Todd Eckstein was, appropriately, on the golf course on March 17 when he heard this year’s U.S. Amateur Four-Ball would be canceled. The message came through the Virginia Tech men’s golf team chat and ended with a crying face emoji. As another player read it aloud, Eckstein was just about to step into his shot.
“I don’t think I’d hit that bad of a golf shot in 2020 to this point,” Eckstein, the Hokies assistant men’s golf coach, said later. He immediately started trying to reach his Four-Ball partner, former Davidson teammate Sam Echikson.
The Four-Ball would have been Eckstein’s (but not Echikson’s) USGA debut after many unsuccessful attempts (three U.S. Junior qualifiers, four U.S. Amateur qualifiers, three U.S. Open local qualifiers) to reach a level that many consider the pinnacle of amateur golf.
At 27, Eckstein is beginning to understand how limited these opportunities are. The stars must align on many fronts, from having your best game on the right day to simple geography. He looks at next year’s U.S. Amateur Four-Ball in Washington state and knows it would be tough to get there.
“It’s still what I would consider the apex of my playing career, especially getting to qualify with one of my best friends,” he said. “I think that’s what a lot of people view a USGA championship as, it’s an apex of some sort, whether it’s your junior or amateur career. In amateur golf, they are the majors.”
The U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball, scheduled for April 25-29 at Quail Creek Country Club in Naples, Florida, and the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball to be played May 23-27 at Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) Cricket Club, were the first USGA events to be affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
The U.S. Open and U.S. Women’s Open took an indirect hit the same day with the cancellation of local qualifying, but both of those events have been moved back on the calendar, to September and December, respectively. The U.S. Senior Open and U.S. Senior Women’s Open were canceled on April 6.
The USGA refunded Four-Ball qualifiers their entire entry fee but didn’t exempt them into the 2021 events. John Bodenhamer, the USGA’s senior managing director of championships, said the option was discussed and after much deliberation, decided against.
“We have 12 additional championships that could also be faced with similar circumstances and the prospects of carrying some or all of them over into the following year was not an option,” Bodenhamer told Golfweek by email. “Further, by carrying over a field for a championship into the following year, it eliminates the opportunity for thousands of other players to attempt to qualify for the 2021 championships and after much deliberation, we decided against doing so.”
Asked about exempting first-time USGA qualifiers, like Eckstein, into the 2021 event, Bodenhamer indicated that a similar discussion took place.
“In the end, we felt it best not to make the determination that playing in a first USGA championship is more special than a second or a fifth or a tenth,” he wrote. “In talking to players, it is apparent that every opportunity to play in a USGA championship, at any level, is special.”
The first conversation Eckstein and Echikson had was one of “disappointment followed by a little spike of hope and then getting disappointed again.”
Soon after, Eckstein’s sister Anna, a nursing student at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, brought him back to life. She is currently a home-care provider but had signed up to go to work at the MUSC hospital. “When you’re called, you go,” she reasoned.
“If the worst thing that happened to me is a golf tournament got canceled, then I should be pretty thankful,” Eckstein said.
No championship like it
Scott Harvey’s heart goes out to the players whose first USGA championship experience will be undeniably unforgettable but for a different reason than his was. Harvey, who teamed with Todd Mitchell to win last year’s Four-Ball, qualified for the 2007 U.S. Amateur on his first attempt at USGA qualifying. He was 29.
“It’s kind of sad when you have a lot of people that have qualified for their first USGA event being the Four-Ball and they’re not going to get to play,” he said.
Harvey is a two-time USGA champion, having also won the 2014 U.S. Mid-Amateur. As a multiple-time USGA champion, Harvey’s voice resonates. In the aftermath of the cancellation, he also reached out to the USGA seeking clarification on the decision not to exempt the 2020 field into the 2021 event.
Harvey thinks back to last year’s Four-Ball “all the time.” Team golf has a completely different feel because you share every aspect with your partner. Harvey loves it so much he helped create this year’s inaugural East West Matches, a Ryder Cup-style event for U.S. mid-amateurs to be played Nov. 5-8 at Maridoe Golf Club in Carrollton, Texas.
