OHIO AMATEUR Par is foreign to most players on Aurora course
Sloped greens have kept the scores up.
AURORA (AP) -- David Allan has "scraped it" around at the Ohio Amateur golf championship for 36 holes. Hard telling what will happen if he finally starts playing well.
The Terrace Park native was four shots worse than he was the day before but one stroke better than Ashland's Steve Paramore through Wednesday's second round of the 97th Ohio Amateur.
"Funny thing -- I'm hitting the ball as bad as I can hit it," said Allan, who shot a 74 to stand at 2-over 142. "I'm keeping it relatively in play. I guess I've played long enough to know where it's going. I'm doing a good job of scraping it around."
The winner
For the second day in a row, Aurora Golf and Country Club was the clear-cut winner against the state's finest amateurs. Of the 144 players who were scheduled to start, only three broke par in the opening round and just two in the second.
The average score was 78.56 -- roughly a shot per round under what it was during the first round.
A light rain wet the course on Tuesday night but gusting winds dried out the greens and made them slick, fast and hard in the second round. Those who misclubbed on their approach shots usually found themselves facing 30-foot putts coming back down the sloping greens -- sometimes with a sidehill contour like those found on the local putt-putt course.
Paramore began the day with a one-shot lead over Duke senior-to-be David French of Upper Arlington. Allan, who shot a 70, was alone in third.
By the end of the wind-blown second round, defending champion Kevin Kornowa of Sylvania was tied for third with Princeton player Jason Gerken and Matt Marino of North Ridgeville -- all of them two shots back of Allan.
Three-time state high school medalist Jason Kokrak of Warren Kennedy High, who now plays at Xavier, was joined at 5-over 147 by Cincinnati's Brad Marsh and Sandusky's Justin Bertsch. Bertsch plays at Toledo, while Marsh is a former University of Cincinnati golfer.
Wind has also worked against the elite field. On many holes, the wind direction shifted 180 degrees between rounds.
Stymied
"The wind is absolutely the opposite of what it was yesterday," Gerken said, shrugging his shoulders.
Paramore was hired as the University of Ashland's women's golf coach just weeks ago and is playing his first tournament since returning from his honeymoon. His bride, Kerre, is his caddie this week.
After his opening 68, the former Florida Southern golfer was 2-under through 10 holes but then had bogeys at Nos. 12 and 16 and a double-bogey at 15.
"I'm surprised as short as the golf course is that somebody hasn't gone low. But par is a good score on every hole. Every green is sloped like this," Paramore said, angling his hand at a 45-degree angle. "You're going to have a putt that takes your full attention every time. If you have a lapse, you'll be putting off the green."