World-Class Field Set to Compete in 22nd Sahalee Players Championship; Qualifier Fills Final Spots


An impressive field of amateur talent will converge on the Pacific Northwest and Sahalee Country Club in Sammamish, Wash., for the 22nd Sahalee Players Championship (SPC), to be played June 29-July 1, 2015. The championship will be contested over 72 holes of stroke play, with 36 holes being played the first day, 18 the second, and 18 on the third and final day.

This year the SPC field will consist of 66 of the top amateur golfers from around the world.

A qualifier to fill the final three spots was held Monday, June 22 at The Home Course in DuPont, Wash., with the three advancing to the championship proper being Adam Barker, a freshman at Olympic College in Bremerton, Wash.; R.J. Manke of Lakewood, Wash.; and Stuart Macdonald of Vancouver, B.C., a senior from Purdue University.

Among the elite players committed to play in this year's SPC is Gunn Yang, the reigning U.S. Amateur champion, a victory that exempted him into the 2015 U.S. Open last week at Chambers Bay. Yang, who attended Torrey Pines High School in Calif. before playing for two years on the San Diego State men's golf team, recently made the cut in the PGA Tour's Crowne Plaza Invitational.

Also playing is Byron Meth, who won the 2014 U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship. Just finishing his junior year at the University of the Pacific, Meth tied for sixth in last year's SPC and made it to the Round of 16 in the 2014 U.S. Amateur.

Jake Knapp, the individual champion of the 2014 Husky Invitational, is also in this year's field. Knapp, a junior at UCLA, also played in last week's U.S. Open.

The strong international contingent at SPC is led by 17-year-old Cheng Jin of China, who won a PGA Tour China event in November 2014 and has four other top-20 finishes on that tour. He was the medalist at last year's U.S. Junior Amateur.

There are 10 players coming from Australia and New Zealand.

Corey Pereira, who just finished his sophomore year playing for the University of Washington men's golf team, returns to the SPC this year, having tied for second in the championship last year. Pereira won the 2014 Pacific Coast Amateur Championship.

Past champions of this prestigious amateur championship include Kyle Stanley, Casey Martin, Peter Uihlein, Nick Taylor, Daniel Summerhays, Ryan Moore, Chris Williams, Arron Oberholser and Jason Gore, among others.

Five of the past 11 SPC champions were winners of the Ben Hogan Award, given to the nation's top collegiate golfer. More than a dozen SPC participants have gone on to play on the PGA Tour.

The SPC scoring record at Sahalee is the 16-under 272 (68-69-68-67) shot in 2004 by Moore, a native of Puyallup, Wash. now on the PGA Tour.

Admission is free to watch the championship.

For more information on the 22nd Sahalee Players Championship, including player bios and live scoring, visit www.sahaleeplayerschampionship.com.