Pesky third hole dooms Macaranas

R.J. Macaranas is out of contention in the boys’ 9-10 division of the 2008 Callaway Golf Junior World Golf Championship after putting up a monster number at Torrey Pines yesterday.

Macaranas’ bad performance on hole No. 3 contributed to the CNMI golfer finishing with a 15 over par 77.

According to his father, Richard, Macaranas’ game began to unravel on the third hole, where his son suffered an embarrassing blow to his mental game when his tee shots continued to land out of bounds on three attempts.

“He thought he was going to be stuck on that hole all day long. That is the first time he has ever carded an 11 on a hole—a snowman (8) over par. Later, I asked why was he was in so much pressure, and he said that he had no idea why he his emotions beat him… R.J. learned a hard lesson not to beat up on himself,” he said in an email to the Saipan Tribune.

One silver lining in Macaranas’ disastrous third hole though is the youth golfer refused to give up after regaining his bearings in the following holes.

“After the bad hole R.J. fought back, and finished good with five over par in 15 holes. However, he ended up with 15-over par, a 77, placing him out of contention. Projected cut is the Top 30 or about a two-day score of 130. This means R.J. has to score nine-under par 53 tomorrow just to make the cut,” said Richard.

Macaranas, who had to track down last year’s CNMI flag from Torrey Pines during the parade of nations on opening day, had very high expectations for himself before the start of the competition.

“Unfortunately, he had the worst hole in his life,” said Richard.

Norman Xiong currently leads boys’ 9-10 division with a four-under par 58.

According to the elder Macaranas, the former 6-and-under Junior World Champion incidentally was born in Guam and represented the U.S. territory in the Junior Championship until the age of six.

“I learned about this during one of our practice rounds together at the Welk Resort. On that practice round we saw him birdie eight holes. His father figure and uncle James use to have a Guam-based Taiwan travel business,” he said.

Macaranas’ close friend Issei Tanabe, for his part, was on course to shooting a three-under par when the constant changing of elevation hindered his play. “He constantly had to play with a bloody nose and effectively ruined a good round.”

Macaranas’ father and mother, Becky, both hail from Saipan.

The Callaway Junior World Championship is one of the biggest youth competitions in golf and previous boys champions include Notah Begay III, Ernie Els, Phil Mickelson, Corey Pavin, Nick Price, Craig Stadler, David Toms, and Tiger Woods.