Amateur Davies in Open field

Bradley Dredge is not going to next week’s US Open, but Wales will still be represented there – by 22-year-old amateur Rhys Davies.

The Walker Cup player from Bridgend brilliantly won a final qualifying tournament in Maryland on Monday night.

A field of 65 players, mostly professionals, were competing for five spots at Oakmont and Davies’ rounds of 72 and 65 gave him a seven-under-par total, one better than US Tour winner Joey Sindelar and two ahead of Fred Funk, winner of the Players Championship only two years ago.

Former British boy champion Davies currently attends East Tennessee University, where he is combining his golf with a business degree.

As a teenager he was also a promising cricketer, but he gave up a place at the Glamorgan cricket academy to concentrate on golf.

Dredge is Wales’ top player, just missing out on victories in the Irish and Wales Opens in the last three weeks, but despite his climb back to 54th in the world he took the decision not to enter the US Open qualifier in Surrey yesterday.

Spain’s Pablo Martin, who at the Portuguese Open in April became the first amateur to win a European Tour event, will launch his professional career in the second major of the year.

With scores of 65 and 75 the 21-year-old, who is becoming a stablemate of Tiger Woods at International Sports Management, finished a superb joint 12th in Columbus, Ohio, where a powerful 144-strong field was battling for 24 places.

Among those who missed out there were former Open champions Tom Lehman, Mark Calcavecchia and Mark O’Meara, former US PGA champion Bob Tway, England’s Greg Owen and Swedes Jesper Parnevik and Daniel Chopra. Owen withdrew following a first-round 73.

John Daly was another to pull out. The former Open and US PGA champion was playing in Memphis, but also did not continue after an opening 73.

Australian Steve Elkington, who beat Colin Montgomerie in a play-off for the 1995 US PGA, was successful at the same course, but Londoner Brian Davis and Swede Mathias Gronberg failed.