U.S. AMATEUR PUBLIC LINKS Snedeker rolls to championship

GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP, N.J. (AP) -- Brandt Snedeker won the 78th U.S. Amateur Public Links Championship on Saturday, posting a 10 and 9 match play victory over Dayton Rose.
The 22-year-old Snedeker of Nashville, Tenn., took a three-hole lead after the first 18-hole round, then started rolling.
Riding crisp iron play and precision putting, he carded birdies on five of the next nine holes to end the scheduled 36-hole event after 27 holes.
In doing so, the Vanderbilt graduate won himself a berth in the 2004 Masters. The tournament has historically extended an invite to the Public Links Championship winner.
The victory also tied for the second-largest margin in the event's history -- after Jim Sorenson's 12 and 11 victory in 1985.
Snedeker, whose performance in the stroke play portion of the 156-player event earned him the No. 2 seed, knocked off defending champion Ryan Moore 4 and 3 earlier this week at Blue Heron Pines Golf Club.
On Saturday, he outplayed the long-hitting Rose from the start, seizing a two-hole lead after the first three holes and posting birdies on two of the last four holes of the opening round.
Despite 350-yard drives that routinely surpassed Snedeker's, Rose could not keep up.
He bogeyed the first hole of the second round, then lost No. 2 after Snedeker nailed a 7-foot birdie putt. On the 562-yard par-4 fourth hole, Snedeker chipped to 1 1/2 feet and then hit a birdie, pushing the lead to six.
Coming into No. 9, he had a nine-hole lead. Then he relied on memories of his collegiate days, when he was known on the Vanderbilt team as someone who always birdied the last hole of his round.
He landed his tee shot in the rough right of the green, but chipped to 11 feet and then nailed his 11th birdie of the day.