Santa Cruz Golfer Cory McElyea Needs to Make Up Two Strokes in U.S. Amateur Tournament

Erin Hills is a long enough golf course on its own.

Playing late in the day made it seem even longer to Cory McElyea, who endured plenty of punishment on his way to a 2-over par round of 74 Monday afternoon at the U.S. Amateur in Erin, WI.

“I had some good birdies on the course’s long par-4s,” McElyea said.  “However, a couple of bad drives led to some bad lies, which made it tough to get up and down.”

McElyea failed to muster much momentum on the 7,760-yard trek, starting from his opening hole forward. The University of Washington sophomore-to-be balanced out a pair of birdies on Nos. 10 and 13 with a birdie on 504-yard par-4 17th hole.

“I’ve played a couple of tournaments on links courses but rarely played anything like this back at home,” McElyea said.  “So it was kind of a different experience for me, but at least it wasn’t all that windy out there.”

His back nine was more of the same as birdies on Nos. 5 and 7 were cancelled by bogeys on holes three, eight and nine.

“There are certain driving holes where you just can’t be and, unfortunately, I was there a few times,” McElyea said. “And the greens are firm out here, so when you have to scramble, they can be tough to hit.”

Changing over to Blue Mound Country Club for Tuesday’s play, McElyea knows he needs better golf to make the 64-player match play field for competition.

“Blue Mound is a lot more tree-lined and right there in front of you, as opposed to out here where some of the fairways are kind of blind,” McElyea said. “The greens should be great tomorrow morning.”

Through 18 holes, McElyea stands two strokes behind the magic match play cut number. However, where that line falls will be the furthest thing from his mind as he heads back out for Tuesday’s competition.

“I don’t really have a target number in mind,” McElyea said.  “I am going to try to take each shot as it comes and go from there.”