Miles Russell's marathon week at the 124th Western Amateur ended on Aug. 2 as the Jacksonville Beach native lost 3 and 1 in the semifinals to Stanford junior Jay Leng, at the Beverly Country Club in Chicago.
Russell, 17 and a year away from enrolling at Florida State, fell behind Leng on the first hole and never led.
Leng won the sixth hole to go 2-up and Russell cut the lead to one hole twice, with a birdie at No. 9 and No. 14 but Leng went back in front by two holes both times and clinched the match with a birdie-2 at No. 17.
Leng played Michael Riebe, a Vanderbilt freshman, in the championship match later on Sunday. Riebe defeated Logan Reilly, an Auburn sophomore, 1-up in the other semifinal.
Russell has now lost in the Western semifinals and
the U.S. Junior Amateur finals in the last eight days. He was the medalist in both tournaments, the first time in history, and went 8-2 in match play in the two tournaments combined.
He gets another opportunity in the U.S. Amateur, which begins Aug. 10 at the Merion Country Club near Philadelphia.
Western Amateur finals delayed
Torrential rain flooded the Beverly Country Club on Aug. 1, forcing officials to delay the semifinals and championship match one day.
Russell, No. 5 on the current World Amateur Rankings, won the 72-hole stroke-play qualifier at 21-under 263, the third-lowest score since the current format was adopted in 1955. He then defeated Boston Brackens 3 and 2 and Tyler Watts 2 and 1 in the first two matches.
After playing 72 holes of stroke play (the last 36 on July 30), each of the four semifinal participants played at least 32 holes of match play on July 31. Russell, Leng and Reilly played 33 holes each and Riebe 32.
Russell ended up playing 122 holes of golf in the tournament, 72 in the stroke-play qualifier and 50 in match play.
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Miles Russell eliminated in Western Amateur by Stanford's Jay Leng
