Arturo Estrada beat Jeffrey Canarelli 3&2 to win the 2023 Nevada State Net Amateur Championship. The three-day event was held Aug. 10-12, 2023 at the Red Hawk Golf and Resort’s Lakes Course.–by Bill Bowman, Las Vegas Golf Insider
The field played 36 holes of stroke play, 18 each on Thursday and Friday, and the low eight players advanced to the match-play portion of the tournament with the quarterfinals being played Friday afternoon.
The semifinal matches and the finale were played on Saturday.
In the semifinals, Estrada, moved to the finale by beating Jeffrey Gilliame, 3&2 while Canarelli took down Jacob Haas, 6&5.
In all, the two finalists played five rounds of golf over the three days…although not every round went the full 18 holes once they got to match play.
The Sunday afternoon finale saw a golf match that resembled a heavyweight boxing match.
Each of the golfers landed body blows, each winning three of the first six holes before the first halved hole on No. 7.
Canarelli parred the ninth hole to take a 1-up lead making the turn.
Then Estrada, who calls The Resort at Red Hawk home, took the match over.
He won four of the first five holes on the back nine to go three-up and cruised to the victory.
“It takes a lot of energy to handle five rounds in three days,” Estrada said. “But it also helped that it was played on my home course.”
He said his game-plan for the finale was simple: Get to the back nine.
“The back nine is where I can usually make up ground,” he said. “I told myself I wanted to get to 15 no worse than even or one-down because Jeffrey got strokes on 15, 17 and 18.”
Mission accomplished as he was three-up at that point.
“We pushed 15 and then on 16, we both hit good drives,” he said. “I knew the only way for him to win the match was for him to make a birdie. We both made a five and that wound up the match.”
For Estrada, it was the culmination of quite the run. In early July he won the Southern Nevada Amateur net title, then the following week he won the Northern Nevada Amateur net title (as the defending champion). He then won the Nevada State Net Amateur for the third time (to go along with 2011 and 2015).
“It’s been an amazing year,” he said. “I just wanted to give myself chances to win and everything worked out well.”
2023 Nevada State Net Amateur
Championship
Estrada def. Canarelli, 3&2
Semifinals
Estrada def. Gilliame, 3&2
Canarelli def. Haas, 6&5
Quarterfinals
Jeffrey Gilliame def. Jason Berton, 5&4
Arturo Estrada def. Greg Frey, 1-up
Jeffrey Canarelli def. Troy Orosco, 3&2
Jacob Haas def. John Tovar, 5&3