He’s already won the Pacific Coast Amateur Championship, the Northern California Amateur Championship and the San Jose City Championship and now Stanford senior golfer Isaiah Salinda has a chance to add the U.S. Amateur Championship to his long list of accomplishments.
Salinda, seeded 29th in the 64-player field in match play, beat Cincinnati’s Will Grimmer 6 and 5 Wednesday on the Pebble Beach Golf Links to advance into the Round of 32, where he will meet Trevor Phillips, who knocked out fourth-seeded Michael Thorbjornsen, 4 and 3, on Thursday.
Both Grimmer and Salinda bogeyed the first hole and it was all Salinda afterward as he birdied three winning holes and parred three other winners.
“The conditions were playing tougher than stroke play,” Salinda said. “It was pretty windy out there and I knew there wouldn’t be too many birdies. I just hit a lot of fairways and greens and par definitely won a few holes out there.”
Salinda was the lone Cardinal, of three, to survive stroke play. Brandon Wu and Franklin Huang shot solid rounds but missed the cut.
The All-American honorable mention earned three top 10 finishes in 12 events for Stanford last season and was the team’s top finisher (15th) at the NCAA Championships. Salinda shot a career-best round of 62, matching a course record at the Pacific Coast tournament last month.
“For match play, you have to be excited and ready to go,” Salinda said. “You’ve got to be mentally in it from the start. You can’t ease your way into it; you’ve got to focus on every shot.”
Jackson Van Paris, who will turn 15 in a week, became the youngest player to win a match at the U.S. Amateur in 102 years and the second-youngest overall, to Bobby Jones.
By Palo Alto Online Sports/USGA
By Palo Alto Online Sports/USGA
By Palo Alto Online Sports/USGA