Ben Schlottman of Advance drained a short birdie putt on the 11th hole at Pinehurst No. 2 to win the championship match of the 118th North & South Amateur on June 29.
Schlottman, a 22-year-old from Advance who finished his senior season at Auburn last spring, made the putt to beat Mitchell Meissner 8 and 7.
“It’s crazy to see the history of this tournament and who has won, so it has been quite a journey,” Schlottman, who sank a remarkable 30-foot birdie putt on No. 18 during stroke-play action to advance him into match play, told the Winston-Salem Journal.
The long birdie put Schlottman in a playoff with nine golfers. They would fight for six spots in the field of 32 in match play.
“It ended up three of us were still left for two spots and I made it in,” he told the Journal.
In match play, Schlottman was seeded 31st. That didn’t keep him from knocking off one opponent after another. He beat No. 2 seed Ben Shipp 3 and 1 in his first match. Then he eliminated Gray Townsend 4 and 3. Interestingly enough, Townsend and Schlottman were teammates at Forsyth Country Day, and they helped FCD win a state championship in 2013.
Schlottman beat Kyle Suppa 1 up in the quarterfinals. He beat Jose Montano 1 up in the semifinals.
“It was nice today because we only had to play one match,” he said. “I played a lot of golf but it was obviously worth it.
“I really rolled it so well all week, and that’s really what you have to do on those greens. Even today in warmups, I could tell my putting was going to be good.”
Schlottman, who lives in Oak Valley, played at Auburn from 2014-15 through 2017-18. He helped the Tigers reach the semifinals of the NCAA Championship. He graduated with a degree in business.
In 2014-15, he became the first freshman in Auburn history to be named Golfweek All-American honorable mention. He was the first freshman in Auburn history to be named to the All-SEC first team. He was also the SEC Freshman of the Year. As a senior, he averaged 71.52 strokes per round, the 13th-best single-season mark in program history.
In regard to winning the North & South Amateur, he said: “This means so much to me. To win such a prestigious event that carries with it so much history, and to do it with my parents (Jeanne and Jeff) here and following me, it’s something I’ll never forget.”