Moving day at the South Carolina Golf Association Amateur championship started a little earlier than usual and lasted a little longer than usual.
Rain forced the suspension of the second round so almost 70 golfers had to finish their Friday round starting at 7:am on Saturday before the competition could move forward.
When all the scores were in for the second round Oliver Rotermund from Daniel Island held on to his first round lead.
Rotermund shot a 2-under par 70 to go to 8-under par, but former Wofford golfer Henry Augenstein from Columbia carded a 4-under par 68 to move up into second place, 2-shots behind the leader.
Zach Adams from Charleston was alone in third and four golfers were tied for fourth place.
Two Francis Marion golfers Michael Rials and Mitchell Vance, Indiana University’s Harry Reynolds from Greenville and 2020 SCGA Player of the Year Kyle Bearden from Barnwell all finished their second rounds within 4-shots of the leader.
In between the start of play on Saturday and the posting of the final third round scores golfers again got wet. This time the delay was only about 90 minutes.
Reynolds was closing in on the lead when the golfers left the course.
Playing two groups in front of the leaders, Reynolds bookended his front nine with a birdie to start and one to finish.
When play resumed, after the rain delay, the Hoosier rising senior finished off the best round of the day carding a 3-under par 69 to move up from fourth place to take the clubhouse lead.
“I got off to a pretty good start today,” Reynolds said. “I had a birdie early and then obviously we had to stop because of the rain. I came out of the rain delay a little slow with a bogey, and then had a really nice back nine. I was two under on the back and didn’t have many mistakes,” said the former Christ Church High School golfer.
Meanwhile, playing in the last group of the day, Rotermund carded two front nine bogeys as the Bishop England High School golfers saw his lead fade away.
His up and down round ended with a bogey on his final hole or he would have kept a share of the lead going into play on Sunday.
Bearden and Rials each carded 2-under par rounds of 70 to move into a tie with Rotermund for second place, one shot behind Reynolds.
Augenstein shot a third round 1-over par 73 to fall back to fifth place.
Reynolds only had one bogey in his third round and finished with a birdie on the final hole.
“When I did miss greens, I was able to get it up and down, so I came in with a nice score of three-under,” said Reynolds.
During the past season in Bloomington, Reynolds led Indiana to the Big 10 Match Play title on the strength of his 4-0 match play record.
The third round leader has a packed leader board behind him as he takes his one stroke advantage into the final round on Sunday morning at the DeBordieu Club in Georgetown.
“My plan going into tomorrow is to just stick to everything that’s been working and play free from the burden of expectations. I can only control what I can control and we’ll see what happens from there,” he said.
Reynolds will be grouped with Rials and Rotermund off the first tee at 10:am.
Scores and final round pairings for the SC Amateur are online at https://www.golfgenius.com/pages/2793324
Categories: SCGA
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