Badgett slips into last spot in match play at U.S. Amateur

Pennson Badgett of Pilot Mountain emerged from a 20 players for 17 spots playoff Wednesday morning to qualify for match play competition at the U.S. Amateur.

But it wasn’t easy. He got the last spot.

Badgett bogeyed the second playoff hole, No. 10 at The Olympic Club’s Lake Course, to clinch a berth. Badgett had parred the first playoff hole, No. 9, where only two of the needed three players were eliminated. With only one player facing elimination, Emil Riegger of Fort Lauderdale, one of the first players to play the second hole, made double-bogey.

The 64-hole match play bracket begins Wednesday afternoon. As the No. 64 seed, Padgett will play medalist and No. 1 seed Preston Stout, an Oklahoma State golfer, in this afternoon’s final opening-round match at The Olympic Club’s Lake Course.

Badgett, a rising senior at East Surry High who has committed to play at the University of Tennessee, shot rounds of 71 and 72 for a 3-over-par 143 total in stroke play. Stout played the two courses in 132.

Missing the cut in the 312-player field were UNC Greensboro golfers Dax Isbell and Keenan Royalty. Isbell, a Cumming, Georgia, native who transferred from Tennessee-Martin, posted 149. Royalty, a Raleigh native, shot 156.