Quarter-Finalist Guan Surpassing His Expectations

Bandon, Oregon, United States: Two-time Australian Junior champion Jeffrey Guan has made it through to the final eight in the 74th US Junior Amateur Championship at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort.

Competing in his first USGA championship, 18-year-old Guan will take on American Eric Lee in Friday morning’s quarter-final.

The winner of that contest will go on to face either China’s Ding Wenyi or American Luke Potter in the semi-final.

Guan and Ding both won twice on Thursday to keep alive hopes of an Asia-Pacific winner.

Encouraged by the 7&5 thrashing he handed out to German Tiger Christensen in Wednesday’s Round of 64, Guan squeezed past Nicholas Gross, one-up, in the Round of 32. He then booked his place in the last eight by blowing away Charlie Palmer, 5&4.

Runner-up in the 2021 Australian Amateur, Guan is attempting to become only the second Australian to win the US Junior Amateur, following Min Woo Lee, who triumphed in 2016.

“I am really excited. The target for me this week was to make the top 64 and then focus on every match if I did make it. I did just that today,” said Guan, 115th in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR).

Like Guan, 17-year-old Ding, the three-time China Amateur Open champion (2019, 2020, 2021), has been in brilliant form in the match play segment at Bandon Dunes, comfortably seeing off all his opponents to date.

Picking up from where he left off on Wednesday when he eased to a 5&4 win against Rocco Salvitti, Ding enjoyed a similar margin of victory in the Round of 32 over Indian Shubham Jaglan, a rising sophomore at the University of South Florida who was the only player not to utilise a caddie, opting instead to use a pull cart.

For his part, Ding, number 20 in the WAGR, simply concentrated on the job at hand. Maintaining his focus, he went on to thrash American left-hander John Broderick, 5&3, in the Round of 16.

It was an impressive display from Ding given that Broderick, a Vanderbilt signee, had eliminated the medallist and top seed Keaton Vo, one-up, in the Round of 32 earlier on Thursday.

Runner-up in the 2020 Volvo China Open, Ding is likely to be pushed harder on Friday by Potter, a semi-finalist in the 2021 championship at The Country Club of North Carolina, who has signed to play for Arizona State.

Potter is the only player in this US Junior Amateur field who competed in the 2020 US Amateur at Bandon Dunes. He also reached the quarter-finals of last year’s US Amateur Four-Ball with partner and 2019 US Junior Amateur champion Preston Summerhays at Chambers Bay.

In the bottom half of the quarter-final draw that features four Americans, Caleb Surratt is up against Preston Stout while defending champion Nicholas Dunlap takes on Luke Clanton.

The quarter-final and semi-final rounds will be contested on Friday on Bandon Dunes. To be held on Saturday, the 36-hole final will be broadcast live by the Golf Channel.