Brigham Takes Home 88th Public Links Championship
COLTS NECK, N.J. – After 36 holes of action at Hominy Hill Golf Course, Corey Brigham claimed the 88th Public Links Championship on Wednesday after carding an exceptional 6-under par 66 in his second round to secure the hardware.
Brigham, age 42 and the 2002 NJSGA Amateur Champion (held that year at Hollywood Golf Club), came out slow, carding three bogeys in the first four holes to start his opening 18 holes.
“I kind of told myself they weren't really bad shots that I made bogeys with. They came up short because the air was a little heavy,” explained Brigham. “I was sitting there going, oh boy, summer's over.” said Brigham of his slow start, “It took me four holes to figure it out. But once I did, things started to improve a little bit.”
As the day heated up, so did Brigham. After carding a 3-over par 75 in the morning, Brigham shot 6-under to close the day, with two bogeys and eight birdies in the afternoon.
“I just decided, hey, it's going to be a long day. Relax. See if you can salvage what we got going on and then, maybe get hot in the afternoon.”
Brigham was riding some good momentum after medaling in the Tamarack qualifier to advance to Hominy Hill. When asked if that added to his confidence, Brigham said “Absolutely. A ton of confidence. I've been working with my buddy Aaron Asedo all year long and we've been grinding our tail off on my golf swing and haven't really got the results yet, but the shots have been there.”
Brigham’s confidence was in the right place, hoisting the Daniel M. Billy Men's Public Links trophy for the first time.
“I saw Aaron right after that qualifier. I went to see him to give me some reassurance that things were okay. He looked at me and he's like, man, you're perfect. So that was kind of what I needed to hear.”
Jason Lee of Westfield shot a 2-under par on the day to fall short of the title by one stroke. David Sampson, who won the Public Links Championship in 2019 finished in third at 1-over on the day.
Notably, Andrew Roberts shot a hole-in-one during today’s afternoon round. On No. 3, a 185-yard par 3, Roberts used his 6-iron and managed to dunk the ball off the pin.
“At this point I was not playing very well to be honest, and all pressure was off,” recalled Roberts. “You can't see the bottom of the cup. All we heard was the pin. I didn't believe it until I went up there and sure enough it's sitting in the hole and it didn't even make a dent on the cup or nothing. It just went straight in.”
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