Every team was in the hunt with only a couple holes left to play, but it was the team from Down Under that came out on top at Maridoe Golf Club outside of Dallas.
Cameron Smith’s Ripper GC claimed the 2024 LIV Golf Team Championship on Sunday, shooting 11 under in stroke play to win the $14 million prize. They finished three shots in front of Dustin Johnson’s 4Aces GC and Iron Heads GC at 8 under while Legion XIII was fourth at 6 under.
The low round for Ripper GC was the captain, who bogeyed his opening hole then added five birdies to sign for a 4-under 68. Lucas Herbert, who had a triple bogey in his round, was next at 3 under while Marc Leishman and Matt Jones each shot 2-under 70.
“Mate, it’s so good,” Smith said. “I mean, not only great golfers but they’re better people. I think that’s what being a Ripper is all about. Just so happens that we’re good golfers, too. It’s a good combo. But to have those three guys out there today, or six other guys really to lean on trying to get the job done, there was something in me that was telling me that we were going to be all right.”
Added Leishman: “Firstly, it’s unbelievable to win a team event. It’s not very often in golf you get to celebrate with other people who are equally as happy, and there’s about 15 of us here. Yeah, I mean, I feel like this win, Australia has been behind us so much. I think it’s a massive win for us individually, as a team. I’m so excited.”
Jon Rahm didn’t play this week for Legion XIII, withdrawing before Saturday’s semifinals because of flu-like symptoms. Iron Heads GC knocked off fourth-seeded Smash GC in the quarterfinals before taking out the top overall seed and defending team champions, Bryson DeChambeau’s Crushers GC, in the semifinals.
Iron Heads GC will take home $8 million while 4Aces GC will collect $6 million. In the Team Championship, the teams keep 60 percent and each player takes home 10 percent.
Bryson DeChambeau’s Crushers GC, the defending LIV Golf team champions, are the top seed and have a quarterfinal bye on Friday. Also earning byes are Jon Rahm’s Legion XIII and Cameron Smith’s Ripper GC.
The event gets underway Friday. Here’s a look at the best photos from the 2024 LIV Golf Team Championship.
LIV Golf’s third season will come to a close Sunday, and then the league will enter the offseason before going international to begin its 2025 campaign. As for what’s next for the league? Other than the early-season schedule release, not many details have been released.
Perhaps it’s because the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which finances LIV Golf, are still working on a deal to bring the top players from both tours back together. Or it could be because the initial momentum LIV Golf had after its first two years has slowed.
A follow-up question was asked: “Do you want to expand on that any?”
“No.”
Two questions, a pair of one-word answers and the result is left trying to figure out what it all means.
Perhaps Mickelson is speaking to players about possibly joining the league. But unlike in year’s past, there’s hardly any chatter going on about folks who could move defect from the PGA Tour to LIV Golf. Or maybe LIV is in a holding pattern, waiting to see what’s next for professional golf, like the rest of us.
Based on other questions and answers Thursday from Mickelson and other LIV Golf captains, the league is moving forward like business as usual. There were even some hints at more team-only events in the future, similar to this week in Dallas.
But as always, Lefty’s choice to not talk about conversations he has had will leave people guessing. Is it a smokescreen, or is LIV Golf preparing for another major offseason splash?
The 2024 LIV Golf Team Championship will be LIV’s second event in Texas.
At the halfway point of its 2024 schedule, LIV Golf has announced where the 2024 LIV Golf Team Championship will be.
Maridoe Golf Club in Carrolton, Texas, about 20 minutes outside of Dallas, will host the 2024 LIV Golf Team Championship, set for Sept. 20-22. Last year, the event was in Miami at Trump National Doral. Now, the league in its third season is heading to Texas for its finale.
“Our LIV Golf players are looking forward to playing in the Dallas-Fort Worth area with its great golf tradition,” LIV CEO Greg Norman said in a release. “Texas is legendary for producing and hosting great golfers who set a high bar while competing for championships. Our LIV Golf Team Championship at Maridoe Golf Club will be a great experience for our players and all the fans in attendance.”
The LIV Golf Team Championship is comprised of three days of stroke and match play. Last year, Bryson DeChambeau’s Crushers GC won the team title at Doral.
Dallas you ready for the 2024 Team Championship?
Maridoe Golf Club will host the event on September 20-22 2024
Last month, LIV Golf announced Bolingbrook Golf Club in Bolingbrook, Illinois, will host the 2024 Individual Championship the week prior, ending the league’s two-year relationship with Rich Harvest Farms in Sugar Grove, Illinois.
“Members of Maridoe Golf Club are pleased to host the LIV Golf Team Championship in September,” Maridoe Golf Club Founder Albert Huddleston said. “Maridoe has been honored to previously host the Southern Amateur, Trans-Mississippi Amateur, East West Cup Matches, USGA Women’s Four-Ball Championship as well as two 2020 COVID tournaments won by Scottie Scheffler and Brandon Wu. Maridoe is designed to be an enjoyable but demanding member’s club while always ready to provide a great test for elite golfers to entertain golf enthusiasts.”
