Tag: 2020 u.s. amateur

U.S. Am semis set: Tyler Strafaci advances again on 18, Aman Gupta rallies to meet him

After a bizarre victory that garnered national attention, Tyler Strafaci defeated Stewart Hagestad in the quarterfinals of the U.S. Amateur.

BANDON, Ore. – Tyler Strafaci clinched a victory on the 18th green for the second day in a row.

This time, he was able to celebrate.

After a bizarre victory that garnered national attention on Thursday, Strafaci defeated Stewart Hagestad, 1 up, in the quarterfinals of the U.S. Amateur Friday evening at Bandon Dunes. The Georgia Tech star advanced to face Aman Gupta of Oklahoma State in Saturday’s semifinal.

Strafaci was tied with Segundo Oliva Pinto heading to the 18th hole in the round of 16 when Oliva Pinto’s caddie touched the sand, a rules violation that cost his player the hole and match as Strafaci won, 1 up. Television cameras caught Strafaci’s surprise when he was told the penalty was not just a stroke, but rather a loss of hole before he consoled Oliva Pinto.

“Yesterday, I had a weird feeling leaving the course because that has never happened to me before for something to end that quickly,” said the 22-year old from Davie, Florida. “Today, I told myself that I was going to have to play one of the best rounds I’ve ever played and I think I did that.”

U.S. Amateur: Leaderboard | Photos

The match was tied before Strafaci made a par on the 17th hole to take a 1-up lead. Strafaci left a birdie putt about four feet short on No. 18, but made that putt to halve the hole and win the match.

“It would have been nice to lag that first one up closer, but making that four-footer gives me confidence,” Strafaci said. “If I have that putt tomorrow to win the match, I know I can do it.”

Hagestad, the oldest quarterfinalist at age 29 and competing in his 10th U.S. Amateur, won the first hole before Strafaci won the next hole. Strafaci got up and down from a bunker on the third, fourth and fifth holes to keep the match tied before he knocked his tee shot on the par-three sixth hole to within five feet and made the birdie putt to take his first lead.

Strafaci went 2 up with a birdie on the 13th hole before he bogeyed the next two holes as Hagestad made two pars to tie the match.

“I gave up a two-hole lead, but I had a good mindset and it didn’t bother me at all,” Strafaci said. “Yesterday, I was leaking down the stretch and felt tired, but today I felt really solid.”

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Strafaci will face a familiar foe in Gupta as the two contended at a collegiate tournament in Hawaii during the spring and paired up for a practice round last week.

Gupta was 2 down to 18-year old Michael Thorbjornsen through 10 holes before he won the 11th and tied the match with a birdie on No. 14. Gupta took his first lead with a par on the 15th hole.

“It was a dogfight,” Gupta said. “We were both hitting it good all day but struggling on the greens. When I got it back to even on No. 14, that birdie was huge and gave me the momentum because I had a tough up-and-down on No. 13.”

Gupta went back ahead with a par on the 17th hole and won the match, 1 up, when he and Thornbjornsen each made par on No. 18.

“I started to hit my stride the last six or seven holes,” Gupta said. “I was down one or two, but I knew I was still in it so I gave myself a little kick and off I went.”

SMU’s Charles Osborne will face off against Matthew Sharpstene of Charlotte in the other semifinal.

Osborne appeared to have an easy trip to the semis when he took a 4-up lead through eight holes against Arizona State’s Cameron Sisk. But Sisk won four straight holes to tie the match through 14 before Osborne rebounded to win the 15th and 16th holes.

Osborne cinched the 2-and-1 victory when he and Sisk each parred the 17th hole.

“You are pretty upbeat and excited and then it gets back to even and all that work is gone,” Osborne said. “I am thankful I was able to hold him off. I had some bad lies and hit some poor shots coming in so it was nice to win 15 and 16 to get it back.”

Sharpstene never trailed during a 4-and-2 victory over LSU’s Philip Barbaree.

