Freeport\u2019s Eli Spaulding is having a memorable summer.<\/p>\n
Not only did he win the Maine Amateur golf tournament for the second straight year, he then went on to capture the New England Amateur a week later.<\/p>\n
He became the first Maine golfer in 34 years to win the Maine Amateur and New England Amateur in the same year. Sean Gorgone did it in 1991.<\/p>\n
Spaulding, who will be a sophomore at Loyola University in Maryland, won the New England Amateur in dramatic fashion by notching birdies in seven of his last 10 holes.<\/p>\n
He shot a final round eight-under par 64 at the Neshobe Golf Club in Vermont to win by two strokes. He had nine birdies and one bogey. <\/p>\n
He shot a 14-under-par 202 over the three rounds. He had 69s in the first two rounds.<\/p>\n
He played the back nine in 10-under-par over the three days.<\/p>\n
Matt Parzale from the Thorny Lea Golf Club in Massachusetts and Alex Elia from the Silver Spring Country Club in Connecticut shot 204s to tie for second.<\/p>\n
Elia held a five-shot lead over Spaulding entering the final round but shot a 71.<\/p>\n
Spaulding was the first Maine golfer to win the New England Amateur since Reese McFarlane in 2018 and he was the sixth Mainer to win it dating back to 1926.<\/p>\n
Brian Bickford, the executive director of the Maine Golf Association, pointed out that Spaulding came from behind to win both Maine Amateurs and the New England Amateur.<\/p>\n
Bickford said to win the Maine Amateur and New England Amateur in the same year is rare.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the way he did it, to come back and shoot a 64, was remarkable,\u201d said Bickford. \u201cHe can heat up pretty quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spaulding was a three-time state Class B champion at Freeport High School (2021, \u201822 and \u201823).<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has a great short game and he can really putt,\u201d said Bickford. \u201cHe knows his game. He knows where to place the ball in order to make a run.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spaulding is set to compete in the U.S. Amateur championship at The Olympic Club in San Francisco from Aug. 11-17. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe is a great golfer and an even better guy. He is very positive,\u201d Bickford said. <\/p>\n
Correction: An earlier version of this report misspelled Eli Spaulding\u2019s last name in the fourth paragraph.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Freeport\u2019s Eli Spaulding is having a memorable summer. Not only did he win the Maine Amateur golf tournament…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[36430,427,99,7157],"class_list":["post-47851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-golf","tag-corrections","tag-golf","tag-sports","tag-update"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}