Thompson, 17, holed out on the final hole of regulation play to force the playoff. The 100 yard sand wedge bounced once, slammed into the pin and dropped into the hole to give the Easley High School senior a final round 66 and a two stroke margin over the lead groups still on the course.

Maness, 16, playing the 15th hole, heard the roar and wondered what was happening. He knew it must have been good, and he better make a move. The Aynor High School junior focused in, hit his second shot on the par five hole and made the eagle putt to tie Thompson with three holes to play. Maness parred in from there and the playoff was set.

Thompson and Maness’ playoff went three holes, hole #1, hole #9, then #1 again. Thompson finally won the battle with his fourth straight birdie on hole #1 (both times in the playoff and both rounds of sudden death). It was the second year that a Maness first round lead ended in a loss.

The field  of 75 players included: the State Champions from Georgia, Alabama, Indiana, South & North Carolina, combined Carolinas Champion, the reigning AJGA Boys Champion, the 1995 National Maxfli Champion, all of the top twenty boys in the BB&T Rankings, four of the top twenty-five nationally ranked players and nine players from the USGA Junior (7 of which made it to match play). 

Defending Champion Lucas Glover started this year’s event the same way he ended last year’s, HOT. Lucas was strong, playing six-under-par through the first seventeen holes. Unfortunately there are eighteen holes in a round. As the Wade Hampton High School senior waited to hit his approach shot on the final hole of his first round rain began to fall. Heavy rain and a couple bad shots and bad luck led to Glover posting a quadruple bogey eight for a first round 70. He never seem to get it going again. His final round 72 gave him a two-under-par 142, ironically four strokes back and alone in fourth place.