The 2024 LIV Golf Team Championship will be LIV’s second event in Texas this year, following LIV Golf Houston in June, the next event on the schedule. It’s set a week before the U.S. Open at Pinehurst No. 2 in North Carolina.
The Ryder Cup-style event combines three generations of amateur golf talent from across the U.S.
CARROLTON, Texas — The second playing of the East West Matches concluded Sunday afternoon with the East completing a wire-to-wire win.
The Ryder Cup-style event is the brainchild of mid-am Scott Harvey and Maridoe Golf Club owner and oil tycoon Albert Hudleston. Combining three generations of amateur golf talent from across the U.S., the East West Matches is one of the most talent-laden events in all of amateur golf.
Looking to avenge a painful loss in the first playing of the Matches, the East through two days was replicating what it did in 2020.
Friday saw the East jump out to a 6-3 lead in four-ball before the skies burst open and drenched the course with more than an inch and a half of rain. With the course softened up and true rolling greens, the East picked up another 11 ½ points during Saturday’s marathon 36-hole foursomes matches.
Leading 17 ½ – 9 ½, captain Nathaniel Crosby’s team needed just 5 ½ singles wins to defeat the West and avenge the loss from two years ago.
Did the East deliver.
In the 18 singles matches Sunday, 14 of them were won by the East and only seven even made it to the 18th hole. Joe Deraney of the East squad looked at the leaderboard while watching his teammates come through the par-3 14th and smiled.
“It’s not like last time,” he said.
Blowing a double-digit lead Sunday in 2020, you could tell that Deraney and others that were on that team wanted so badly to claim the victory and make up for that meltdown.
The East surrendered just three matches to the West and split two more. The 14-4 drubbing resulted in a final score of 31 ½ – 13 ½ and gives the East its first win in the infancy of the event.
So what’s the secret to having a team pull out a lopsided win when the talent gap is practically nonexistent? Crosby gave a veteran tip from his multiple Walker Cup captaincies: “I think it was the 3 a.m. curfew that probably was the detail (that did it),” Crosby joked. “The mandatory two hours of sleep for each player, each night. … you have to think it through.”
All kidding aside, the week is more about what amateur golf is truly about: comradery.
“The coolest part about this tournament is you’re putting three generations together,” Crosby said. “Generational friendships are absolutely the best to have. The college kids being able to play with the mid-ams and the mid-ams playing with the seniors, bridging these generations is such a great format. Everybody had such a blast.”
Crosby’s crew will look to defend in 2024 when the East West Matches take place once again at Maridoe.
As for what’s next, a large handful of mid-amateurs and senior amateurs from the East West Matches, including Golfweek’s No. 1 ranked senior, Rusty Strawn, will be heading to Spain for next week’s Concession Cup.
Team rosters
Mid-Amateurs
East: Andrew Bailey, Evan Beck, Chip Brooke, Mark Costanza, Joe Deraney, Jeronimo Esteve, Scott Harvey, Matt Mattare, Tug Maude, Chad Wilfong
West: Jason Anthony, Skip Berkmeyer, Denny Bull, Derek Busby, Patrick Christovich, Nick Guyer, Colby Harwell, John Hunter, Brad Nurski, John Swain
Senior Amateurs
East: Doug Hanzel, Steve Harwell, Billy Mitchell, Bob Royak, Rusty Strawn, Matt Sughrue
West: Tommy Brennan, Jon Brown, Robert Funk, John McClure, Mike McCoy, Mike Rowley
Amateurs
East: Nick Dunlap (Alabama), Caleb Surratt (Tennessee)
West: Derek Hitchner (Pepperdine), Luke Potter (Arizona State)
Teens Alexa Saldana and Savannah Barber are the first USGA champions of the year after winning the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball.
Alexa Saldana and Savannah Barber had a short drive home on Wednesday afternoon to show off their new championship hardware. Saldana and Barber, a pair of teenagers who attend the Crown Golf Academy in Arlington, Texas, are the first U.S. Golf Association champions of the year, having kicked off the season with a hard-fought title at the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball.
Saldana and Barber, both 17 and roommates at the Academy, are based just 30 miles down the road from Maridoe Golf Club, a notoriously tough test of golf in Carrollton, Texas. Maridoe is a first-time USGA host, too, but Saldana and Barber navigated it gracefully.
The pair survived two rounds of stroke play followed by five rounds of match play to become USGA champions. New this year, both players will receive an exemption into the U.S. Women’s Amateur and the U.S. Girls’ Junior courtesy of their win.
“It feels incredible to be able to win this with everyone watching and qualify for the other two USGA Women’s Amateur and Girls’,” Saldana said. “It feels incredible.”
Neither player has ever competed in either tournament before.
Saldana, whose family remains in her native Mexico, is a first-year student at Crown. Barber, who grew up in Fort Worth, Texas, is in her fourth year. The two roommates instantly clicked after meeting in the fall. Their games are clicking, too, after so much practice at Texas Rangers Golf Club.
