The 63rd JAGA Jacksonville Amateur Championship presented by Synovus needed extra golf to decide the winner and it was Adam Waller who went home victorious after defeating 2022 champion Jason Duff in a three-hole playoff.
What made the championship battle down the stretch even more interesting was the fact that it pitted a pair of local golfers against each other on the course at Jacksonville Golf and Country Club.
Waller graduated from Wolfson High in Jacksonville and will be entering his sophomore year at Valdosta State, while Duff is an Elkton resident and went to Menendez High.
Wolfson High has had quite the representation atop the leaderboard at the Jacksonville Amateur Championship in recent years, as followed in the footsteps of his former Wolfson teammate Will Davis, who won last year’s title, but was unable to defend it due to a scheduling conflict.
Waller and Duff both finished with a three-round total of six-under to force a playoff, which was decided on the 18th hole as Duff hit an errant tee shot that drifted out of bounds that proved to be the difference in the battle.
It was another close call for Duff, who finished runner-up at the event for the second consecutive year.
Waller started off the event with an opening round by shooting even par before making a charge up the board with a six-under in the second round as he found his groove.
That big second round was enough to help him win the tournament as he shot another even par in the third round before edging out Duff in the playoff.
Luke Balaskiewicz, who will be entering his senior year at the Bolles School this fall, shot five-under and finished in a tie for third place with Tyler Gulliksen of Flagler Beach.
Gulliksen was one of the more veteran players in the field, having graduated from the United States Naval Academy in 2010.
Both reached third place in different ways as Balaskiewicz pumped out a four-under first round and set the tone for the rest of his tournament, as he was the co-leader along with Waller after 36 holes.
Gulliksen, however, entered the final round at even par but got on a run en route to posting a five-under round and presenting a real threat for the overall title on the final day.
This year’s championship featured 90 of Northeast Florida’s top amateur golfers with more than half of the field having a handicap index of zero or less.
2024 is JAGA’s 71st year as an organization and 63 of those years they have held the Jacksonville Amateur Championship, which rotates among various golf courses around the Northeast Florida area. Next year’s event will be hosted by Timuquana Country Club for the first time.