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Matthew Sharpstene toppled a match-play giant to start U.S. Am and hasn’t looked back since

Matthew Sharpstene defeated LSU’s Philip Barbaree, 4 and 2, Friday evening to advance into Saturday’s semifinal.

BANDON, Ore. – Matthew Sharpstene still uses his West Virginia golf bag, but his yardage book is from Charlotte.

The 21-year old from Asheville, North Carolina, is spending his summer between those two colleges trying to win the U.S. Amateur at Bandon Dunes, a golf destination on the Oregon coastline. Sharpstene defeated LSU’s Philip Barbaree, 4 and 2, Friday evening to advance into Saturday’s semifinal against SMU’s Charles Osborne.

Sharpstene won the opening hole and never trailed while stretching his lead to 3 up after five holes. He bounced between a 2-up and 3-up lead for most of the afternoon, like when he dropped a hole with bogey on No. 12 then followed with an eagle on No. 13. Sharpstene hit his second shot 153 yards with a pitching wedge there and followed by making a 12-footer.

“I hit a bad shot on 12 and on 13, I knew if I won that hole, I had a good chance,” Sharpstene said. “That eagle kind of put it away for me.”

U.S. Amateur: Leaderboard | Photos

The two players halved the next two holes before Sharpstene got a birdie on the 16th hole to end the match.

Sharpstene, ranked No. 394 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, is playing in his first U.S. Amateur. He made the cut in qualifying by one stroke and then opened match play with a 1-up victory over John Augenstein, last year’s runner-up.

“In that first match, John is one of the best players in the world and I knew I was on TV and had never been in front of a camera before,” he said. “That helped me a lot for these last couple matches. It calmed me down and let me know I can do this. It has been an unreal experience.”

Sharpstene’s father, Jeff, is his caddie this week.

“He’s been a huge help this week,” Sharpstene said. “He’s helping me get my yardages right and read greens.”

Sharpstene played three years at West Virginia before transferring to Charlotte for next season.

“I wanted to get out of the cold and be closer to my family,” he said. “My dad loves watching me play so it was big for me to stay close to home.”

Sharpstene explained why he still carries the West Virginia bag.

“I don’t have another bag,” he said. “My coach is trying to get me one. Nothing against West Virginia, I loved all my teammates and coaches, but I’ve got to support Charlotte too.”

After the college golf season was halted due to COVID-19, Sharpstene returned to competition at the North & South Amateur in June when he set the course record on Pinehurst No. 4 with a 6-under 64 in the first round.

“That was my first competitive round after everything stopped,” he said. “I didn’t really know what to expect, but I went out and played well and that calmed me down.”

Sharpstene will be back on national television when he faces an unfamiliar foe in Osborne for a spot in the final.

“I’m still playing golf, I treat it as any other round whether I am going out with my friends or playing in the semis of the US Amateur,” he said.

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Aman Gupta keeps riding U.S. Amateur opportunity, and now with a familiar face on the bag

Aman Gupta, one of the last players into the U.S. Am, has continued to advance through the bracket and now has his college coach on the bag.

Aman Gupta just keeps showing up. The Oklahoma State player is riding out an opportunity this week as one of the last men into the U.S. Amateur field at Bandon Dunes, a bucket-list golf destination along the Oregon coast.

Consider this a condensed version of the headlines: Gupta goes from on-site alternate to Bandon Trails competitive course record-holder with his opening 7-under 64 (alas, a short-lived title after Wilson Furr replaced it 24 hours later with his own 62) to now staring a down a spot in the quarterfinals. He’s one match away.

Gupta brought a new putter to Bandon Dunes, and used it to hole 11 putts on the front nine of Bandon Trails on Monday in his opening 64. He drew two early tee times in stroke play, itself a bit of luck considering how much the wind picked up in the afternoons. But just to be playing brought a sense of relief in itself, as Gupta told media officials on Monday.

