Three Alabama golfers to play at U.S. Amateur

TUSCALOOSA | Matt Hughes has already lived one dream this summer. He found himself inside the ropes at the United States Open, walking the same course where golf’s contemporary greats, the sport’s superstars like Tiger Woods, tread.

Monday his summer of dreams fulfilled continues when he will again be an insider, this time at the U.S. Amateur.

In June at the U.S. Open, Hughes was carrying the clubs for his teammate, senior Mark Harrell. On Monday the two will be side-by-side again, so to speak, at another of golf’s hallowed events. But this time Hughes will have someone else doing the carrying.

Hughes, Harrell and Michael Thompson will represent Alabama at the U.S. Amateur.

The Amateur will be held through next Sunday at the Olympic Club’s Lakeside and Ocean Courses in San Francisco. It is the first time Hughes has ever competed in the U.S. Amateur. It will be Harrell’s third straight trip, and it will be the third trip for Thompson.

“I’m pretty excited,” said Hughes by phone Friday. “I feel like if I had not been to the U.S. Open this summer, I really wouldn’t know what to expect at all. But I really think having been to a big event like [the U.S. Open] that is run pretty similar to the way this tournament is going to be run I kind of know what to expect and know what the atmosphere is going to be like a little bit.”

Alabama’s golfers are a close-knit team, and when his fellow Georgia native and Tide teammate Harrell qualified for the U.S. Open, Harrell asked Hughes if he wanted to go along as his caddy. Hughes jumped at the chance.

The three Tide golfers have used Tuscaloosa as their home base this summer and have been practicing together to prepare for this week. Because Hughes and Harrell play the courses in the same order, they can potentially play a practice round together as the practice rounds use that same order. Thompson plays a different course order, so he will not be allowed to practice with them in San Francisco. The practice rounds were Saturday and today.

Hughes and Thompson, a 2007 collegiate All-American and the nation’s No. 9 amateur golfer, enter the field after winning their qualifiers. Hughes was the best at the Woodstock, Ga., qualifier at Capital City Club on July 24-25. Thompson won the qualifier at Pinewild Country Club in Pinehurst, N.C. Harrell, a native of Hazlehurst, Ga., is among the 31 golfers competing exempt from qualifying because he played in the U.S. Open.

Harrell was in the same scoring group as PGA golfer Phil Mickelson that missed the cut by a stroke. This is his third trip to the U.S. Amateur. He finished second in stroke play in 2006 and competed in 2005 as well. This summer Harrell won the stroke play at the U.S. Amateur Pub Links. His summer has also included making match play at the Western Amateur and finished tied for 11th at 7-under at the Southern Amateur.

Monday he will tee off first among the Tide threesome at 7:30 a.m. from the No. 10 tee on the Lakeside Course. Thompson and Hughes both have afternoon tee times, Thompson at 1:15 on the Ocean Course’s No. 1 tee and Hughes at 2:05 from the Lake Course’s No. 10 tee.

Harrell will be joined as he walks the course by another teammate-turned-temporary-caddy. Athens native Stewart Whitt is carrying his bag.

“We’ve all talked about going to a baseball game, going to see if we can watch Barry Bonds,” said Hughes when asked if the Tide golfers all plan to converge off the course as well. “Pebble Beach is only about 20 miles away — Stewart got on the internet and discovered that — so we might drive down there and check it out one night. We may do some of that Saturday and Sunday, but once the golf starts, we’re hitting it hard. It’s a lot of golf in just a few days.”

According to the U.S. Amateur’s official Web site (www.usamateur.org), the United States Golf Association accepted 7,398 entries for the 2007 U.S. Amateur for the 312 spots. Sectional qualifying was conducted over 36 holes at 96 sites between July 23 and Aug. 7. Stroke play is Monday and Tuesday and will take place on two courses, the Lakeside and the Ocean Course at the Olympic Club.

The Golf Channel will air first- round matches on Wednesday between 3-5 p.m. CT, third round matches on Thursday between 5:30-7:30 p.m. CT, and the quarterfinal matches, tape-delayed, from 7:30-9:30 p.m. CT on Friday night. NBC takes over the television coverage with the semifinals on Saturday, tape-delayed, from 3-5 p.m. CT, and live on Sunday from 3-5 p.m. CT.