Oh Joins the Kids in Quarterfinals

Youth triumphed over experience in Thursday’s two rounds of match play of the U.S. Amateur Championship, with two 17-year-olds and six college students reaching the quarterfinals.

No player older than 22 survived the third round.

In the most dramatic match of the day, James Oh of Lakewood made a 10-foot birdie putt on the fifth extra hole to defeat Bryce Molder and complete the quarterfinal pairings.

Oh, 17, trailed by two holes on the 15th. But he won that hole and evened the match on the 18th, sending the golfers back to the start of the course in the early evening chill.

“It was a long day for me,” Oh said. “I wasn’t too nervous. I don’t really feel much pressure here because I’m here to learn.”

It was the second match of the day for both golfers, and Molder went into overtime twice.

Molder, 20, a Georgia Tech junior who shot a career-best round of 60 recently with President Clinton in Arkansas, rallied from a three-hole deficit in the second round to defeat Gary Mankulish Jr. of Laurel, Md., on the third extra hole.

“On the first extra hole, I turned to James [Oh] and asked, ‘Are you having fun yet?’ And he was grinning,” Molder said. “Down the stretch, I got to the point I was almost not nervous out there. I was having fun.”

Sung Yoon Kim, 17, of South Korea, reached the quarterfinals by rallying from a three-hole deficit to defeat Canada’s David Hearn. Kim is one month younger than Oh.

The youngest player to win the Amateur was Tiger Woods, who won the first of three consecutive titles in 1994 at 18.

Joining Oh and Kim in the final eight were Charlie Woerner, 22, a senior at USC; James Driscoll, 21, a senior at Virginia; David Gossett, 20, a sophomore at Texas; Ben Curtis, 22, a senior at Kent State; Andrew Sanders, 20, a junior at Houston and Hunter Haas, 22, a senior at Oklahoma.

The veterans of the field in the third round were Bob Kearney, 43, of Houston and Richard Smith, 41, of Dresden, Tenn. Kearney won his second-round match against John Pate, older brother of PGA player Steve Pate.

But Haas defeated Kearney, 2 and 1, in the third round, while Smith lost, 5 and 4, to Gossett.