Hertfordshire’s Jack Bigham’s bid so as to add one other R&A title to his assortment gathered tempo because the Walker Cup participant surged into the quarter-finals of The 129th Novice Championship at Ballyliffin.
The 20-year-old from Harpenden, who gained the R&A Boys’ Novice Championship in 2021, stayed heading in the right direction for a notable double with two contrasting match play victories over the Glashedy Hyperlinks. Bigham had been three-down on the flip in his second-round encounter with South Africa’s Jordan Burnand however reeled off 4 birdies on the back-nine to show the match round and seal a hard-earned 3&1 victory. The Florida State College scholar carried that momentum into his third-round duel with Ukraine’s Lev Grinberg within the afternoon and gained 4 of the primary 5 holes to forge a commanding lead on his method to a 5&4 victory.
Bigham’s compatriot, Dominic Clemons, additionally has one other silver lining in his sights after sweeping into the last-eight with a 4&3 win over Walker Cup participant James Ashfield of Wales. Clemons, who has posted a sequence of spectacular outcomes on the US faculty scene this season, made a major assertion of intent earlier this month when he gained the Scottish Open Novice Stroke Play Championship at Muirfield by a rare 17 pictures. Ashfield had gained his opening two ties by a 6&4 margin, however he met his match in Clemons, who recorded a convincing win highlighted by a 40-foot birdie putt on the 9th gap which put him four-up.
Germany’s Laurenz Schiergen claimed the scalp of the highest qualifier, Connor Graham, in spherical two earlier than securing a quarter-final berth for the second time in three years with a win on the primary additional gap towards Charlie Forster.
In a carefully fought joust, Schiergen was holding a slender one-hole lead after a gradual run of 15 pars and one birdie however a bogey on the seventeenth, solely his second in two matches through the day, allowed Forster to attract degree. The Englishman’s personal bogey on the first additional gap proved pricey, nevertheless, as Schiergen, aiming to change into simply the second German to succeed in the ultimate after Christian Reimbold in 2000, arrange a last-eight match with Clemons.
Walker Cup participant Calum Scott continued his positive kind to maintain hopes of a primary Scottish win since 2014 alive. In a good third-round encounter with Dylan Shaw-Radford, the 21-year-old, who was a quarter-finalist at his residence course of Nairn in 2021, made a telling late thrust and birdied 14 and 15 en path to a 3&2 victory.
Luke Pattern’s wonderful debut in The Novice Championship was rewarded with a spot within the last-eight because the New Yorker beat Harry Crockett 5&3. Earlier within the day, Pattern had thwarted the ambitions of Walker Cup participant, Conor Gough, with a 3&2 win within the second spherical.
Pattern is the final remaining participant from the USA of America after the towering Tommy Morrison bogeyed the 18th to lose by one gap to England’s Matthew Dodd-Berry, who has his 15-year-old brother as his caddie.
Spain’s Marcel Fonseca, who beat Iceland’s Arni Gunnlaugur Sveinsson by one gap, and Denmark’s Jacob Skov Olesen, winner after two additional holes towards Tom Osborne, make up an intriguing quarter-final draw.
View match play scoring from The Novice Championship right here.
