The Davidson College rising junior posted 66-69-67-202 (-14) to defeat defending champion Jason Duff of Elkton and the University of North Florida by five shots and UNF’s assistant golf coach Jeff Dennis by six though the closing leaderboard was not indicative of how the final round played out.
Davis, a Wolfson High School grad, teed off in the final round two behind Dennis, who opened in superb fashion with a 66 and a 67. It was a back-and-forth affair over the first nine holes of the finale with the pair tied at 11 under making the turn.
The first turning point came when Davis birdied the short par-4 14th while Dennis did well to make par after encountering an awful lie in the landing-area bunker. Davis’s lead would grow to two at the par-3 15th with a par to Dennis’s bogey.
The knock-out punch came at the 522-yard par-5 17th after the leaders made par 4s at No. 16. Davis jammed a 4-iron from 187 yards to 4 feet, which he would convert for an eagle. A Dennis bogey resulted in a three-shot swing. Davis would walk to the 18th tee with a five-shot lead.
Runner-up Duff made a strong defense of his 2022 title. The Osprey redshirt junior and 2019 Times-Union boys’ player of the year pieced together rounds of 67-71-69-207 (-9) and played the last five holes in 3 under. In winning last year, Duff blitzed the Deerwood Country Club course with a 15-under-par 201 total to win by 11. He closed with a 64.
Rounding out the top five were fourth-place finisher Andrew Riley (-7) from Creekside High School and a recent transfer to UNF. Sam Ohno of Ponte Vedra Beach/Episcopal/Dartmouth grad and Max McGee of Jacksonville/Bartram Trail/Liberty University grad in fifth place, another shot back. Ohno and McGee both shot 66 the last day.
“This place (San Jose CC) means a lot to me and my family,” the champion said. “It’s pretty cool to win here.”
Will Davis and his brother Sam, who plays for Yale, grew up playing golf at San Jose. The brothers are on the club’s outside golf operations team this summer and both worked shifts following at least one of their tournament rounds. Sam had a top-20 finish (T19) of his own in the Amateur.
“He definitely went out and won the tournament,” Dennis said of Davis. “I didn’t have my best stuff. My putter was hot the first two days and then it went pretty cold.”
San Jose played to a par of 72 and was set up at approximately 7,027 yards.
Though not in this year’s winner’s circle, UNF once again had a strong presence on the championship leaderboard. Dating back to 2000, golfers with Osprey roots have won the Amateur seven times in the last 13 years and 10 in all.
The championship featured 84 players, with 12 coming from outside JAGA’s footprint of Northeast Florida. Forty-six players in the field had handicap indexes of 0 or less.
Top finishers in both the Amateur and the JAGA First Coast Amateur are awarded World Amateur Golf Ranking points.
Jacksonville Golf and Country Club will host the Jacksonville Amateur in July 2024, followed by Timuquana Country Club for the first time in 2025.
To review the complete summary of scores, click here.
https://jax.bluegolf.com/bluegolf/jax23/event/jax236/contest/1/leaderboard.htm
Tournament Notes:
· Will Davis made 15 birdies and two eagles. Jeff Dennis made 16 birdies. Max McGee made 15 birdies. Tyler Brown made 13 birdies and one eagle.
· The lowest round of the tournament was 66: 1st Round – Will Davis, Jeff Dennis; 3rd Round – Sam Ohno, Max McGee, Jackson Klauk.
· Sam Geise, who moved to Jacksonville from the Dayton, Ohio area 18 months ago, made a strong showing in his JAGA debut. The former Wittenberg University golfer was in the final group on Sunday after rounds of 67-69 but fell to ninth with a final-round 76.
· Reigning JAGA Senior Amateur champion Chuck Kirk of Middleburg and Eagle Harbor Golf Club finished T23 (77-72-70-219).
· San Jose CC club champion Andrew Morgan finished T29.
· Seven of the top-eight finishers are from First Coast high schools and six of the top-eight participated in the North Florida Junior Golf Foundation.