Victor’s Aiden Spampinato, who helped Methodist University win the Division III championship in May, held off a slew of contenders over the final 18 holes Thursday and won the 101st New York State Amateur Championship at Hamburg’s Wanakah Country Club.
Aiden Spampinato plays his shot from the eighth tee during the final round of the 2024 NYS Men’s Amateur Championship at Wanakah Country Club on Thursday.
Spampinato, 21, finished three rounds at 6-under-par 210 to win by a shot over 23-year-old Alex Zurat of Rochester’s Oak Hill Country Club and Scarsdale’s James Allen, who just finished his senior season at Penn State University.
“This is amazing,” said Spampinato. “So many thousands of hours of hard work have led up to this and I’m very grateful.”
Spampinato, who plays out of suburban Rochester’s Cobblestone Creek, made second-team Division III All-America for a second straight year this spring, and he was the No. 10-ranked Division III player in the nation. Methodist, in Fayetteville, N.C., is a golf powerhouse, with 14 D-III titles in the last 35 years.
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While Spampinato has had a lot of good finishes – he was third at the NYS Amateur in 2021 and ninth last year – this was his first breakthrough major amateur victory.
“This was a long time coming,” he said. “Luckily, I was able to keep it together just by going through my routine every single shot and being 100% committed to every single shot. That was a big goal for today.”
A tweak to his putting routine helped. Just before getting set to make each stroke on the green, Spampinato cocked his right shoulder backward twice.
“About a week ago, I was working with Potters Putting,” he said, referring to an online coaching program. “They wanted to see my shoulders get more level instead of the right one getting lower. The lower right shoulder was putting me out of whack, my path, and my putter face is a lot better with the shoulders level. I’ve hit hundreds of putts in my basement this week just working on that, and it really paid off.”
The 5-foot-7 Spampinato took the lead for good with three birdies in a four-hole stretch to move to 7 under after the seventh hole. He made an 8-foot putt on the par-3 fourth, and an 18-footer on the 201-yard seventh, after hitting a 5-iron.
A bunch of challengers were within a shot or two the rest of the way but never caught him.
Tonawanda's Kris Boyes, putting on the 18th green Thursday at the NYS Men's Amateur Championship, was one of two golfers to lead Buffalo-area finishers, tying for eighth overall at even par.
The top Buffalo-area finishers were 39-year-old Jamie Miller of East Aurora’s Crag Burn Golf Club and 35-year-old Tonawandan Kris Boyes. They tied for eighth at even par. Miller, a private wealth adviser at UBS Financial Services, is president of the New York State Golf Association. It was a particularly good finish for him, considering he has three children under 22 months old at home.
Allen, the 2021 state amateur champion, got to 7 under after 14 holes and was just a shot behind. But he bogeyed the tough, 210-yard 15th, then bogeyed the par-4 16th.
Zurat, who shot a course-record 63 at Oak Hill’s famed East Course last month, got within a shot after making eagle on the par-5 14th. After a 300-yard drive, he hit a 3-wood from 235.
“It ended up way right, almost on the tee box on 15,” Zurat said. “From 35 yards, I can really throw it up in the air. It went pretty high, landed once and rolled in. It was a perfect shot.”
But Zurat mis-hit a delicate chip on 16 to make bogey, then hit an errant drive right on 17 for another bogey.
Alex Zurat, driving from the eighth tee on Thursday, finished one shot behind winner Aiden Spampinato at the NYS Men's Amateur Championship.
Zurat graduated from Florida Atlantic but didn’t play golf there, instead opting to play as an amateur in Florida pro mini-tour events.
“I’m trying to get used to professional golf, where you’ve got to go low,” he said. “You’ve got to shoot 7 under.”
It was a long day at Wanakah, with 68 golfers playing 36 holes, including a two-hour weather delay. Spampinato’s final putt went down as the sun was setting at 9 p.m.
The Wanakah course, which is celebrating its 125th anniversary, withstood 1.5 inches of rain Wednesday, yet the greens still were about 12 on the Stimpmeter on Thursday. Wanakah hosted the state amateur on its 100th anniversary in 1999, but the course is even better than it was then, because there are more close-shaved runoffs around the greens, and a lot of tree removal has opened up views of Lake Erie.
“I was super-proud of having it here,” Miller said. “It’s a 10 out of 10. A lot of it was (member) John Braun, a guy who decided to cut more trees down to create these great views.”