U.S. Amateur: Leaderboard | Photos

“Coming out here as first alternate with the craziness going around the world right now, I thought I had a very good chance,” he said, “and Friday afternoon when Robbie Z (of the USGA) called me and told me I was in, that was a huge relief. But I still have a tournament to play, so it was just the same as normal.”

Gupta will be entering his third year at Oklahoma State. Already this summer he has top-15 finishes at the Palmetto Amateur and Southern Amateur.

In match play this week, Gupta got through Van Holmgren, a Florida Gulf Coast transfer, on Wednesday afternoon in 16 holes. He drew Liberty’s Jonathan Yaun in the next round. It made for an interesting match, considering that Yaun was in much the same position as Gupta.

Yaun was another on-site alternate who gained entry just before the tournament started. He’s prone to exceptional hot streaks in match play, and delivered one of those in the Round of 64 when he birdied Nos. 15, 16 and 17 to take out world No. 4 amateur Davis Thompson.

Yaun demonstrated a bit of that against Gupta on Thursday morning, going birdie, eagle, par at Nos. 8-10 to turn the match in his favor.

“I knew that I’m playing good, so I didn’t really change my game plan,” Gupta said of keeping his head on straight. “I didn’t get down on myself. I was like, just keep doing what you’re doing, if you lose, you lose. But if you do what you’re supposed to do, you’re going to make a comeback.”

Gupta ultimately got it back with pars at Nos. 14 and 15, and then it got really entertaining.

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Gupta thought he had hit a terrific shot on the daunting yet reachable par-4 16th, but discovered it had taken a hard kick into a small hole in the ground. From there, Gupta hit “probably the best shot I’ve hit all week” to five feet. He missed his birdie putt, but Yaun, who had hit the green, three-putted for par.

On No. 17, Gupta scrambled for par to match Yaun, and when the two matched birdies at the par-5 18th, it was Gupta moving on.

In Gupta’s case, the man on the bag is absolutely worth noting.

When Cowboy teammate Austin Eckroat failed to qualify for match play, Gupta gained head coach Alan Bratton as a caddie. That’s particularly encouraging news for Gupta, considering that Bratton was on the bag for two of his former players in their U.S. Amateur title runs: Peter Uihlein in 2010 and Viktor Hovland in 2018.

“He’s good at figuring out the number and helping you just commit to what you have because at the end of the day you know what you need to do and you know what you need to hit that shot,” Gupta said. “He does a really good job just keeping yourself stable and giving you some good numbers, and just go play.”

If there’s a putt that needs to go down, Bratton will certainly let his man know.

“He’ll fire you up at certain times, but otherwise he’s pretty even keel,” Gupta said.

He’s going to need both if his U.S. Amateur run is to continue.

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U.S. Amateur: Stewart Hagestad draws on experience; Jonathan Yaun drops well-timed birdies

The first round of matches at the U.S. Amateur at Bandon Dunes saw some big names fall and some advance.

A year ago at the U.S. Amateur, Stewart Hagestad made the mistake of underestimating his opponent. It’s easy to do when you meet a man – er, a young man – from a different sector of the game than the one in which you normally play.

In 2019, Hagestad was sent packing after the first round of his 10th U.S. Amateur start by then-17-year-old Maxwell Moldovan, who was just about to start his senior year of high school.

Hagestad is a 29-year-old veteran in this match-play format in every sense of the word. The two-time Walker Cupper, and 2016 U.S. Mid-Amateur champion, did not make the same mistake Wednesday at Bandon Dunes, a golf destination in central Oregon with jaw-dropping views. Instead, he dispatched Abel Gallegos, 18, on the 18th hole.

“I tried not to do the same, even though I didn’t know a ton about his game, because you don’t know the juniors as much, you know the college kids,” Hagestad said. “That kid can play.”

U.S. Amateur: Leaderboard | Photos

Yes, he can. In fact, courtesy of his Latin America Amateur Championship win in January, Gallegos is in the field for the 2020 Masters Tournament.

