Connor Syme loses first-round tie at USA Amateur Championship

By COLIN FARQUHARSON
Connor Syme (Drumoig) is not going to follow in Richie Ramsay's footsteps as a winner of the United States Amateur Championship - well, not this year!.
Connor lost by two holes in the first round of match-play at Oakland Hills, Michigan to an American Dylan Meyer who went on to KO the top seed, compatriot Alex Smalley by 4 and 3 in the second round.
There were wins for Englishmen Sam Horsfield (3 and 1), Scott Gregory (7 and 5) and Welshman David Boote (3 and 2).
Bradley Moore of England lost by one hole and Irishman Jack Hume went down by one hole. 



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 World No 1 amateur McNealy failed to
 survive 23-man play-off
BLOOMFIELD TOWNSHIP, Michigan Top-ranked amateur Maverick McNealy was millimetres away from advancing to the Round of 64 at the U.S. Amateur.
His 4-footer for birdie on the second play-off hole at Oakland Hills’ North Course, the par-4 11^th, horseshoed out. Had it gone in, what started as a 23-for-8 playoff would’ve ended and the Stanford senior would’ve been moving on to match play.

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Instead, McNealy made par and eventually saw his championship come to a close on the fifth playoff hole, the par-3 10^th, after he failed to get up-and-down for par from behind the green. (Texas’ Taylor Funk also was eliminated on the fifth playoff hole.)
While McNealy couldn’t get a putt to drop on the second playoff hole, his former Stanford University team-mate David Boote of Wales did. From 20 feet, Boote sank a birdie roll to earn a match-up against Texas senior Gavin Hallon Wednesday afternoon.
Boote’s putt came right after Englishman Bradley Moore drained a 45-footer.
“I knew it was coming off the left a little and I thought it would straighten up at the end,” said Moore, who now faces Lipscomb junior Dawson Armstrong. “Halfway down the hill, I knew it was good.”
Also making birdie on No. 11 was Oklahoma State commit Matthew Wolff and Pepperdine sophomore Sahith Theegala, each of whom knocked his approach shot tight. Vanderbilt sophomore Will Gordon, Stanford junior Franklin Huang and Houston grad Blair Hamilton moved on, as well, with birdies on the first playoff hole, No. 10.
That left one spot, which 2015 U.S. Mid-Amateur champion Scott Harvey won on the seventh playoff hole with par, two holes shy of tying the U.S. Amateur playoff record.