Six-Under 66 Moves Vancouver’s Stuart Macdonald Into Contention At Pacific Coast Amateur Championship
Vancouver's Stuart Macdonald Moved Himself Into Contention At The 50th Pacific Coast Amateur Championship With A 10-Shot Second Round Improvement At Seattle Golf Club - Image Courtesy PNGA
By Brad Ziemer, British Columbia Golf
Stuart Macdonald’s round Wednesday at the Pacific Coast Amateur Championship had a little bit of everything.
We’ll start with the good because there was lots of that. Macdonald carded two eagles in his round at Seattle Golf Club, one of them coming when he holed out from 160 yards on the par 4 12th hole. He also added four birdies.
Then there was the bad, including a four-putt on the par 3 16th green that resulted in a double-bogey. He wasn’t happy about a three-putt that led to a par on the par 5 18th green either.
But when it was done, Macdonald had carded the day’s best score, a six-under 66 that moved him into contention at the 50th playing of the prestigious tourney.
The 21-year-old Vancouver resident, who plays out of Point Grey, stands two-under par through 36 holes and is tied for third place heading into the final two rounds. Leader KK Limbhasut of Thailand is at seven-under par.
Macdonald said Wednesday’s low round was a long time coming. “I have been struggling this summer,” Macdonald said. “I haven’t played too well. I played the Trans-Miss Amateur at Olympic Club (in San Francisco) two weeks ago and missed the cut by a couple of shots. I played a U.S. Amateur qualifier after that and really didn’t play well at all. Today’s round was a good one to show what I could do. It shows I am close and have the capability.”
Macdonald is part of a three-man British Columbia Golf team at the Pacific Coast Amateur that also includes Chris Crisologo of Richmond and Kevin Kwon of Maple Ridge. Kwon and Crisologo both struggled Wednesday. Crisologo shot an eight-over 80 and is tied for 54th place at eight-over through two rounds. Kwon fired an 83 and is tied for 78th at 17-over.
The first two rounds of the tournament included a Morse Cup competition that pitted the 15 member golf associations against one another. British Columbia finished tied for fourth place, 10 strokes behind the winning team from the Southern California Golf Association.
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Macdonald, who just finished his collegiate golf career at Purdue University, made the turn at five-under after holing a 20-foot eagle putt on the par 5 9th hole. He used a 9-iron to record his second eagle on No. 12 from 160 yards. “It landed about 15 feet short and just rolled in,” he said. “I have had a couple of holes-in-one, but I don’t think I have ever holed out from that far out in the fairway.”
Macdonald said Seattle Golf Club reminds him of some courses closer to home, including his home track of Point Grey. “It is awesome,” he said. “It is your typical Northwest-style golf course. Being from Vancouver, I have played a lot of courses like this. It is tree-lined.
I am pretty used to playing these types of courses. The course is in awesome shape, the greens are undulating and they are fast. You can get yourself into some tough spots which I did a couple of times coming down the stretch and it was costly.”