The kid made it, then just might be out.
Amateur Kihei Akina, 18, fired a pair of 69s to be on his way to making the cut in the first-ever Black Desert Championship before a late barrage of low scores in the final hour of Friday’s round bumped him out as low amateur playing his first PGA Tour event.
But Akina still has hope after the second round Friday was suspended due to darkness. If a handful of players make Saturday morning bogeys, he might survive and play the weekend.
Akina, who started on No.10 Friday, made birdies on finishing holes 3, 5, 6 and 7, lifting himself above the cutline, which was 3-under when he walked off the course in the early afternoon.
That cut then moved to 4-under and he appeared safe before it dropped to 5-under two hours later. Former BYU star Zac Blair, who finished at 5-under par, did advance to weekend play.
Blair will be the only player left of nine locals in the field if Akina is cut Saturday morning.
“I thought I had to make a birdie to make the cut,” said Akina of his last hole, the Par 5 No. 9. He was right, two hours later. He reached a greenside bunker in two then splashed out to 10 feet and stared down a tricky breaking putt that was difficult to read by line and speed.
He missed his birdie and tapped in for a par.
Things looked bleak early for Akina, and he had to regroup, almost like a veteran.
“Yeah, I was struggling pretty good from probably hole 6 to 11. I made a bunch of bogeys. I just told myself I belong out there, and on No. 3 I told myself if I just play the best golf I’ve ever played then I’d be fine. So, I played good. I just kept telling myself I belong out there and tried to feel as comfortable as I could out there,” he said.
“There are a lot of people out here, but it was a good experience. Hopefully I have a couple of more rounds out here.”
Blair trails leader Stephen Jaeger by nine shots. Jaeger fired an 8-under par on Friday to elevate him to sole possession of first place at 14-under par.
He has a one-stroke lead over first round leader Adam Svensson and Ben Kohles, in at 13-under.
Other locals Jay Don Blake, Mike Weir, Peter Kuest, Patrick Fishburn, Dustin Volk, Bowen Mauss and Zac Jones failed to advance. Blake, a local St. George hero making his 500th professional start, finished 73-79, +10.
Akina is a senior at Lone Peak High School in Alpine and is ranked the No. 12 junior player in the country. A BYU commit, Akina finished T49 in the Korn Ferry Tour’s Utah Championship this summer with a 13-under par finish that included a round of 66 at Oakridge Country Club.
Akina’s phenomenal finish, a 33 on his final nine, firmly established him as one of the Top 70 players in the field after 36 holes.
Playing with a sponsor’s exemption in his first PGA Tour event at Black Desert, Akina made the most of that gift and made a prophet out of Black Desert creator Patrick Manning, who took a gamble in offering the teenager an exemption into the first PGA Tour event in Utah since 1963.
Blair became the low local player when he fired a two-under par second round 69 Friday. He when he walked off his 18th hole at 5-under for the week, tied for 49th.
“Hopefully I can have a couple of good days and get closer to the top of the leaderboard,” he said. “I drove it OK and kept it in play, which is kind of the most important thing on this course. I made a few putts. One of them rattled in on No. 17. I missed a few shorter ones I wish I’d made.”
Blair said the local support with Fishburn “was cool” and said the course was tricky on Friday with tougher pins.
“The course was playing soft in the mornings and wasn’t going as far and you have to adjust from the morning to the afternoon,” he said. “We had it pretty perfect this morning and I should have taken more advantage of it, but I shot in the 60s.”
Blair said Black Desert presents a big challenge for Tour players in that there is unplayable golf left and right off the tee because of the lava fields.
A missed shot either way easily brings double-bogey to the card.
“If you can keep it in play, they’ll think it’s a fun place, but if you’re shoving it off the tee, you’re probably ready to get out of here,” he said.
Ironically Blair, a native of Ogden who lives in Orem, has won plenty of tournaments in St. George over his career, but this week marked his first time playing Black Desert.
The former Cougar and son of BYU All-American Jimmy Blair, who owns nearby Bloomington Golf Club, told media he’d been feeling some uneasiness in his shoulder the past few weeks.
He’d previously had shoulder surgery and sat out more than a year.
“Actually last week was kind of the first time that it was really not great,” said Blair. “I had to go get an MRI this week on Tuesday, and it came back OK for my labrum, but we’ll see. It was really the first time last week in Jackson where it was like, ‘It doesn’t feel awesome.”
Blair said it wasn’t really painful.
“I don’t really know what it is. I went in to see if it was a torn labrum because it kind of felt like that’s what it was, but they said it wasn’t,” he said. “There were some other things they said that maybe I’ll go get it checked out after Vegas next week, but overall it feels good.
“It was kind of one of those things where it was hurting for a few days so I went and got that done and found out it wasn’t a torn labrum. It was a little sore out there the last few days.”
Fishburn played with his high school teammate Blair and birdied the tough par 4s on the front before running into trouble. He missed the cut with a two-under (68-74).
“I made a silly bogey on 16. I thought I hit a good shot but hit it a little too far and rolled into a tough spot to get up and down,” he said. “On 14 I landed on the green and trickled on the edge and rolled down and couldn’t get it up and down. On No. 2, a layup hole, I hit it in the rocks and took a double. There were plenty of positives, but I didn’t play well this week.”
Fishburn is comfortably ranked in FedEx Cup Standings to ensure his card next season.
“I just had too much spin and didn’t adjust,” said Fishburn, who made pars both days on the Par-5 18th when others made birdies. He plans on playing in four more tournaments this year.
“If I get some top 5s, it will change things for me next year.”
Fresh off his captaincy for the Internationals in the President’s Cup, former Masters champ Weir came within a few feet on some holes of either shooting 5-under or 3-over 74 on Friday.
He missed the cut at even-par 68-74.
“I had a 10 footer straight up the hill on 10 and left it a half a roll short,” he said. “On 11 I had a beautiful shot in there and it released to the back of the green 18 feet from the hole, but I was in the fringe and had to pop it. It went by four feet and I missed it. I could have easily been 2-under after two and was 1-over. I birdied the next and then the next.
“I wanted to be more aggressive today. I took a chance on 14 and my drive literally didn’t clear it by a foot and I made a 6. It’s a bummer. The way my game has been shaping up, I expected to be a contender. I’m not just trying to make a cut, but win. I could have been 5-under with momentum and it didn’t happen for me today.”
Weir praised Black Desert, saying guys on Tour look for places their kids can have a good time and to have everything right at the course where they’re playing. Fun things to do makes it a place they’ll consider when making out their calendar.
“The course is holding up very well,” he said.
Black Desert is the first PGA Tour course to deploy fully robotic self-guided electric mowers to maintain 51 acres of fairways and rough, an operation that saves money, gas and manpower.
Golf Digest featured the technology in this piece. Writes John Clark, “The machines—developed by the Salt Lake City-based group FireFly, a company with roots in the agriculture, turf and sod sector—will be deployed daily at 2 a.m. to mow the 7,371-yard, 71-par course nestled in a lava field in the southern Utah town of Ivins. After setting the perimeter by GPS and selecting a cut pattern, four mowers will make the cut over four hours and 30 minutes, leaving grounds crew to focus on roughs, greens and tee boxes, or any of the other endless details involved in maintaining a golf course.”
United We Pledge received a $200,000 check from Balance of Nature and Black Desert Resort on Friday. Managing partner of Black Desert, Patrick Manning, joined Utah Gov. Spencer Cox; president of United We Pledge Dennis Leavitt; Balance of Nature CEO Lex Howard and Balance of Nature founder Douglas Howard for the donation ceremony on the course.