Gallegos had Hagestad 1 down almost immediately after a birdie at the par-3 second hole. The two matched birdies on the following par 5 before Gallegos struck again with a birdie on No. 8 to win another hole. Gallegos kept applying pressure.

Hagestad wasn’t able to tie it up again until a birdie at No. 17. He ended the kid’s week with a closing birdie at No. 18.

Asked what went through his head when he was 2 down to Gallegos on No. 12 tee, Hagestad said it wasn’t panic but rather resolve. In some ways, the kind of windy conditions players have had to navigate this week at Bandon Dunes certainly do favor his level of experience.

“At that point it’s not like it was getting any easier, and I was kind of hoping that it would blow a little,” he said. “One, lower ball flight, two, experience … and then three, just because the longer it goes, again, I’m not going to pull the Brooks Koepka experience card, but I’m more comfortable now than I maybe would have been in years prior.”

Down the bracket, there were many unsurprising victories, starting with Spencer Tibbits, a Vancouver, Washington, native with much experience in this part of the country. Tibbits, who will be a senior at Oregon State, knocked off Michael Brennan, another top junior in the field from Leesburg, Virginia.

McClure Meissner, the recent Southern Amateur champion who opened this championship with a 64 on Bandon Dunes, took down Angus Flanagan, last month’s Western Amateur stroke-play medalist, on the 17th hole.

Tyler Strafaci, winner of the North & South Amateur and the Palmetto Amateur earlier this summer, also moved on by defeating Kelly Chinn.

In the upset category, Charlotte’s Matthew Sharpstene took down match-play bulldog John Augenstein, the runner-up at this event last year, on the 18th hole.

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In one of the most stunning comebacks of the day, Liberty’s Jonathan Yaun birdied Nos. 15-17 to take out Davis Thompson, No. 4 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking and the highest-ranked player in the field.

Yaun has a propensity to pull that act, having won a match at the North & South Amateur earlier this summer with a front-nine 28 at Pinehurst No. 2 in Pinehurst, North Carolina. Yaun got past his opponent by a 9-and-8 margin that day.

“I’m not trying to make that many birdies,” Yaun said. “They really came so quickly, and the game plan this whole week was to stay one shot at a time, not get ahead of myself, forget about the last shot, don’t focus on the next hole, just focus on getting prepared to hit your next shot and trust that it’s not about forcing anything.”

Interestingly, Yaun was one of the final men added to the field this week after being an on-site alternate.

“I was like, okay, let’s go try and win this thing,” he said.

A man with an unexpected opportunity is a dangerous thing. Yaun will meet that across the bracket, too, in Thursday morning’s opening round when he plays Oklahoma State’s Aman Gupta, another last-minute addition.

How to watch

Thursday, Aug. 13 (Round of 16 matches): 6-7 p.m., Peacock; 7-9 p.m., Golf Channel

Friday, Aug. 14 (Quarterfinals matches): 6-7 p.m., Peacock; 7-9 p.m., Golf Channel

Saturday, Aug. 15 (Semifinal matches): 7-10 p.m., Golf Channel

Sunday, Aug. 16 (Championship match): 7-10 p.m., Golf Channel

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Wilson Furr brings in red-hot 62 for a piece of history and a U.S. Amateur medal

There are low rounds out there on Bandon Dunes – that much was made clear in the first 48 hours at the U.S. Amateur.

There are low rounds out there on Bandon Dunes – that much was made clear in the first 48 hours at the U.S. Amateur.

Playing in one of the final groups on Bandon Trails in Tuesday’s second round, Alabama senior Wilson Furr brought in a 9-under 62 that not only made Bandon history but U.S. Amateur history. In 120 years of this championship, only one score has ever come in lower in stroke play.

The number left Furr somewhat speechless. It also earned him this week’s stroke-play medal.

“We were just trying to run our game plan all day, and I just started hitting it close and a couple putts went in, and then kind of looked up and we were 7-under through 12,” he said. “Like I said, it just kind of happened real fast, so I don’t know what to say really.”

