Matt Weber's runner-up finish is believed to be the best by a high school player in the tournament’s 99-year history.
This time, experience triumphed over youth.
Brandon Aydlett had the experience. The Metairie native had been trying to win the State Amateur Golf Championship since he was 18, just before he began a four-year playing career at LSU.
That was one year before Matt Weber was born.
But there they were, the 36-year-old Aydlett, a veteran of Louisiana Golf Association events and with experience on professional mini-tours before regaining his amateur status in 2012 … and Weber, who just finished his junior year at St. Thomas More High and had never teed it up in any LGA championship event.
The original 144-player field in the 99th edition of the state’s premier amateur golf event had been whittled down to a two-player race entering Sunday’s final round at Oakbourne Country Club, with former LSU golfer Aydlett and Weber tied for the lead through 54 holes. The two were still tied through nine holes Sunday, and again were deadlocked with five holes to go.
It was Aydlett who did the finishing Sunday, stringing together nine straight pars on that back nine and finishing with a two-under 70 final round and a six-under-par 282 to win by four shots.
Weber struggled to find greens in the closing stages, and a putter that had been solid through three rounds deserted him, finishing with four bogeys on the final five holes and taking runner-up honors at two-under 286.
Aydlett made it happen with a series of two-putt pars on each of the last eight holes, after seeing his second multi-stroke lead evaporate at the turn Sunday. One of those pars came at the par-four 14th where Weber was not able to get up-and-down from under trees on the left side of the fairway. That became a disappointing refrain for the reigning Acadiana Area High School Golf League medalist and a two-time top-five finisher in the LHSAA state championship.
UL sophomore Jack Tolson of Opelousas finished off a 69-71 weekend for third place, five strokes back at one-under 287, and former State Amateur champion Greg Berthelot was three more strokes back at 290. Berthelot won the state’s top amateur event in 2011, the last time it was held at Oakbourne.
Weber was the only player in the field to record three sub-par rounds (71-70-71) Thursday through Saturday before finishing with a 40 on Sunday’s back nine and a closing two-over 74.
Aydlett knows the heartbreak of close calls. He finished second behind Patrick Christovich in 2012 at TPC Louisiana and was third at Monroe’s Bayou de Siard in 2015 despite a final round 68. He also was second in the Mid-Amateur (age 25 and over) in 2014 before finally breaking through in an LGA event when he won the 2015 Mid-Amateur.
He did that in quite different fashion than his second-round 67, a bogey-free trip that could have been even better when more makeable birdie putts didn’t’ fall. On Sunday, he wasn’t as accurate with approach shots, but made a series of solid lag putts and a couple of clutch par saves over the final nine holes.
The pivotal hole was Oakbourne’s treacherous par-three ninth, where Aydlett held a one-shot lead but dumped his tee shot in the front water of the 140-yard hole. Weber, playing in the final group with Aydlett and Berthelot and coming off a birdie at the par-four eighth that pulled him within one shot, hit his tee ball within 10 feet.
Aydlett went to the drop area and calmly hit a wedge six feet past the hole, making the downhill putt, and only dropped one shot when Weber missed the birdie putt.