morning round, making the turn at 3-under, and avoided trouble on the front nine, using three birdies to offset a bogey at No. 2.
“I started off strong; I got it to eight feet for birdie on 10, and I had a couple of good looks on 12 and 13,” said Lopez, who joked that he lives right at the intersection of three cities: Dallas, Plano and Carrollton.
“I had a hiccup at 14, but kept the round going, just hitting greens and giving myself birdie looks. I felt good out there.”
Lopez was able to finish his round with a par at the difficult ninth hole, a 462-yard par-4 that gave players trouble all day.
“I hit a really good tee shot (at No. 9), about 150 yards in,” said Lopez. “I wasn’t too worried about it. I just hit a little 9-iron below the hole. Unfortunately, I didn’t make the (birdie) putt, but I was happy with the par.”
Conditions were noticeably tougher for the afternoon pairings as the wind picked up, which combined with the extra-firm greens to make play tricky.
That didn’t stop Hunter Laughlin, a redshirt junior-to-be at Oral Roberts University, from finishing a late-afternoon round with a flourish.
Laughlin, from Magnum, Oklahoma, went 4-under-par over his last four holes – including an eagle-3 at No. 17 – to finish the day alone in second place at 4-under 67.
“I hit it really good off the tee (at No. 17), but I thought it went a little too far right,” said Laughlin. “But the downwind helped it a lot, and I ended up having about 145 yards in. I hit that close, to within eight feet, and drained the putt.”
Laughlin played the front nine steady, at 2-under 33, but back-to-back bogeys on 13 and 14 put him back at even-par before he began his final surge, with birdies at 15 and 18 to go with his eagle at 17.
Four players are tied for third at 3-under 68, including Jonathan Bale, a mid-amateur originally from Mid-Glamorgan, Wales.
“I played college at Louisiana Tech, and I’m based now out of Baton Rouge,” said Bale. “I’m good friends with Myles Smith, who won this event the first year they had it (in 2012), and he highly recommended it. He said the course is fantastic and the people are super-nice.”
The 6,902-yard HCC layout was very much to Bale’s liking at the outset, as he quickly went to 3-under with birdies at 10, 11 and 12, and he made the turn at 4-under 32 after posting another birdie on 17.
He ran into trouble, though, in the middle part of the front nine, with bogeys at the par-5 third hole and the par-4 fifth hole. He got one shot back with a birdie on 8 but gave it right back with a bogey-5 on No. 9.
Also finishing the day at 3-under 68 were Trey Tobias, from North Carolina-Charlotte, Brody Blackmon of Ole Miss and Tyler Gray of Coastal Carolina.
Gray also eagled No. 17 to make the turn at 3-under 33, but a double-bogey at the par-4 fourth hole and a bogey on 9 kept him at 3-under for the day.
The wildest round of the day may have belonged to Southern Miss men’s coach Eddie Brescher. Playing as a mid-am, Brescher found the groove in the nick of time, salvaging a 1-under 70 after playing his first 12 holes at 3-over par.
Brescher had birdies at 13, 15, 16 and 17 to finish the back nine in 4-under 32.
“I just tried to practice what I preach with my players,” said Brescher. “Sometimes it doesn’t go your way. The ball will come off the club face and you think, ‘that felt good,’ then you look up and wonder, ‘where in the world is that going?’
“It’s just golf. It’s a very tough game. That’s always my goal, just to stay close. It’s not playing easy out there today. The pin locations were fair, but they’re tough, and when you add wind and the firmness of the greens; it’s tough to get anything close. But it’s a great set-up.”
Other top local finishers included Hunter Hammett of Hattiesburg and Louisiana-Lafayette, and USM’s Brice Wilkinson, both at 1-under 70, with William Carey’s Colby Blake and Golden Eagle Brian Richards at even-par 71.
Tournament officials said they would closely monitor the weather conditions associated with Tropical Storm Barry, which is still off the coast in the northern Gulf of Mexico, but they expect Saturday’s second round to go off as scheduled.
The tournament will be cut to the low 60 scores plus ties for Sunday’s final round.
For more information, including second-round tee times and complete results, log onto the tournament’s website at magnoliaamateur.com.
Magnolia Amateur
Friday at Hattiesburg Country Club
Par – 71; Yardage – 6,902
Leaders
Andy Lopez (Plano, TX/Texas Tech) 66 (-5)
Hunter Laughlin (Magnum, OK/Oral Roberts) 67 (-4)
Jonathan Bale (Mid-Glamorgan, Wales) 68 (-3)
Brody Blackmon (Sulphur Springs, TX/Ole Miss) 68 (-3)
Tyler Gray (Lugoff, SC/Coastal Carolina) 68 (-3)
Trey Tobias (Franklin, TN/UNC-Charlotte) 68 (-3)
Kye Meeks (Walnut, MS) 69 (-2)
Logan Young (Houston, TX/ Houston) 69 (-2)
Good job Stanley.
Good job Stanley