Three consecutive bogeys early in his round on Friday at the San Jose Country Club didn’t frustrate Jeff Dennis.
He had enough confidence in his game to know he’d battle back.
That he did. Dennis, an assistant golf coach at the University of North Florida, played his last 12 holes at 6-under, without another bogey, and with a 67 took a two-shot lead in the Jacksonville Area Golf Association Amateur Championship at 11-under-par 133.
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Will Davis (69), a rising Davidson junior and a Wolfson graduate who shared the first-round lead with Dennis is at 9-under and Sam Geise of Ponte Vedra Beach (69) birdied three of the four par-5 holes and is third at 8-under.
Tied at 6-under are defending champion Jason Duff (71) and Andrew Riley (71), who will be teammates next month at North Florida. Riley, the reigning NCAA Division II national champion, is transferring to UNF — where they will both play for head coach Scott Schroeder and Dennis.
Keeping the trophy at UNF
Dennis, for one, wants the winner’s trophy to stay in the UNF locker room, where it’s resided since Duff smoked the field at Deerwood last year to win by 11 shots and become the 10th Osprey player to win Jacksonville amateur (in a span of 20 years) and the third in the last four years.
“If you go down the list of winners there’s a lot of past Ospreys. Just getting my name on there with all those other guys would be really cool,” said Dennis, who played for UNF from 2005-09 and was a three-time All-ASUN player, then joined the UNF staff in 2016 after attempting to play professionally.
Dennis has been around enough to know a round of golf doesn’t hinge on just a few shots and after starting at No. 10 and making two short birdie putts, he bogeyed Nos. 13, 14 and 15. The first two came after he blocked drives to the right and the last was a three-putt.
Jacksonville Amateur leaderboard
Jacksonville Amateur third-round groups, starting times
Despite the heat (it was 97 degrees when the final groups finished), Dennis kept his cool.
“I knew I wasn’t hitting it bad,” he said. “I just happened to hit a couple of bad drives and had to chip out twice. I just knew if I kept swinging the way I’d have plenty of birdie chances. I ended up making a bunch of putts and had a good back nine.”
Dennis fights back
Dennis fought back with a 10-foot birdie putt at No. 16 and a two-putt birdie at the par-5 17th. He turned and dropped four birdie putts of 10 feet or less on the front, ending with a 10-footer at No. 9.
Davis ended his round with a chip-in birdie at No. 9. Geise, a 29-year-old Ohio native who moved to Ponte Vedra 18 months ago hit 13 of 14 fairways.
“There was a little more wind today than the first round, and I had a few more 20- and 30-footers,” he said. “But I’m in the last group and I’m pretty excited about that.”
Duff was keeping pace with Dennis, playing his first 13 holes at 3-under without a bogey. But he bogeyed No. 5 and added another at the par-5 sixth hole after his second shot went under a bush to the right of the green and was unplayable.
The Menendez graduate is trying to become the first repeat winner in the Jacksonville Amateur since Robert Goettlicher in 1999 and 2000.
The cut was 6-over, with 41 players surviving to play on Saturday.
Jacksonville Area Golf Association
62nd annual Jacksonville Amateur
At San Jose Country Club (par-72, 7,027 yards)
Jeff Dennis 66-67–133
Will Davis 66-69–135
Sam Geise 67-69–136
Jason Duff 67-71–138
Andrew Riley 67-71–138
Jeff Golden 72-69–141
Toby Ragland 68-73–141
Sam Davis 74-68–142
David Palm 71-71–142
James Tureskis 73-70–143
Max Barile 71-74–144
Max McKay 73-71–144
Sam Ohno 74-70–144
Zach Lee 74-70–144
Panormitis Karatzas 72-72–144
Thomas Salatino 72-72–144
John Ambrose 72- 73–145
Jackson Klauk 75-70–145
Mark Spencer 75-71–146
Tyler Brown 70-76–146
Evan Raynor 71-75–146
Danny Erickson 75-71–146
Clay Tucker 75-72–147
Graham Nichols 73-74–147
Nate Mosby 75-72–147
Adam Waller 75-72–147
Kevin McDonald 76-71–147
William Shrewsbury 76-71–147
Andrew Morgan 72-76–148
Adam Vermut 73-75–148
Johnny Tucker 75-73–148
Michael Smith 75-74–149
Suttanit Tangyihgyong 68-81–149
Chuck Kirk 77-72–149
Andrew Stewart 78-71–149
Peter Catanzaro 77-72–149
Luke Cusick 76-73–149
Alex Dienes 77-72–149
Thomas Cavanagh 73-77–150
Raines Holmes 73-77–150
Missed the cut
Pablo Mena 73-78–151
Scott Thomas 74-77–151
Alex Taylor 75-76–151
Harrison Harper 75-76–151
Stewart Slayden 78-73–151
Chad Knickerbocker 76-75–151
Duke Butler IV 73-79–152
Jackson Sullivan 76-76–152
Patrick Hamlin 78-75–153
Matt Kleinrock 76-77–153
Dan Huffingham 78-76–154
Brent Edwards 77-78–155
Aaron DeWitt 78-77–155
Harrell Robinson Jr. 78-77–155
David Locht 79-76–155
Jake Fournier 75-80–155
Mike Holland 75-80–155
Michael Del Rocco 76-79–155
Brock Buhnerkemper 77-78–155
Clark Tiller 77-79–156
Kevin Sullivan 75-81–156
Mitchell Nolan 78-78–156
Matthew Myers 80-77–157
Alexander Waller 79-78–157
John Lobb 80-78–158
Drew Miller 82-77–159
John Makarauskas 77-82–159
Mitch Howard 81-79–160
Rocky Fraleigh 78-84–162
Jackson March 82-82–164
Drew DeBrito 81-83–164
Brian Blackburn 89-77–166
Patten Williams 81-76–167
John Milton 80-87–167
Matt Miller 88-79–167
Teddy Sotsky 82-83–163
Richard Owen 83-80–163
Easton Oliva 83-82–165
Aaron Badz 86-83–169
Tucker Bagnardi 80-91–171
Ryan Wharton 87-85–172
Stewart Knight 92-80–172
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: UNF assistant Jeff Dennis grabs two-shot lead in Jacksonville Amateur