SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 John Daly II and Niall Shiels Donegan each won two matches Thursday at The Olympic Club to advance to the U.S. Amateur quarterfinals as more top-ranked players dropped out.<\/p>\n
Daly, the son of two-time major champion John Daly, beat Nate Smith 2 and 1 in the morning in the round of 32, then topped Daniel Bennett of South Africa 3 and 2 in the afternoon in the round of 16.<\/p>\n
Daly, a senior-to-be at Arkansas, set up a match with Mason Howell, the 18-year-old from Georgia who qualified for the U.S. Open this year with rounds of 63-63 from the Atlanta sectional.<\/p>\n
Howell beat second-ranked Virginia senior Ben James 1 up and Max Herendeen 2 and 1. In the morning, Herendeen eliminated top-ranked Jackson Koivun 3 and 2.<\/p>\n
Donegan had two 1-up victories, topping ninth-ranked Christiaan Maas of South Africa and fourth-ranked Preston Stout, the Oklahoma State junior who was the stroke-play medallist.<\/p>\n
Donegan, who plays under the Scottish flag and lives in the Bay Area, pulled even with Stout with a birdie on the par-3 15th and took the lead with a 20-foot birdie putt on the par-5 16th.<\/p>\n
Donegan was among 17 players who advanced from a 20-man playoff Wednesday morning to determine the final 64 for match play. His father, Lawrence, was a longtime golf correspondent for The Guardian.<\/p>\n
Donegan, will face Jacob Modleski, a 2-up winner over Paul Chang of China. Modleski, at No. 15, is the top player left in the world amateur ranking.<\/p>\n
Sixteen-year-old Miles Russell of Jacksonville Beach, Fla., also advanced to the quarterfinals, beating Mahanth Chirravuri 2 and 1. Russell is No. 16 in the ranking.<\/p>\n
Russell will face 29th-ranked Eric Lee, a 2-up winner over Josh Duangmanee when Duangmanee lost his ball off the tee on the final hole. In the other quarterfinal, Jimmy Abdo will play Jackson Herrington.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2014 John Daly II and Niall Shiels Donegan each won two matches Thursday at The Olympic…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70550,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[49,48,622,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-70549","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-golf","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}