Georgia Tech’s hopes for a rare double are still intact. Senior Tyler Strafaci earned a quarterfinal match-play victory Friday at the U.S. Amateur at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Bandon, Ore., leaving him two matches away from following teammate Andy Ogletree’s 2019 championship in amateur golf’s most prestigious tournament.
Against Stewart Hagestad of Newport Beach, Fla., Strafaci secured the match on the 18th hole with a par putt of perhaps three feet to halve the hole and win 1-up. Down one hole after 17, Hagestad hit driver off the fairway with his second shot of the par-5 hole to try to reach the green in two, but he hit his shot into a penalty area off the green and then could not find it. A 29-year-old career amateur, Hagestad chipped close with his fourth shot and made par, which required Strafaci to match to win in regulation. After reaching the green in three, Strafaci ran his putt to about three feet and then, with the wind blowing strong, sank the par putt for the match and a spot in the semifinals.
Strafaci seeks to become the fourth Tech golfer to win the U.S. Amateur and the second in as many years, following the legendary Bobby Jones, Matt Kuchar and Ogletree.
Beyond that connection, Strafaci is seeking history of another sort. His grandfather Frank Strafaci won another USGA national championship, the U.S. Public Links Championship, in 1935. Earlier this summer, Strafaci won the North & South Amateur championship, another prestigious amateur event that his grandfather, who died in 1988, won in 1938 and 1939. They became the first grandfather/grandson duo to win the event.
“I always, as a kid, just dreamt of being in the same conversation as him and now I am,” Strafaci said in a post-round interview. “It’s pretty cool. And to do it at a US Am would be just unbelievable. It’d be something I’d never forget for the rest of my life, and it’s something I’ve always dreamed of doing. So it just has that added bonus to it.”
Strafaci will play in a semifinal match on Saturday against Aman Gupta of Oklahoma State. Two notable rewards for earning a spot in the final are spots in the fields of the Masters and the U.S. Open. The match will begin at 6 p.m. ET. Golf Channel will begin coverage of the event at 7 p.m.
Strafaci, a two-time All-ACC selection, twice led by two holes. The second time, he surrendered the advantage with bogeys on the 14th and 15th holes. After Strafaci and Hagestad halved 16, Strafaci won the par-4 17th with a par after Hagestad’s par putt died less than an inch from the hole.
In his round-of-16 match on Thursday, Strafaci entered the final hole tied with Arkansas’ Segundo Oliva Pinto. With the match tied and Pinto in a greenside bunker preparing for his fourth shot, TV cameras caught his caddie brush the sand. Strafaci’s caddie, his father Frank, witnessed Pinto’s caddie Brant Brewer and called for a rules official. After a lengthy discussion, Brewer was determined to have violated Rule 12.2b, which states a player or caddie must not “deliberately touch sand in the bunker with a hand, club, rake or other object to test the condition of the sand to learn information for the next stroke.”
The penalty is loss of hole and thus Strafaci won the match 1-up.
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