The Athens Country Club golf course isn’t one that can be dominated by a big hitter. So, Suwanee’s Brett Barron kept his driver in the bag and hit an iron off the tee about half the time. The result was a 4-under 66, giving him a three-shot lead entering the final round of the Georgia Amateur Championship.
“I hit 16 greens and putted well,” Barron said. “I kept my pace and things went in.”
Barron, a junior at Georgia Southern, began the day two shots behind the leaders but caught up with birdies on two of his first four holes.
His round included two bogeys and six birdies, none bigger than the ones at 15 and 16. At 15 he rolled in a downhill 30-footer than hit the back of the hole and dropped in. At the par-5 16th his second shot found a greenside bunker, but he was able to get up-and-down for birdie.
Barron is at 7-under 203 and will start Sunday’s final round three shots ahead of senior Jack Hall of Savannah, who shot 69, and 17-year-old Preston Topper, a Georgia commit from Duluth, who shot 68.
Four players are tied for fourth at 3-under 207: Alex Ross, a Pace Academy graduate who helped Davidson win the Atlantic 10 championship, who shot 68; David Denham, the former Georgia standout who won the Georgia Amateur at Athens in 2004, who shot 68; Georgia Golf Hall of Famer Jeff Knox of Augusta, who shot 72; and former Georgia State player Tyler Gruca of Alpharetta, who shot 63, the lowest score of the week.
Barron is emerging from a slump that left him out of the lineup for the final three regular-season tournaments and the Southern Conference championships. He found something that worked after the first round of the Southeastern Amateur a month ago that has helped solve his driving problems and changed his outlook.
“It was mainly the driver,” he said. “My putting was pretty good, but it’s hard to play from the woods.”
Hall, 55, is trying to become the oldest player to win the Georgia Amateur, a record currently held by Frank Mulherin of Augusta, who was 50 when he won in 1965.
“The guys I’m playing with hit it further, but with the nature of the rough, if you can stay out of the rough, you have a good opportunity to hold the greens and make some putts,” he said. “At the end of the day, your best putter will win.”
Hall has won the Georgia Mid-Amateur, the Georgia Senior Amateur and the Georgia Senior Amateur Match Play. This summer he qualified for the U.S. Senior Open. But his best finish at the Georgia Amateur was a tie for second in 2004.
“The Georgia Amateur is our No. 1 tournament in Georgia,” Hall said. “When you look at the trophy and see the names that have come before you, you respect that. Anybody who wins this week will have played some good golf.”
Topper kept his round going with a birdie at No. 16, then made a nice par save on the 18th hole.
“I can’t think about it,” he said. “You just have to play shot-by-shot … keep it in front of you and play. You just have to play golf.”
Kennesaw State golfers Brady Keran and Grant Sutliff, who were co-leaders with Knox after the second round, each shot 73 and start the final round tied for eighth at 2-under 208. They are joined there by Park Brady of St. Simons, who shot 66.
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