Hillier Qualifies for "the" Amateur

Hillier qualifies for match play stages at The Amateur Championship

New Zealand’s number one amateur, Daniel Hillier has successfully qualified for the match play stages at 123^rd The Amateur Championship hosted by Royal Aberdeen Golf Club, Scotland.

Finishing one-under par for the day and tied 25^th, Hillier is the only New Zealander to advance as Mark Hutson narrowly missed out by two shots. This makes for a total of 77 players who earn the chance to return tomorrow and play for a ticket to The Open, The Masters and the 2019 US Open.

South African Wilco Nienaber continued his dominance to end the qualifying stages in pole position at a total of eight-under par. The 18-year-old is the first South African to finish lead qualifier and will be a difficult prospect if drawn with him in the match play stages.

Hillier went about things the hard way with two late bogeys applying huge pressure as he sat right on the cutline during the home stretch before making a sensational birdie on the challenging par three 17th to relieve some pressure.

“It’s a pretty exciting feeling, it was probably one of the more stressful back nines I have had in a while, but to be able to say I’m in the top 64 is pretty exciting and looking forward to getting underway tomorrow,” beamed the two-time New Zealand Amateur champion.

“I got to two-under before I saw the scoreboard and realised I was a couple inside the cutline which was probably the worst thing I could have done at that point, then made a couple of bogeys but finished strong with a birdie on 17.”

The New Zealand Amateur champion has also introduced a new and very unique putting technique that you shouldn’t try at home.

“I’ve been struggling with my putting a bit over the past six months, and we found that when I actually close my eyes over short putts I tend to roll it better, so I put that into play today and managed to hole a few coming in. It was a risk, but it worked,” laughed Hillier.

There will be 13 preliminary matches early tomorrow morning before Hillier will be back in action as he looks to take his match play form from the New Zealand Amateur with him to Scotland in an attempt to make history. 

Follow the Kiwis’ progress with through our social channels and live scoring available at randa.orgthroughout the championship.

Final scores: Daniel Hillier +4, Mark Hutson +8 and Luke Brown +12.