PINEHURST, N.C. — John Augenstein and Andy Ogletree advanced to the U.S. Amateur final Saturday at Pinehurst No. 2.
Augenstein beat William Holcomb V 3 and 2, and Ogletree topped teenager and fellow Mississippian Cohen Trolio 3 and 1.
They will meet Sunday in a 36-hole final split over two courses, starting on the resort’s renovated No. 4 course and finishing at No. 2 — the site of three men’s U.S. Opens and the 2008 U.S. Amateur.
Augenstein — a 21-year-old from Owensboro, Kentucky, who will be a senior at Vanderbilt — was the highest-ranked of the four semifinalists, and at No. 38 in the world amateur ranking, the only one in the top 100.
He made par on his first 15 holes, and after briefly trailing for the first time in five rounds of match play, went 2 up with a par on the par-4 14th and ended it with a birdie on the 16th.
That put him opposite the 21-year-old Ogletree, a Georgia Tech senior from Little Rock, Mississippi, who ended Trolio’s bid to become the youngest finalist in U.S. Amateur history.
Ogletree won the first hole and never trailed after that, but his lead was never larger than 2 up until the end, and Trolio closed within a hole with his par on 14. After they halved No. 15, Ogletree won the 16th with a par to Trolio’s double bogey and wrapped it up with a birdie — just his second of the day — on the par-3 17th.
Playing nine days after his 17th birthday, Trolio would have eclipsed Sung Yoon Kim — who was 17 years, 3 months, 5 days when he reached the championship match 20 years ago. Trolio, from West Point, Mississippi, was the only player in the match-play field of 64 without a world amateur ranking because he has not played in an event that would yield a ranking during the last two years.
Augenstein beat two opponents in the top 10 of the amateur ranking in the early rounds, and neither he nor Trolio had trailed during four rounds of match play — until the semifinals, when both fell behind early in their matches.
Unlike Trolio, Augenstein regained the lead. He went ahead for good late on the front nine, breaking a tie by winning Nos. 6 and 7 and moving 2 up on Holcomb, a Texan and 21-year-old senior at Sam Houston State.