U.S. Amateur: Leaderboard | Photos

Furr effectively stole the thunder from a handful of players who had impressed with low rounds of their own, namely Aman Gupta and Charles Osborne, who had already put their names on the Bandon Trails competitive course record before Furr came along and shattered it again.

McClure Meissner had also opened with a 64 on Bandon Dunes before falling back to a 74 on Trails on Tuesday.

Asked how his round of 62 rates among his best all-time, Furr relayed some skepticism about his ability to score on Bandon Trails.

“It’s funny I was telling my dad walking up 18, I was worried about that course,” he said. “I felt like I had a good eye for the other course, but I was worried about this place. I felt like it could come up and bite you, so here we are. It didn’t.”

This will be the first time Furr appears on a U.S. Amateur bracket.

Experience was also represented near the top of the bracket. Among Tuesday’s best rounds was Scott Harvey’s 5-under 67 on Bandon Dunes. The 42-year-old combined with Todd Mitchell last May to win the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball here. Harvey is making his 10th U.S. Amateur start this week. He also won the 2014 U.S. Mid-Amateur.

Before this week, Harvey last competed at the 2019 Mid-Amateur, last September.

“I just came out and honestly hadn’t played any golf at all,” he said of a T-7. “Just started practicing a little bit leading up to it, and each day kind of felt a little bit better, and today some putts went in. Wouldn’t that be cool if it kept happening? But yeah, I had a great day when I needed one.”

Stewart Hagestad, Kevin O’Connell, Andres Schonbaum and Derek Busby are among Harvey’s fellow mid-amateurs on the bracket. Otherwise, much of it is made up of college talent.

Behind Furr at 11 under, Michigan State’s James Piot got to 9-under with a second-round 65 on Bandon Dunes. That was good for the No. 2 seed, and behind that, North Carolina State’s Ben Shipp will take the No. 3 seed at 8 under.

Defending champion Andy Ogletree came up one shot short of the match-play cut, but last year’s runner-up John Augenstein is firmly in with a 5-under total.

The list of notables who missed match play doesn’t end with Ogletree. Cole Hammer, a semifinalist in 2018 after winning the Western Amateur weeks earlier, missed U.S. Amateur match play for the second year in a row.

Sunnehanna winner Preston Summerhays missed, and so did Wake Forest standout Alex Fitzpatrick, a GB&I Walker Cupper in 2019. Put U.S. Walker Cupper John Pak, a Florida State player, in the miss category along with William Holcomb V, who had a magical – and hysterical – run to the semifinals in 2019 and the North & South final just over a month ago.

Recent Western Amateur champion Pierceson Coody, along with his twin brother Parker, both missed match play, too.

How to watch

Wednesday Aug. 12 (Round of 64 matches): 6-7 p.m., Peacock (streaming); 7-9 p.m., Golf Channel

Thursday, Aug. 13 (Round of 16 matches): 6-7 p.m., Peacock; 7-9 p.m., Golf Channel

Friday, Aug. 14 (Quarterfinals matches): 6-7 p.m., Peacock; 7-9 p.m., Golf Channel

Saturday, Aug. 15 (Semifinal matches): 7-10 p.m., Golf Channel

Sunday, Aug. 16 (Championship match): 7-10 p.m., Golf Channel

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Charles Osborne is the latest to go low at U.S. Amateur with a 64 on Bandon Trails

SMU’s Charles Osborne is one of a handful of players at the U.S. Amateur who has been able to go low at Bandon Dunes or Bandon Trails

Charles Osborne bookended his second round of the U.S. Amateur, at Bandon Trails in Bandon Dunes, Oregon, in a rather lackluster way. The SMU junior had a bogey at the first and back-to-back bogeys to close.

But oh, how glorious it was in between.

