Chris Williams, Abraham Ancer, Peter Williamson and Jordan Russell advance to Western Amateur Championship semi-finals
Chris Williams, Abraham Ancer, Peter Williamson and Jordan Russell have qualified for the semi-finals of the 110th Western Amateur Championship’s match play event.
Williams played his first match against Richard Lamb and the rising senior at the University of Washington defeated his opponent 6&5.
He then entered into his second match where he outshined Brandon Stone 2-Up. Both the players parred each of the opening three holes until Williams birdied the fourth hole to take the lead.
Thereafter, Stone tried his best to level the score. However, the game kept on swinging between 1-Up and 2-Up in favour of Williams. Last year, Williams was knocked out of the tournament after Patrick Cantlay defeated him in the opening round. This year,
he is among the hot favourites to win the tournament.
"They're short, tight courses with long rough and soft greens," he said. "Plays right into my hands".
He will now face Ancer in the semi-finals on Saturday. Ancer advanced to the pre-final stage after defeating Cheng-Tsung Pan in the first round, followed by a win over Sean Dale 4&3 in the quarter finals.
Ancer did not make it to the quarterfinals easily, as Pan gave him a tough competition. However, the competition was all square at the end of the round.
Therefore, the game extended to 20th hole where the golfer from University of Oklahoma recorded a birdie to advance to the next stage.
"It was a birdie-fest out there in the morning," Ancer said. "We weren't making many mistakes and both of us played really well. We had a lot of fun".
Despite a slow start on Friday, he made a strong comeback in the game that he played against Dale. He managed to finish the game with three holes to play.
"In the afternoon I was completely off," Ancer said. "In the morning I hit everything straight, but when I came out in the afternoon, I was hitting it really crooked. I was completely off, but after five or six holes I settled down and started making some
putts and some birdies".
The second semi-final will be played between Williamson and Russell. Williamson defeated Alex Moon and Lorens Chan in his first two matches and Russell took victories against Kevin Penner and Justin Thomas.
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