Molinari rallies to beat Dougherty at U.S. Amateur

ARDMORE, Pa. - Bobby Jones made history on the 11th hole at Merion Golf Club. Seventy-five years later, Edoardo Molinari made a statement there.

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The 24-year-old Italian dropped a 40-foot birdie putt at No. 11 to complete a six-hole turnaround and extend his lead to three holes, then went on to beat American Dillon Dougherty 4 and 3 to win the U.S. Amateur championship on Sunday.

Molinari rallied from a three-hole deficit after 18 holes and closed out the victory with a 25-foot birdie putt at the 33rd hole.

He became the first Italian male to win a U.S. Golf Association title, and the first European to win the Amateur since Harold Hilton in 1911. He also joins Charles "Chick" Evans (1916), Bobby Jones (1924, '30), Gary Cowan (1966) and Chris Patton (1989) as amateur champions at Merion, which hosted its 17th USGA championship, the most of any club.

"It means a lot to me," Molinari said of winning at the historic Hugh Wilson-designed layout. "I still have to realize it completely. I'm really, really happy to have this win and to have won it here, especially."

The finalists earned an invitation to next year's Masters and U.S. Open, and, as the winner, Molinari gets a return trip to the British Open, where he finished 60th this year at St. Andrews.

Molinari said he'll delay his plan to go to qualifying school for the European Tour, and turn pro after next year's British Open.

He was 3-down after 18 holes. He struck quickly over the final 18 of the 36-hole match play final, and rode pinpoint putting to the title, needing just 18 putts over the last 15 holes.

"It looks crazy to me as well," said Molinari, who is to complete his work toward an engineering degree next month. "I don't know the difference from this morning to this afternoon."

Molinari birdied three of the first five holes in the afternoon to even the match.

On the 19th hole, the first of the afternoon round, his approach spun back out of the ball mark on the fringe, and he used the blade of his wedge to sink a 15-foot birdie try.

On the second, he rolled in a 20-foot birdie putt to cut Dougherty's lead to a hole, and after halving two holes, evened the match with a 6-foot birdie putt at No. 5.

He took his first lead on the 25th hole, the 345-yard seventh, with a 3-foot birdie putt.

He curled in a 35-foot birdie putt at 9 to move to 2-up and made an emphatic statement at the historic No. 11, where Jones closed out his competitive career with a victory at the 1930 Amateur.

Molinari's approach hit near the hole and spun back to approximately 40 feet. He made the long putt and unleashed his first real emotion of the match with a fist pump as Dougherty shook his head in disbelief.

Dougherty failed to match the birdie, and fell 3 down.

"I was just amazed and a little frustrated because he really didn't give me many opportunities," said Dougherty, whose father, Dan, was his caddie in the championship. "I kept hoping for an opportunity, for him to just make par when I had a good chance at looking at birdie, and he would make it.

"So, after he made that on 11, I didn't feel like it was over, but I felt like, man, this is getting ridiculous."

After halving three straight holes, Molinari closed out the match on the 15th with a long birdie putt. He took a step toward the hole and, as the ball disappeared into the cup, unleashed a sweeping uppercut in celebration.

Dougherty, a senior from Northwestern who was cheered by his purple-clad teammates and coach, had a chance to extend the match, but missed a 20-foot birdie try on almost the same line as Molinari.

Molinari shook Dougherty's hand, and then turned and embraced his father, Paolo, who had flown from Italy to follow his son in the event.

It was an amazing finish for a player who needed to make a bunker shot for birdie on the last hole of stroke play to qualify for a playoff before advancing to the 64-player match play field.

Dougherty, from Woodland, Calif., is the second Northwestern golfer to advance to the finals, joining Evans, a five-time finalist who won at Merion in 1916 and Engineers' Country Club in Roslyn, N.Y., in 1920.

The morning round started in a downpour, but Dougherty seemed unfazed, making birdie on the first and then winning three straight holes in the middle of his round to go 3-up at the break.

Molinari was sure he would come back in the afternoon.

"I was quite confident because I was playing well this morning," he said. "I just couldn't hole any putts. So, I said to myself, if I can keep on playing so well, and then maybe the putts will start to drop in and that's what happened today."

Dougherty said the hour break between rounds might have contributed to his sluggish play in the afternoon.

"In college golf, we play a lot of 36-hole days where we just play a continuous day, and I kind of like that because you get into a rhythm and you just keep going," he said. "We stopped... and that's a little hard because I just want to keep going."