Beavers leads Snohomish County Amateur by 4 strokes

MUKILTEO — It is usually better to be lucky than good, as the saying goes. Though on a difficult golf course, it really helps to be both.

And that was the formula Kevin Beavers of Seattle used on Sunday to take a four-stroke lead through two rounds of the 85th annual Snohomish County Amateur golf tournament. Playing on his home course of Harbour Pointe Golf Club, and combining some savvy play with a few breaks, the 31-year-old Beavers crafted a round of 1-under-par 71 for a two-day total of 3-under 141 heading into today’s final round at Everett’s Legion Memorial Golf Course.

Beavers, a Boeing employee who is also the assistant boys golf coach at Kamiak High School — and the Knights practice and play at Harbour Pointe — had five birdies, two bogeys and a double-bogey in his round, making him one of only two players in the 49-man first division field to slip under par Sunday.

The other was Joe Fryer, a Kamiak grad and a member of the Western Washington University golf team. Fryer, also from Harbour Pointe, likewise had a 71 on Saturday and is tied for second place at 145 with Tyler Hanson of Pro Golf Discount.

For Beavers, a former member of the University of Portland men’s golf team, playing on a course he knows well “probably gives me a little bit of an advantage,” he said. “They had a lot of tough pins out there, and if you don’t know Harbour Pointe the pins they had today could really chew you up. You had to know where to miss on some holes.”

The funny thing was, he added, “I played the hard holes well. All the tough holes that require you to man up and hit a (difficult) shot, I played those holes well. But I felt like some of the easier holes I didn’t play that well. … I also got away with some shots, and at times I got lucky.”

Case in point of the latter, the par-5 sixth hole. Beavers hit two 3-woods to about 50 yards from the pin before sending a pitch over the green. But his return chip from about 45 feet trickled into the cup, “and that was a good break,” he said. “There were things like that went my way.”

There were some miscues as well. On the par-4 15th hole, his tee shot ended up against the lip of a bunker. Beavers had to punch a shot out to the fairway, then pulled his approach shot to the fringe left of the green. From there he three-putted for a double-bogey 6.

On the whole, he said, “it could’ve been better, but it certainly could’ve been worse. So I’m not going to complain, that’s for sure.”

Five-time champion Alex Stamey, bidding to break his tie with Bob Whisman for the most titles in County Am history, had a rare birdie-less round on his way to a 5-over 77. The 51-year-old Stamey had two bogeys on the front nine and three more on the back nine, giving him a two-round total of 3-over 147 and leaving him in a three-way tie for fifth.

The round was “disappointing,” said Stamey, who represents Everett Golf and Country Club. “I hit the ball as good as I did (Saturday), but my putter really let me down. I made four (three-putt) bogeys with my putter … and that’s obviously not what I was expecting.”

The task of catching Beavers in today’s final round is do-able, but will certainly be difficult “because Legion is a wide-open golf course and Kevin is an outstanding golfer,” Stamey said. “He’s not going to falter at Legion because there’s no place out there to get hurt. … Someone’s going to have to go very low to catch him because Kevin is not going to give it away.”

Like Stamey, first-round leader Dylan Stensland of Snohomish had a frustrating round. One day after shooting a 3-under 69, he slipped to a 6-over 78 and is also tied for fifth at 147.

Tournament officials initially penalized the players in three threesomes one stroke apiece for slow play, but those penalties were later rescinded because all three groups finished within the allotted 41/2-hour period for their rounds.

In the second division, for handicaps from 5.1-9.9, the second-round co-leaders are Jeff Abernathy of Everett’s Walter Hall Golf Course and Mark Hyung Park of Mill Creek Country Club, both with low-net 138s. In the third division, for handicaps of 10.0-20.3, the low-net leader is Kyung Wook Oh at 130.