Eyster comes through in clutch, wins State Amateur
There was nothing easy about Taylor Eyster’s most recent victory on the golf course.
Heading to the final regulation hole of the 101st Alabama State Amateur Championship on June 11, Eyster was told that competitor Turk Pettit, playing in the group ahead of him, finished with a birdie to put him in a tie atop the leaderboard with Eyster.
A birdie would win the tournament. A par would force a playoff.
Eyster’s approach shot virtually eliminated the birdie opportunity and made par suddenly a tricky proposition, as his ball came to rest on the back lip of a greenside bunker.
“I just tried to stay relaxed,” said Eyster of the moment. “The more pressure you put on yourself is not going to do anything but hurt you. My caddy is a good friend of mine and we were just joking around the whole time.”
The strategy worked, as Eyster finessed the tough bunker shot to within eight feet of the hole and drained the par putt to finish the four-day, 72-hole tournament, tied at 14-under par with Pettit.
“It was the up-and-down of my life,” Eyster said.
The two men went to a three-hole aggregate playoff. Pettit scored par on all three holes and Eyster took home the crown by birdieing the second hole of the playoff to finish at 1-under par.
Eyster was competing in the State Amateur Championship for the fourth time, with this year’s tournament at the Bent Brook Golf Club in Bessemer. He had never played the course prior to the tournament but found that he was comfortable with it.
“It was a lot of fun,” he said. “The course suited my game and I hit it really well that week.”
Eyster, a Mountain Brook native who recently completed his junior year at UAB, was at or near the top of the leaderboard the entire tournament, holding a co-lead after 54 holes. He shot 68 in the first, third and fourth rounds and put up a 70 in the second round.
He said he actually prefers to be a stroke or two back at the beginning of the final round, so all the attention and pressure is not focused on his group.
“I like coming from behind,” Eyster said. “Luckily, I was able to play with both the guys that were co-leading.”
Being able to maintain his high level of play despite being at the top of the leaderboard was encouraging to Eyster, who feels like he has learned some lessons from his previous experiences.
He said, “The last few times I’ve been in that kind of moment where I’ve been tied for the lead, I haven’t closed that well. Finishing off with a win was a boost of confidence.”
Eyster finished high enough in 2015 and 2016 to automatically qualify for the State Amateur in the following year, so he has had no qualifying pressure for the event in recent years. He hopes to turn pro after his college golfing career concludes, which currently includes a pair of appearances at the NCAA Championships and an individual win at the Conference USA Championship in 2016.
“[My college career] has been fun,” he said. “We went to nationals my first two years, we’ve played on a lot of great courses, and we’ve got most of the guys coming back from last year’s team. We should be pretty good.”