The team of Reid Hatley (Hayden Lake, Idaho) and Jacob Koppenberg (Bellingham) were defeated 3 and 1 by No. 2 seed Brent Ito and Patrick Sullivan in this morning’s Round of 16 at the 2021 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship.
The championship is being held this week at Chambers Bay in University Place, Wash.
Click here to view live scoring of the championship.
Hatley and Koppenberg never led in the match. The two sides tied the first seven holes. On the par-5 eighth, Ito and Sullivan went 1-up with a par while Hatley and Koppenberg struggled to a bogey on the 601-yard bunker-less hole.
A well-played game, the two sides matched birdies on the first, fourth and ninth holes. Ito and Sullivan birdied the 10th and 13th holes to build a 3-up lead.
When the two sides traded pars on the par-3 15th, Ito and Sullivan were dormie – 3-up with three holes to play.
Hatley and Koppenberg made a game of it, with a birdie on the par-4 16th to cut it to a two-hole deficit with two holes to play. But Ito and Sullivan then birdied the par-3 17th to close out the match.
Hatley and Koppenberg had made it into the match-play portion of the championship by shooting rounds of 65-68 in the two qualifying rounds, held over the weekend at Chambers Bay and The Home Course in nearby DuPont. They were the only local players to advance to match play, and were the No. 15 seed in the bracket.
The duo won yesterday’s Round of 32 match, 3 and 2, against No. 18 seed Carter Loflin and Wells Williams to advance to this morning’s Round of 16.
The championship’s semifinal matches will be held tomorrow morning, followed by the 18-hole final match tomorrow afternoon.
There were 11 players from Washington Golf territory who made it to the first two days of stroke-play qualifying, after Local qualifying.
Koppenberg, 34, is a volunteer assistant coach for the men’s golf team at Western Washington University, his alma mater, in Bellingham, and helped the Vikings capture the 2019 Great Northwest Athletic Conference title. While he was a player at Western, he was a two-time NCAA Division II All-American and two-time GNAC Player of the Year. He is competing in his seventh USGA championship, including four U.S. Amateurs. He works in business development for a communication services company.
Hatley, 40, is the owner of a golf course accessories company. He played in the 2016 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball with partner Nate Hair, who is the husband of LPGA Tour player Wendy Ward. A veteran of 12 USGA events, Hatley won the 2019 Washington State Amateur in a playoff, and has been named Washington Golf’s Men’s Mid-Amateur Player of the Year for six consecutive years and counting.
