U.S. Amateur Golf Championship : Mayfair Wins Title by Beating Rebmann

Billy Mayfair, the National Collegiate Athletic Assn. Player of the Year from Arizona State, defeated Eric Rebmann, 4 and 3, Sunday to win the 87th U.S. Amateur golf championship.

Mayfair, 21, never trailed in the 36-hole final but didn’t take the lead for good until the 22nd hole. Mayfair played consistently after finishing the first 18 holes over the 6,879-yard, par-72 Jupiter Hills Club course at two over par, and wrapped up the title when Rebmann, of Plantation, Fla., bogeyed the last two holes.

“He didn’t play conservative,” Rebmann said after Mayfair made two birdies and 13 pars over the last 15 holes. “But he made a lot of putts for par to keep the pressure on.”

Rebmann, 23, a graduate of the University of Tennessee, birdied the 27th hole to pull within one. He saw his chance for an upset fade when Mayfair made his only birdies of the afternoon round to win the next two holes and go 3 up with seven to play.

”. . . Eric’s a fighter, a real scrapper,” Mayfair said. “There were a couple of times when he could have given up, but he didn’t. I think he’ll look back to this day and find that he learned a lot, just like I did.”

Mayfair, the 1986 U.S. Public Links champion, finished the match at even par, whereas Rebmann was five over par with four birdies and nine bogeys.

“It all came down to I wasn’t able to get anything going with the putter,” Rebmann said.

Neither Mayfair nor Rebmann played well in the morning when Mayfair clung to a one-hole lead after 18 holes.

Mayfair led by as many as two holes on the front nine but slipped back to even when he bogeyed No. 9 and No. 12.

Mayfair went ahead again with a par on No. 17, but the outcome was far from decided as the players began the final 18 holes. By then, the temperature had reached the low 90s.

The finalists played through some brief rain, and the match was even after 20 holes. Mayfair made his move on No. 22, the par-5, 537-yard No. 4 hole.

Mayfair birdied the hole and gained another when he won No. 26--the par-4, No. 8--for the sixth time in seven match-play rounds at this tournament.

Rebmann, who reached the final by beating two-time champion Jay Sigel and medalist Scott Gump on Saturday, was bidding to became the first Amateur champion to win the title in his home state since Nathaniel Crosby won it in 1981 at the Olympic Club in San Francisco.