Todd Lawson and Steven Harvey, one of the youngest teams in the qualifying field, made
their bid for medalist honors on Saturday in the Goode Crowder Dorsett Labor Day Four-Ball
Invitational golf tournament.Lawson, 18, and Harvey, 17, former Salisbury High School teammates, teamed
up for a 5-under-par 66, the lowest score of the first two days of qualifying at the
Country Club of Salisbury.
Thad Sprinkle and Joey Boley,
runners-up last year, led Friday’s qualifying with a 67.
Seventy-one more teams, including
12 in the senior division, are scheduled to play qualifying rounds today.
“I think we both played
pretty good,” said Lawson, a freshman on Catawba College’s golf team. “The
biggest thing I was proud of was that we made all the putts we should have and that we
needed to make, and we didn’t make any bogeys.”
Lawson birdied Nos. 2, 5, 10 and
16, while Harvey, a left-handed senior at SalisburyHigh, birdied No. 8.
“I felt like No. 2 was a big
birdie, because it got us jump-started,” said Lawson, son of the Country Club pro
TobyLawson. “It was about 10 feet.
“Steven hit a wedge or sand
wedge and knocked it up there about three inches on No. 8,” Lawson added.
“Our first goal was just to
qualify for the championship flight. Once we got rolling pretty good, we figured we’d
just make as many birdies as we could and see what happened. ... I think we’ve got a
good shot going into this weekend to win the tournament, but there are a lot of teams out
there that are good,” Lawson said.
There were eight other sub-par
rounds shot Saturday, including a 67 by Christopher McCoy, another Catawba golfer, and his
partner, John Murphy. RandyJarrett and Charlie Graeber posted a 68.
Turning in 69s were George
Benfield and son Shane, and the duo of Larry Roseman and Joe Sides.
Cameron Lee-Ryan Honeycutt,
Richard Cobb-David Lyerly, Geoff Waldau-Jake Parrott and Guy Hoskins-Stephen Bullock shot
70s.
Other top scores on Friday
included GaryMiller-Todd Johnson at 68 and Jay Stevens-Glenn Dixon at 69.
There have been 12 sub-par rounds
shot so far plus three even-par 71s. If one more team qualifies at par or better today, it
would mean the championship flight cutoff would be one stroke less than in 1998, when one
team that shot 72 made the top flight in a playoff.
The low 16 qualifiers will make up
the championship flight, because the 1998 champs, Elliot Gealy and Ken Crooms, are not
defending their title. Gealy is playing pro golf on the TearDrop Tour and won his first
event as a professional Saturday.
Bob Kimball and Wayne Tate fired a
68 Saturday to lead senior division qualifying. Van Benfield and Jerry Allman followed
with a 71.
The 1998 senior champs, Bud Mickle
and StedMorris, are not entered this year.
Sudden-death playoffs will be held
at 5 p.m. Monday to break any ties for tournament berths or championship flight berths.
Match play starts next Saturday
and continues on Sunday. The finals are set for Labor Day, Monday, Sept. 6.
Saturday’s qualifying scores
are listed in Scoreboard on Page 2D. |
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