Chris Tanabe Wins Pennsylvania Amateur Championship

RECAP: Christopher Tanabe wins the 106th Pennsylvania Amateur at historic Aronimink GC, presented by @1LECOM. https://t.co/GtQpG2UEx4 pic.twitter.com/tlC8TNeikM
— Pennsylvania Golf Association (@PA_Golf) July 31, 2019

NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa. -- Chris Tanabe, a rising junior on the Bucknell men's golf team, won the 106th Pennsylvania Amateur Championship on Wednesday at Aronimink Golf Club. Buoyed by an incredible 28 on the opening nine of his second round, Tanabe posted a 5-under-par 205 over 54 holes to hold off Nate Menon -- a member of Stanford's 2019 national championship team -- and Kansas State's Kyle Vance by two strokes.

Tanabe, who is clearly back in form after a six-week break to study in Grenada, Spain earlier this summer, led the field with 14 birdies, and it was his lone eagle that got him going in the second round. After opening with a 1-under 69 on Monday, Tanabe holed out for eagle from the fairway at the par-4 first hole in Tuesday's middle round. He later birdied holes 4, 5, 7, 8 and 9 for a sensational 7-under 28 on the outward nine.

Tanabe ended up with a second-round 65 to give him a three-shot lead entering the final 18 on Wednesday. He continued his dominance on the first hole with a birdie to start the day, and then back-to-back birdies at 6 and 7 moved him to 8-under for the championship and gave him a commanding five-stroke advantage atop a talented leaderboard. Tanabe canceled a bogey at 10 with a birdie at the par-5 16th hole, and after an hour-and-a-half weather delay, he had plenty of cushion to work with to absorb a few dropped strokes on the final two holes.

Tanabe was one of seven players in the field to shoot even-par or better, several of whom are top college players. Wyomissing's Menon (-3) is a rising junior at NCAA-champion Stanford who finished 23rd at the Pac-12 Championships last spring. He made the Cardinal's lineup for the third round of the NCAA Stroke Play Championship. Co-runner-up Vance (-3) is an Audubon, Pa., native who will be a junior at Kansas State in 2019-20. Connor Schmidt (-2), the No. 1 man at Drexel, is a familiar face at or near the top of the leaderboard at many of the tournaments in which Bucknell competes. Schmidt, a two-time medalist who broke Drexel's school scoring average record last year, was part of a four-man playoff along with Tanabe and Connor O'Brien at the Quechee Club Collegiate Challenge last fall. Seventh-place finisher Max Siegfried (E) is a rising junior at Virginia who just won the Aronimink Club Championship last week.

Aronimink GC served as the host of the 1962 PGA Championship, won by Gary Player. Keegan Bradley won the 2018 BMW Championship there in 2018, and Aronimink has also hosted the 1977 U.S. Amateur, the 2003 Senior PGA Championship, and the 2010 and 2011 AT&T National. The course will host the 2020 Women's PGA Championship and the 2026 PGA Championship.

Tanabe, who plays out of Sewickley Hights GC near Pittsburgh, finished T-7th at the 2019 Patriot League Championship to earn All-Patriot League honors for the first time. Earlier in the spring he earned his first collegiate victory with a win at the Abarta Coca-Cola Collegiate Challenge, hosted by Lafayette. He shot 3-under (69-72) to win the title by one stroke.

Tanabe is no stranger to success in state-level tournaments. He won the PIAA state title at Quaker Valley High School, and just before arriving at Bucknell he was the runner-up at the 2017 Pennsylvania State Junior Championship at Hershey CC.

The Bison men's golf team kicks off its 2019-20 season at the Alex Lagowitz Memorial Invitational at Colgate's Seven Oaks CC on Sept. 7-8.

Chris Tanabe Wins Pennsylvania Amateur Championship

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