Jonathan Brightwell thought he was pretty adept at controlling his golf ball. Then the 22-year-old from Charlotte, North Carolina, moved to Oklahoma for a fifth year on the Sooner golf roster. He had never even been to Oklahoma (or Texas) until then.
“You gotta adapt and I think I’m getting better and better at it,” he said. “Playing it every day is definitely helpful. There’s some type of wind every day back home. The East Coast you get plenty of days where it’s just perfect. No wind.”
Wind control is key this week at the Maridoe Amateur, a new event at Maridoe Golf Club in Carrollton, Texas, that pits the top amateurs in the country against each other in a similar setup to a USGA championship (plus one extra round of stroke play).
After an early round of 3-under 69 in Tuesday’s second round – an 11-shot turnaround from his opening 80 – Brightwell climbed the leaderboard with every refresh. If you don’t know where you’re trying to place it at Maridoe, Brightwell said, you’re going to struggle. Experience helps. Brightwell saw this course in October when he played the Maridoe Collegiate with his team. He finished T-13 that week.
“This place can kind of make you look silly,” he said. “It’s just that tough.”
Scores: Maridoe Amateur
Temperatures have hovered in the high 30s and low 40s so far this week, with winds gusting as high as 30 mph in Round 1. Brightwell – who had climbed inside the top 10 by mid-afternoon – needs to remain inside the top 64 through one more round of stroke play, which seems likely at this point. You might say he’s sneaky good in that format.
In his past four years at North Carolina-Greensboro, Brightwell saw little match play in the regular season. That was a summer thing. But this fall, two of his three starts with the Sooners included head-to-head play. He was 4-1 at Big 12 Match Play – losing only to Baylor’s Johnny Keefer – and won both matches at the East Lake Cup (the only Oklahoma player who can make that claim).
Brightwell was unaware of that stat entering the Maridoe Amateur, but appreciates the format mostly because growing up in North Carolina, it meant playing against his buddies. As has been his story this fall, match play rewards good play.
“Very rarely someone wins if they don’t play the best in a match-play event,” he said.
His surroundings helped him in that respect. At Oklahoma, which finished a shortened 2020 season atop the Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings (and remained there after the fall season), if you don’t play well, you don’t play. Brightwell knew that it would test his game when he transferred in to use the fifth year the NCAA made available to college seniors after the 2020 spring season was canceled.
“Being in that fire and having to play against these guys that are really, really good all the time made me uncomfortable, but it was a good uncomfortable because I had to play well,” he said of team qualifying at Oklahoma. “I had to constantly constantly play well.
“I think that translated into some of our fall events because you play well and you know you’re supposed to be there and then you go out and you play well for your guys and your team when you’re traveling. It’s like this recurring you gotta play good golf.”
No other player had a red number on the Maridoe leaderboard on Tuesday, with many players going in the reverse direction. Brightwell, at 5 over, was three shots behind co-leaders Frankie Capan and Leo Oyo (who both went 70-76) by the time they finished their rounds in near darkness.
As the field thins out, the competition gets more intense.
With U.S. Walker Cup captain Nathaniel Crosby on property this week, selection to that team becomes a talking point – especially with the matches moved up from September to May. Brightwell hasn’t spent much time thinking about it. Once again, good play takes care of itself.
“This is a pretty unique event but stout competition, match play,” Brightwell said in noting the theater in North Texas this week. “The last three or four matches coming down to quarterfinals and on will be probably some incredible golf on a really tough golf course.”
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