Osborne erased his opening-hole mistake with a birdie at the par-5 fifth hole on Trails, the most inland course among the Bandon line-up, and the one with arguably the most Oregon-ey feel of them all. His birdie two holes later at the fifth hole kicked off a stretch six consecutive birdies. He added three more from Nos. 14-16 before coming back with bogeys at Nos. 17 and 18 to finish with a 7-under 64 that tied the competitive course record set a day earlier by Oklahoma State player Aman Gupta.

The most interesting thing about Osborne’s day, perhaps, was that he was just coming off an opening 77 on Bandon Dunes. The 20-year-old said he didn’t feel like he even played all that badly in his opening round on the opposite course.

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Chalk that up to the wind. Osborne, who also goes by Ollie, teed off in the first round at 1:03 p.m. In other words, he was in one of the last groups to go off. Scores in the afternoon wave were considerably higher, even though the two courses had nearly identical stroke averages on the opening day: 75.58 for Bandon Dunes and 75.60 for Bandon Trails.

“I kind of turned on the back nine, and on 11 I think the wind was blowing easily 35 into, and that’s how it stayed on the back nine,” he explained. “I actually played good golf and liked how I was swinging, so I came out here and did the same thing. The course was – like it’s in the trees and then the wind was down this morning, so happy to take advantage of it, and the putter was rolling, too.”

Osborne’s precision with his approach shots allowed him to go deep on Bandon Trails. He said he hit nearly everything to 10 or 15 feet, and then the putts started dropping.

The round could have even been lower. After sticking a 9-iron to inside 20 feet on No. 9, he burned the edge for eagle.

By the time he was done, Osborne was 2 under for stroke play and safely into match play. He was a handful of shots behind SMU teammate McClure Meissner, who had carved out a share of the first-round lead and was still playing his way around Trails.

Osborne, a Reno, Nevada, native ranked No. 463 in the world, finished fourth individually at The Prestige in February. It’s one of the deepest fields in college golf. He won the Royal Oaks Collegiate in October.

“Before in Reno there’s not a lot of competition, so it was really fun to go down to Texas and actually see some players that can kind of kick you around a little bit,” he said. “It was humbling, but it also made me a lot better as a player.”

So much of being successful this week will depend on the ability to control ball flight and manage high winds, particularly once match play sends the entire 64-man bracket back to Bandon Dunes for the remainder of the week.

Meissner, the other SMU player, brought a little of his Texas upbringing to Bandon this week, and it made all the difference in the first round. Meissner fired his round of 8-under 64 on Bandon Dunes, but had the luxury of a 9:01 a.m. tee time.

Still, he knows what to do this week.

“So I was talking to some of the guys in my group today,” Meissner said after Monday’s first round, “and I was like, yeah, in the springtime in Dallas, it blows 15, 20, 25, so it feels – although I don’t play this grass a lot – it feels like a home game for me just because I’m able to kind of be creative. That’s kind of where I excel.”

How to watch

Wednesday Aug. 5 (Round of 64 matches): 6-7 p.m., Peacock (streaming); 7-9 p.m., Golf Channel

Thursday, Aug. 6 (Round of 16 matches): 6-7 p.m., Peacock; 7-9 p.m., Golf Channel

Friday, Aug. 7 (Quarterfinals matches): 6-7 p.m., Peacock; 7-9 p.m., Golf Channel

Saturday, Aug. 8 (Semifinal matches): 7-10 p.m., Golf Channel

Sunday, Aug. 9 (Championship match): 7-10 p.m., Golf Channel

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Count ’em up: Eight Texas Tech players are eligible for the 2020 U.S. Amateur

The USGA has released new exemption categories for the 2020 U.S. Amateur in light of COVID-19 and eight Texas Tech players eligible.

In college golf, success means competing late into May, when the NCAA Championship (sans pandemic) typically plays out. But August brings its own indicator of a team’s success, even if it’s a statistic that often goes overlooked: How many guys did you send to the U.S. Amateur?

