O’Leary, Lukowicz Set to Battle for RI Amateur Title
The Rhode Island Amateur Championship match is set.
Defending champion Andrew O’Leary will battle 2017 runner up Jamie Lukowicz in a 36 hole match on Saturday at Pawtucket Country Club.
For O’Leary, Saturday’s match could be one for the history books.
O’Leary will seek to become the 13th player to win back-to-back Amateur Championships.
He will also seek to become the first player since Mike Soucy in 2001 to win the RI Amateur on his home course.
For Lukowicz, a win would avenge his 2017 loss in the final.
The 36 hole match will tee off at 7:30 a.m. at Pawtucket Country Club.
O’Leary’s Road
In the opening round of stroke play qualifying, O’Leary fire an eight-under par 61 to tie the Pawtucket Country Club course record and lead the field by seven shots.
Though he stumbled a little in the second round, he would win medalist honors relatively easily.
O’Leary cruised through his first two matches with relative ease, winning 7&5 and 4&3.
Through three and a half days of the RI Amateur, it appeared that no-one was going to touch the defending champion.
However, that all changed in the quarterfinals when he ran into Kirkbrae’s Mike Hamilton.
O’Leary was two down for a good portion of the match before rallying on the back nine.
The match went 20 holes with O’Leary escaping with the win.
During Friday’s semifinal, O’Leary was in another battle with former RI Amateur champion Kevin Silva early on, leading just one up through the first ten holes.
He then got hot and won’t two straight holes to go three up and close out the match on 16.
Lukowicz’s Road
Jamie Lukowicz entered the match play portion of the Rhode Island Amateur as a number three seed.
In his quarterfinal match, he beat Nicholas Petracca handily, 4&3, to earn a spot in the round of 16.
In his round of 16 match against Chris Roloff, he was one down through 12 holes before winning three straight holes to get the match.
That got him into the quarterfinals, where he face 2005 RI Amateur Champion Tom McCormick.
Lukowicz went two up early before McCormick won the fifth hole to cut into the lead.
The pair then halved ten straight holes before Lukowicz won the 16th hole to seal the win.
In the semifinals, Lukowicz would face two-time RI Amateur champion Bobby Leopold.
The match went back and forth with Leopold tying it on the 14th hole.
Lukowicz would then win 15 and halve the next three holes to seal the win.