Jared Lloyd, Daily Herald

Peter Kim has enjoyed an excellent summer golf season so far, including finishing as the top amateur at the Primo Provo Open and winning the Karl Tucker Amateur at Timpanogos golf course in mid-June and was the medalist at the U.S. Open local qualifier at Oakridge Country Club in May.

But this week his focus is on making a run at the Utah State Amateur championship, which will take place at The Country Club in Sugarhouse starting on Monday.

“Last year I lost in the round of 32,” Kim said at media day last week. “I played well but I didn’t make a lot of putts. I think I was thinking too much about the match. This year I plan on taking match play more like I’m playing the course, not the other player.”

This will only be the second year that Kim — who just graduated from Skyline High and will be playing for BYU starting in the fall — will compete in the event, since he had junior golf conflicts in prior seasons.

“I’m super-excited,” Kim said. “This is pretty much my hometown, so coming out here will be great. It’s a nice course and it’s in great shape.”

Jared Lloyd, Daily Herald

Part of the beauty of the event is that there will be golfers who will be playing for the first time (or second, in Kim’s case) as well as other amateurs who have been competing for decades.

“One of the things that makes the state amateur special is that anyone can play in it,” said Easton Folster, executive director of the Utah Golf Association. “You have to have a handicap under 9.9, but outside of that you can be young, old, it can be your first time or your 20th. It’s exciting to see because a junior can win or a college golfer or a veteran. I think that’s what is so exciting is that it is fairly open.”

No one, however, has played in all of the Utah State Amateurs. That would be not humanly possible, since this is the 125th consecutive year the Utah State Amateur has been played.

Kim said he’s looking forward to the opportunity to get on the course with the best amateurs in the state.

“It’s such a fun week because you see so many familiar faces,” Kim said. “It’s everyone you’ve played with growing up in junior golf and then the other amateurs. You just see a bunch of guys that you know.”

Jared Lloyd, Daily Herald

There have been a couple of formatting changes to the event this year.

Perhaps the biggest was the pairing down of the field size so the tournament will be at just one course.

“We used to have 288 golfers start spread out over two courses, but this year we are back to 156,” Folster said. “That decision was site-driven. It was hard on courses to have 288 golfers. We felt like for the sustainability of the tournament, 156 made the most sense.”

Two other changes included having every golfer on the first two days start on Hole No. 1 instead of going off of both No. 1 and No. 10, as well as having the playoff for the final of the 64 match-play spots decided on Wednesday morning instead of Tuesday night.

“We decided to have everyone start on Hole No. 1 because when you go off both, it can really get backed up on Hole No. 10,” Folster said. “I think the players enjoy it and it is far easier on staff and maintenance.”

Jared Lloyd, Daily Herald

He explained that the tradeoff is that the last groups of golfers won’t be teeing off until after 3 p.m., which means the light will be disappearing by the time they conclude their stroke-play rounds.

“We had to move the playoff to Wednesday, which we have had to do before,” Folster said. “It felt like it was a fair trade.”

The rest of the state amateur format will be the same: The top 64 golfers from the two rounds of stroke play on Monday and Tuesday will compete in match-play rounds the rest of the week until the champion is crowned on Saturday.

All of the golfers will be looking to dethrone BYU golfer Zac Jones, who won the tournament in 2022 at Soldier Hollow golf course in Heber and has to be considered one of the favorites.

It’s never easy to win twice in a row, however.

The entire tournament will take place at The Country Club in Sugarhouse with the first round of stroke play teeing off on Monday.

For complete details and results, go to http://UGA.org.