“We had a blast,” Harvey said of the 2019 Four-Ball. “We’ve always had a blast in all of them, but we’ve only won this last one. We had fun and then we lost in years past, it’s a quick ending to a really fun week. That one just never ended.”
In fact, Harvey said chuckling, the USGA still hasn’t asked for the trophy back.
The U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball was the event that made Ellen Secor a USGA champion. The Oklahoma senior (a transfer from Colorado State) won with former teammate Katrina Prendergast in 2018. It’s among Secor’s favorite golf memories.
“It’s probably one of the proudest moments of my career,” she said. “Being a USGA champion is something every golfer wants to achieve, professional or being an amateur.”
The 2018 Four-Ball was Secor’s sixth USGA start. As past champions, she and Prendergast would have been exempt into this year’s event had Prendergast not already turned professional. Secor elected not to try qualifying with another partner considering the event runs up against the college postseason.
Haley Greb was back at school watching on TV when Secor and Prendergast, former Colorado State teammates, won their title. She had made her first USGA start that week alongside teammate Jessica Sloot but missed match play.
Greb has since transferred to the University of Tulsa. This past August, her entire team – including coach Annie Young, the 2002 U.S. Amateur Public Links champion – paired off and entered a qualifier at Tulsa Country Club. Greb and Lorena Tseng won the sole qualifying spot with a round of 62, and Greb laughs remembering that as she left the course to go to class, Young and her partner were engaged in an epic playoff with two other team members for the first alternate spot.
Greb is ready to do it all a gain.
“We did really well in the qualifier and we were pretty hyped about it that if we need to go and do that again … we’re going to do whatever we need to do to make sure we earn the spot for the following year,” she said. “It would have been pretty great to have a guaranteed opportunity, but we’re going to go out and earn it either way.”
Perhaps the third time, it will happen
When the Four-Balls were canceled, it left the Women’s Four-Ball host club in a peculiar position. Quail Creek Country Club in Naples, Florida, had also been awarded the 2017 U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur but was unable to host the event after Hurricane Irma swept through the area weeks earlier and left the course unplayable.
Quail Creek now finds itself in the unique position of being 0 for 2 in its USGA hosting duties. Director of Golf Jon Balyeat arrived at Quail Creek at the end of 2017 by way of Sycamore Hills Golf Club in Fort Wayne, Indiana. In fact, he was sitting in the airport awaiting a flight south to interview at Quail Creek as Hurricane Irma was bearing down.
The championship banners have been up for six months now at Quail Creek, and will fly until the end of April, which would have been the week of the Four-Ball. That the USGA awarded Quail Creek this second championship indicates it will be awarded a third.
“A lot of those (championship committee members) were involved in the committee process for the 2017 Mid-Am,” he said of the Four-Ball prep effort. “It was just a very difficult and disappointing conversation to have with them. Eighteen months of preparation for this event as well as roughly the same time in 2017.”
Balyeat remembers well the 2013 U.S. Girls’ Junior hosted at Sycamore Hills – one of two USGA events the club hosted. He particularly enjoyed seeing the caliber of players qualified for the championships and having the chance to interact with them.
“For me, I know what it is like to host at your facility and what that can mean. For me as a golf professional, it’s about hosting the championship to showcase your facility and give back to amateur golf,” Balyeat said. “I think that was the message and the understanding that the majority of our members had. Without the USGA, without the amateur players, facilities like ours would not exist.”
Balyeat played collegiate golf at Indiana University and Purdue University – Fort Wayne. He figures he’s entered a USGA qualifier, whether for an amateur event or the U.S. Open, 19 of the past 20 years. For now, however, his sights are firmly set on seeing a USGA championship host gig through – provided Mother Nature will step aside.
“I’m hopeful that that day will come, regardless of whether it’s 50 years down the road and I’m gone or if it’s in the next three to five to 10 years.”
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