Cole leads pack at ASGA Amateur by two strokes
Matthew Cole and Luke Long have every reason to feel at ease as playing partners heading into today’s final round of the Arkansas Amateur at Hot Springs Country Club.
But they better not get too comfortable.
Cole, the second-round leader at 6 under, is not only Long’s teammate at the University of Houston, but they are housemates as well, adding an extra layer to a story that dates back to growing up together in Fayetteville.
“We lived together this past year,” said Cole, who leads Long and Cabot’s Logan Stephens by two shots. “We’re going to live together next year, so I really like being around him.”
No argument from Long, who shot an even-par 72 Saturday after going 4 under Friday.
“I love playing with Matthew,” Long said. “He’s having a good time down there playing some good golf. He’s getting a lot better.”
Long was one of nine players to complete his opening 18 holes Friday as rain twice interrupted play, and was the early leader in the clubhouse after posting a 4-under round of 68.
Play resumed at 7:45 a.m. Saturday for everybody else, including Cole, who had six holes to finish before starting his second round.
Stephens, five groups behind Cole, had even more work to do Saturday, standing at
2-over par Friday when he left the course.
Cole birdied 14 and 18 to finish his first round at 4 under, and Stephens needed two
back-9 nine birdies to finish at even par.
Cole started his second round with a bogey at No. 2 to fall to 3 under, but he used three consecutive birdies on holes 6-8 to reach 6 under, where he finished.
Stephens, who competed as a freshman at Southern Arkansas, shot the low round of the day after bogeying the opening hole, rolling in five birdies, four on the back nine.
Birdies were not easy to find Saturday, with swirling wind and tough pin placements keeping players on the defensive.
That might not be the case today, with 10 players at par or under, including the grouping of Josh McNulty (3 under), Palmer McFadden (2 under) and 1994 Arkansas Amateur champ Ron Whittaker (2 under) teeing off ahead of Cole, Long and Stephens.
“I think you can post a low score out here,” said Whittaker, competing as an amateur for the first time in 26 years.
University of Arkansas golfer Denver Davis is tied for 11th at 1 over after a 2-over 73, and he also sees the course as gettable.
“You can put up a really low score for sure,” Davis said. “The greens are not overly fast, so you can be aggressive with the putts. … The scores are going to be a lot lower if the wind dies down.
“Whoever gets the putts going in is the key. That’s what I’ve noticed out here after talking to a few guys. If you’re not making putts it’s really tough.”
Neither Cole nor Long went directly to Houston.
Cole spent his first four years at Arkansas State before going to Houston as a graduate transfer in 2019.
That’s where he joined his old Fayetteville buddy Long, who stopped at Southern Illinois-Edwardsville and Tennessee-Chattanooga before making it to Houston in 2018.
Cole laughed a bit when asked about how he dealt with Friday’s stop-and-start opening round, Saturday’s 24-hole day and the coronavirus pandemic that ended his first season at
Houston early but will give him a sixth year to compete.
“The less you try to control
the things you can’t the better,” Cole said. “Like COVID, like sitting here in a mask, playing in the rain. Getting up at 5:30 in the morning to play today.”
Instead, Cole and Long prefer to think about the time they spent together at Fayetteville, a period that spanned three consecutive state titles, and how they found their way to being teammates and roommates.
“It’s funny to look back at how it happened,” Cole said. “Yeah, it’s fun.”