The number of players teeing it up from any one team is certainly an unofficial stat. In 2019, Pepperdine and Arizona State each had six active players in the field. This year, Texas Tech qualified a staggering eight players for the Aug. 10-16 at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Bandon, Oregon.

Texas Tech head coach Greg Sands and his players put that puzzle together from all parts of the globe on Wednesday afternoon. As they all combed the USGA’s newly released exemption categories for the nation’s top amateur event, the tally kept growing.

There is no official historical record, but Sands thinks four or five players in the U.S. Am field is “a standard number for a pretty good team.” In 2019, he had three players compete.

This year, of course, is a little different. Normally, a big chunk of the 312-man field is filled through 36-hole qualifiers, with only the top 50 players in the World Amateur Golf Ranking securing a rankings-based exemption.

The field shrunk to 264 in 2020 and qualifying went away, two changes made out of necessity as the coronavirus continues to spread. It effectively top-loads the field, considering that after the top 50, many highly ranked – and very deserving – players often failed to get through one-day qualifying in past years.

In 2020, the top 225 players in the WAGR will gain entry.

“Four guys would have been my high mark,” Sands said of previous U.S. Am lineups. “Any time you’re qualifying, even the best players sometimes don’t make it. … I think that’s a pretty standard number for a really good team, when you’re getting four or five in.”

Texas Tech junior Sandy Scott, a native of Nairn, Scotland, is the highest Red Raider in the WAGR at No. 9. He also would have qualified, however, as a member of the 2019 Great Britain & Ireland Walker Cup team.

Teammates Ludvig Aberg (No. 37), Andy Lopez (No. 139), Markus Braadlie (No. 145) incoming freshman Bard Bjornevik Skogen (No. 163), and Carl Didrik Mee Fosaas, who is ranked No. 213 and will join the roster in the fall as a transfer from Keiser University, all qualified courtesy of their spot in the rankings.

Jansen Smith earned a spot as a match-play qualifier at the 2019 U.S. Amateur – all 64 players from that bracket who remain amateur were granted an exemption. Players who advanced to the quarterfinals at the U.S. Junior received a similar exemption, which is how Garrett Martin gained entry.

Travel bans potentially could prevent some international players from being able to travel to the U.S. to play the U.S. Am, opening up more spots down the rankings. Sands is hoping for the best on that front.

Sands caddied for Martin in his U.S. Junior run a year ago and pending USGA and NCAA guidelines for both coaches and caddies, he’d do it again for Martin at Bandon Dunes – not just because it was a good partnership, but also because Sands finds him “bored to tears” without golf and recruiting going on this time of year.

It was a slow burn for the coach after the season was canceled. He felt the void after his players left, particularly the next month when the team should have been traveling to the Aggie Invitational. He felt it again during conference championship week (Texas Tech had won Big 12 Match Play in the fall), NCAA Regionals week and when the NCAA Championship should have been going on at the end of May. He tried to keep his emotions in check to keep his players’ spirits up.

“I really went into more of a mentor role, if you will of how to handle things in life and life doesn’t owe you anything and certainly the game of golf doesn’t owe you anything,” he said. “A hard lesson to learn, right? … I was trying to hold things together. I don’t think for me, until everybody went home, did I hit a lull. My wife would be like, ‘You OK over there?’”

Because that’s the other part of qualifying eight players for the U.S. Am: It signals that years of work has culminated with an exceptionally competitive team. The Red Raiders won their first three times out in the fall and were No. 5 in the Golfweek/Sagarin College Rankings when the season ended abruptly. Years of work goes into any given roster.

There’s new blood coming into Lubbock, and Sands says that while Scott, the team’s leading scorer, is still figuring out his plans for the upcoming season, “it all points toward him coming back.”

“Fortunately, I think we have most of the pieces back and we’re hopeful to get Sandy back as well,” he said. “Maybe that will be part of a good story.”

And now, they’ll always have Bandon.

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What’s lost in the USGA’s decision to nix qualifiers?

