RAMSAY WINS BUT SALTMAN KO'D

HOT-SHOT FINN IS ABERDONIAN'S NEXT
OPPONENT IN US AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

Walker Cup team-mates Richie Ramsay (Royal Aberdeen) and Oliver Fisher (West Essex) are the only British survivors in the last 32 of the United States amateur golf championship at Hazeltine National Golf Club, Chaska in Minnesota.
Ramsay was one under par in winning his first-round tie by 5 and 3 against Canadian Mark Leon.
Stirling student Richie was three up at the turn with wins at the first, second and ninth. He lost the 10th to a par but then mastered his opponent with a par at the 11th, a birdie at the 12th and another birdie at the 15th.
Ramsay now plays the Finnish left-hander Antti Ahokas who was in brilliant form in beating a third member of last year’s GB&I Walker Cup team – Edinburgh-born Welshman Rhys Davis.
Ahokas, who got on top with an eagle-birdie-birdie burst from the sixth to the eighth, was five under par in winning by 4 and 2.
Earlier, a fourth Walker Cup player, Lloyd Saltman (Craigielaw) was beaten 4 and 3 by Kevin Tway, last year’s American junior champion and a son of the 1986 US PGA Champion, Bob Tway, who is caddieing for Kevin in this championship.
After the first four holes were halved in par, Tway turned on the heat with birdies at the fifth and sixth to go two up on the Craigielaw man.
Saltman scored his only success at the 11th – and he had to birdie it to do so.
But a bogey by the Scot at the 13th allowed Tway to go two up again with a par.
Tway then birdied the 14th and parred the 15th to win by 4 and 3 with three under par figures.
Oliver Fisher was one under par in beating Drew Weaver (US) by 3 and 2.
Fisher birdied the first, seventh, 14th and 15th. His opponent birdied the fourth and 10th.