Hayes To Compete At USGA Mid-Amateur

Maine's lone competitor at the USGA Mid-Amateur National Golf Championship in Atlanta this weekend is Portland's John Hayes.

The Mid-Amateur Championship is for players 25-years-old and up. There are 264 golfers from all over the world who qualified for the tournament.

Hayes qualified for the tourney at a regional in Massachusetts back in August.

He began his 2017 golf year in Bangor back in early June, winning the Downeast Metro Amateur Tournament held at Bangor Muni and Kebo Valley in Bar Harbor. Hayes tied for sixth place at the Maine Amateur Championship and finished fourth in the Maine Mid-Amateur Championship.

Once he gets to Atlanta on Saturday, he'll play two days of stroke play. The top 64 golfers move into match play competition on Monday.

This is the 36th year the USGA has sponsored the Mid-Amateur Championship.

Bangor's Staci Creech qualified for a second straight year for the USGA Women's Mid-Amateur Tournament but she will have to wait until next month to compete on the national stage.

The women's tournament was scheduled for this weekend in Naples, Florida but Hurricane Irma caused extensive damage to the host site at the Quail Creek CC course and clubhouse.

The USGA scrambled and moved the event to Houston, Texas. The date was changed to November 11th through the 16th.

Creech won her third straight Maine Women's Amateur Championship this summer and qualified for the national tournament in Massachusetts in August.