Julie Williams of Golfweek talks about what was lost when the USGA canceled qualifying for the four remaining events on its schedule.

Monday’s news that the USGA was canceling local and final qualifying for the U.S. Open and the U.S. Women’s Open will not eliminate any of the game’s top names from the fields in those events.

What is lost, however, is the suspense of rounding out the field, and the opportunity for new and unfamiliar names to rise up and become part of the golf conversation.

Julie Williams covers the amateur circuit for Golfweek, and she told JuliaKate Culpepper on a Golfweek Instagram Live that she’s sad to see the loss of storylines that always seem to surface,

“What you lose is the depth of your field. We don’t know what the exemption category will look like,” Williams said. “Whether that’s a professional player, maybe a college player who has just turned pro and is looking for that big breakthrough. Or it’s an amateur player. In 2015, that’s when we all met Cole Hammer, who was a 15-year-old at the U.S. Open, and we were making name jokes all week,  And then Cole Hammer ends up at the NCAA finals match play a year ago.

“It’s not a life-breaking decision for some of these players, but it’s going to change the field, absolutely.”

Williams added that many around the golf world use these qualifying events to take a sneak peek at up-and-coming talent.

“I’m looking for players who show you what they do on the big stage. Watching local and sectional qualifying for the U.S. Open, watching sectional qualifying for the Women’s Open, it’s like playing Eye Spy on these leaderboards,” Williams said.

The 120th U.S. Open is scheduled to be played Sept. 17-20 at Winged Foot in New York will feature an all-exempt field, while the 75th U.S. Women’s Open, which was moved to December 10-13 at Champions Golf Club in Houston.

“When you say what’s it going to lose in the lead up to those championships, where we’re kind of doing the Easter Egg hunt. Who’s going to get in? Who’s this guy? What’s the story behind this player? Which I always find really fascinating,” Williams said.

The USGA’s only two other remaining tournaments after cancellations are the 120th U.S. Women’s Amateur, scheduled for August 3-9 at Woodmont Country Club in Rockville, Md.; and the 120th U.S. Amateur, which takes place August 10-16 at Bandon Dunes in Oregon.

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Latin America Amateur Championship moves to Mexico with Masters invite on the line

The Latin America Amateur Championship will be Jan. 16-19 at El Camaleón Golf Club at Rosewood Mayakoba Resort in Playa del Carmen.

The Latin America Amateur Championship – which offers its winner berths in the Masters, the U.S. Amateur, the British Amateur and final-stage qualifying for the British Open – will be held in Mexico for the first time this weekend.

The sixth edition of the LAAC will be Jan. 16-19 at El Camaleón Golf Club at Rosewood Mayakoba Resort in Playa del Carmen. The previous editions of the LAAC were at Casa de Campo in the Dominican Republic (twice), Prince of Wales Country Club in Chile, Club de Golf de Panama and Pilar Golf in Argentina.

Alvaro Ortiz of Mexico, who played college golf at Arkansas through the 2018 season, won the LAAC in 2019, then finished T-36 at the 2019 Masters before turning pro. Joaquin Niemann won the 2018 LAAC before turning pro, joining the PGA Tour and winning his first Tour event this season at the Military Tribute at the Greenbrier in September.

The LAAC was created in 2014, a year before the first playing of the event, by the Masters Tournament, the R&A and the U.S. Golf Association to promote the development of golf in South America, Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean. It follows a model established by the Masters and the R&A with the creation of the Asia-Pacific Amateur Championship in 2009, which also offers spots in top international events to its winner.

This year’s field of 108, who are invited through their national golf federations based on World Amateur Golf Ranking status, will play the 20th-ranked course in Golfweek’s Best 2020 list of courses for the Caribbean and Mexico. A Greg Norman design, El Camaleón opened in 2006.

This year’s event features players from 29 countries and territories: Argentina, The Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Bolivia, Brazil, Cayman Islands, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, St. Lucia, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos, Uruguay, Venezuela and the U.S. Virgin Islands.