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All the flights are pared down to eight players going into Saturday's doubleheaders at Richmond Country Club. In order to get through to the finals on Sunday morning players must beat 2 opponents tomorrow under tough condtitions - temperatures predicted in the mid to high 90's. The course is in fantastic shape and the greens are rolling 12-13 on the stimpmeter.
In the Championship flight Jeff Bostic backed up his medalist effort in the qualifying round with two dominant wire-to-wire performances. According to his afternoon opponent ,Garrett Whitmore, "he (Bostic) never missed a shot." Bostic wasn't the only representative from the senior RGA ranks to make it into the quarters - he is joined by Glen Mullian - who defeated #3 seed Jay Livingston in the morning and Paras Pandya in the afternoon - and Tim Kelley - who was stretched to 21 holes in the afternoon but prevailed over Michael Shrader - as over 50 year old players claimed 3 of the 8 quarterfinal spots.
Steve Serrao rolled to 2 victories - taking down #4 seed Tom Vlahakis in the morning and UR golfer Sam Beach in the afternoon - and he never had to go past the 15 hole. Brock Kelley also claimed a place in the quarters in cruising 5&3 by Jake Williams in the afternoon.
Timmy Osterbind and John Phillips represented the younger set well - both moving into the quarters with two fairly tough matches. Both players were taken to the 18th hole in their afternoon matches and had to par the difficult uphill dogleg par 4 to secure their spots with identical 1 up victories.
The final spot in the quarters was taken by the last man standing in the 10 for 1 playoff for the last spot in the championship flight. Corbin Smih defeated defending champ Clark Taylor in the morning 2&1 and dispatched Austin Gray in the afternoon in similar fashion. He said it "felt like the U.S. Open" because he just kept grinding for pars - and by the looks of his scores he was doing it well.
The matches kick off at 8 a.m. Saturday and the semi-finals begin at 1 p.m. Good luck to all!
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