Amateur winners have been few and far between at the Utah Open golf tournament, with just two over the past 49 years since Mike Malaska and Mike Brannan were back-to-back winners in 1974-75.
But a bunch of young amateur golfers, all Utahns, put themselves in prime position after the first round of the 54-hole Siegfried & Jensen Utah Open Friday at Riverside Country Club in Provo.
Jackson Shelley, Cole Ponich, Peter Kim and Cooper Jones each fired 5-under-par 67s, which put them in a tie for third along with Ogden pro Braydon Swapp and two-time Utah Open champ Clay Ogden in the 159-golfer field.
The overall leader at 65 is Gavin Cohen of Phoenix, who is a shot better than Josh Anderson of Murrieta, California.
Shelley, a senior at Skyline High School; Ponich, a BYU golfer and Utah Men’s Amateur winner last month; and BYU golfer Kim all shot their scores in the morning round, while Jones, another BYU golfer, played in the afternoon wave.
Jones wasn’t surprised at the amateurs being so high on the leaderboard.
“I think a bunch of us have a chance and if one of us won I wouldn’t be surprised,” Jones said.
Jones acknowledged that the BYU golfers have a bit of a home-course advantage since they play several dozen rounds at Riverside during the year. He made five “tap-in” birdies and a couple of longer ones to negate two bogeys on the day.
The 20 year-old Jones played in three Korn Ferry Tour events this year, including a T-16 in Oklahoma, and is looking for a good finish this weekend before he embarks on an LDS mission to Peru next month.
“I need to get hot and make birdies and if I keep playing well, I’ll have a chance,” he said.
A stroke back at 68 are three Utah pros, Rhett Rasmussen, Carson Lundell and Camron Saunders.
Sixty-five-year-old Jay Don Blake, the 1988 Utah Open winner, heads a group of nine golfers who shot 69, including 2017 champion Patrick Fishburn and Tony Romo, the former Dallas Cowboy quarterback and current TV football analyst.
Blake, who is tuning up to play in the PGA Tour’s Black Desert Championship event in his hometown of St. George in October, started his round with four birdies on his first seven holes before cooling off.
Defending champion Zac Blair is among 13 golfers who came in at 2-under-par 70, including 2021 champion Derek Fribbs.
Among other former champions, Zach Johnson shot 72, Dusty Fielding 72, Pete Stone 74, Malaska 78 and B.J. Staten 81.
Two women in the tourney, recent Utah Women’s Open winner Adeline Anderson Wach and former State Amateur champion Sue Nyhus, shot 79 and 87, respectively.
Cohen, who competed for Loyola Marymount and the University of Arizona, won his first professional event at the Children’s Hospital of Illinois Championship in June and pocketed $30,000. Cohen finished in a tie for third at last year’s Utah Open, a shot behind Blair.
After Saturday’s second round, the field will be cut to the low 60 and ties, and the final 18 holes will be played Sunday. The first-place prize is $22,000.
UTAH OPEN leaderboard
(a- denotes amateur)
65 – Gavin Cohen
66 – Josh Anderson
67 – a-Jackson Shelley, a-Cole Ponich, a-Peter Kim, a-Cooper Jones, Braydon Swapp, Clay Ogden
68 – Rhett Rasmussen, Camron Saunders, Carson Lundell
69 – Jay Don Blake, Matt Baird, Daniel Robinson, a-Simon Kwon, a-Zac Jones, Patrick Fishburn, a-Tony Romo, Steve Schneiter
70 – a-Brandon Robison, Spencer Wallace, David Timmons, Derek Fribbs, Todd Tanner, Casey Fowles, Shane McMillan, Mitchell Schow, Zac Blair, Keanu Akina, Tele Wightman, Clayton Tribus
71 – a-Jackson Rhees, a-Kihei Akina, Mason Christison, Derek Butts, a-Bowen Mauss, Dustin Volk
72 – Steele DeWald, Devin Tovey, Jere Pelletier, Dusty Fielding, Ryan Seamons, a-Tyson Shelley, Zach Johnson, Tommy Sharp, a-Braxton Watts, Jack Trent, Blake Dyer