Ambrose Kinnare stood on the 10th tee at Sawgrass Country Club having just watched his second shot at the par-4 ninth splash into the water. The double bogey erased a two-shot lead. He was 16 years old, playing in the 65th edition of the First Coast’s most prestigious amateur stroke-play event, surrounded by college players and grown men with resumes.
Then he went out and birdied three of his next nine holes.
Kinnare, a rising junior at Tocoi Creek High School in St. Augustine, shot a second-round 70 on July 20 to reach 7-under-par 137 and take a two-shot lead into the final round of the Jacksonville Area Golf Association Amateur Championship. He leads Landon Durham, Henry Robards, and Will Braude, all tied at 5-under 139.
The recovery was not complicated. Kinnare birdied all four par-5s at Sawgrass across his round, two-putted from 15 feet at No. 11, dropped a 15-footer at No. 18, and wedged a short birdie putt at the par-3 12th in between. The double at No. 9 — his first of the week — came immediately after back-to-back birdies at Nos. 7 and 8, a swing that would rattle most teenagers.
“I knew I was playing well so the double didn’t really affect me,” Kinnare said. “The more tournaments I play, the more experience I have, and I’ve learned to put bad shots and bad holes behind me.”
The leaderboard behind him is not soft. Durham, a rising senior at Elon who set the school’s 54- and 36-hole scoring records, fired a 66 — the low round of the day — to jump from even par into the final group. Robards, an Episcopal graduate and All-SoCon selection at Mercer now transferring to Georgia Tech, shot 70 and birdied three of the four par-5s. Braude, who turns 38 next month and played at Jacksonville University, survived two front-nine three-putts to post 72 and stay within two.
“As the old guy, I was happy to hang with [Kinnare] most of the day,” Braude said. “Take away those three-putts and I’m right there.”
The chase pack extends deeper. Cameron Reed of Ponte Vedra, now at Furman, sits fifth at 4-under. Maxwell Morgan, a 16-year-old at Ponte Vedra High, is at 2-under. Luke Balaskiewicz, last year’s runner-up and a rising sophomore at North Florida, is at 1-under after a second-round 75 that opened the door for everyone behind him.
Kinnare arrived with form. He has won the Junior Azalea, a Florida Junior Tour event at the Country Club of Ocala, and the Dr. Gordon Ira at Deerwood — all within recent weeks. The pattern is straightforward: he attacks the par-5s, limits the damage elsewhere, and does not dwell on the holes that go sideways.
The final round was scheduled for July 21, with Kinnare, Durham, and Robards in the last group. Sawgrass under wind and July heat does not reward comfortable leads. Six players were within six shots of the top, and the course’s history of swallowing advantages is long enough that nobody in the field was booking early dinners.