“We knew all of our preparation before this tournament at the Crown Golf Academy,” Barber said. “…We knew we were in a good spot.”
Barber and Saldana started match play as the No. 26 seed and advanced through their first two matches without ever seeing the 16th hole. They pulled that trick again to take down University of Kentucky stalwarts Jensen Castle and Marissa Wenzler in the quarterfinals.
In the semifinals, Barber and Saldana faced the youngest two players in the tournament in Avery Zweig and Gianna Clemente. The kids, 14 and 13, respectively, took the eventual winners through 20 holes, but ultimately Barber and Saldana advanced to the final match against 2019 Women’s Four-Ball runners-up Jillian Bourdage and Casey Weidenfeld.
Even though Barber and Saldana lost the first hole of the final match to a birdie from their opponents, they had taken a 1-up lead by the turn. Ultimately, Barber and Saldana pulled away when Bourdage and Weidenfeld logged back-to-back bogeys at Nos. 12 and 13. Barber and Saldana sealed it with a birdie at the par-3 14th.
There was certain to be a celebration back at the Academy when Barber and Saldana returned.
“A lot of congratulations as we kept on winning our matches,” Barber said of the reaction from their other friends at Crown.
Barber has already committed to play for Oklahoma after graduating, but Saldana is still weighing her college options. After this week’s performance, this much is clear: They’d make a strong one-two punch at the next level.
Three teams shared stroke-play medalist honors and are rolling into match play with confidence at the 2021 U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball.
Three teams stood out from the rest during the stroke-play portion of the sixth U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship.
Gianna Clemente – the youngest player in the field at 13 years old – made a hole-in-one on the par-3 14th hole to lead herself and Avery Zweig to a second consecutive round of 3-under 69 and a share of the lead at Maridoe Golf Club in Carrollton, Texas. The two are tied with Yale golf teammates Ami Gianchandani and Kaitlyn Lee as well as teen phenoms Paris Hilinski and Alexa Pano.
“I didn’t think that it was going to go in because the greens are so firm, but it was on the pin the whole way,” said Zweig said of Clemente’s ace. “Obviously, it was a great addition to our round and helped us gain momentum to finish strong.”
Avery Zweig celebrates with partner Gianna Clemente on the 18th hole during the second round of stroke play at the 2021 U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball at Maridoe Golf Club in Carrollton, Texas on Sunday, April 25, 2021. (Darren Carroll/USGA)
The tournament now shifts to match play with the Round of 32 on Monday. The Round of 16 will be played Tuesday morning, followed by quarterfinal matches Tuesday afternoon. The semifinals and 18-hole final match will be played Wednesday.
Maridoe Golf Club became a haven for competitive golf in 2020. Meet the man behind the movement, Maridoe owner Albert Huddleston.
The U.S. Golf Association will open its 2021 championship season at Maridoe Golf Club in Carrollton, Texas, this April with the U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball. It marks Maridoe’s debut as a USGA championship site, though the Maridoe community is anything but new to hosting large-scale events.
Albert Huddleston’s Texas oasis, which opened in 2017, can tip out at nearly 8,000 yards. Every hole changes direction and Texas wind is a major factor. Those who have competed there talk of a golf course that takes practice to learn. Jordan Spieth, Will Zalatoris, Braden Thornberry and Lee Trevino are among the savvy membership of roughly 200.
Beginning in April 2020, Maridoe hosted the first of seven competitive events for every level of player. Six of those were inaugural events, with the 114th Southern Amateur rounding out the lineup.
Albert Huddleston, owner and founder of Maridoe Golf Club
At the end of the 2020 season, club owner and founder Huddleston, the chief executive officer and managing partner of Aethon Energy, sat down with Golfweek to discuss everything from his desire to host so many events to his background in golf to mastering the nuances of Maridoe (competitors: take note of the latter).
Here are excerpts from that conversation:
On why competitive opportunities mattered so much in 2020…
Golf has always, to me, been more than a special sport. It is really a vehicle or a catalyst to travel, meet great friends, be with friends. It’s one of the rare sports where you can play with someone who is not as accomplished as you or more accomplished and have a great time. Every golf course is different. The weather changes to make what was yesterday’s golf course feel like it had nothing to do with today’s golf course and contest. That’s how I think about golf. I’m very passionate about it, I think it’s an important sport, it’s an important socialization opportunity.
So when COVID-19 occurred, obviously it shut down everything and at Maridoe, we have junior players, we have amateurs, mid-ams, senior ams, we have all kinds of professional players – Korn Ferry, Latin America, Canadian, PGA. We have a few ladies as well. And so what happened is they were all off the clock and they were there and in fact, I remember very clearly that Jordan Spieth and Martin Flores were out back of the clubhouse and I was talking to them and I said, ‘By the way, is this the longest you’ve gone without playing in a golf contest?’ They looked at each other and they said they both agreed since they were six years old. I came back around the clubhouse and (managing member) Alison Morrison was there. I said, we need to create an opportunity for all these wonderful players who are now just sitting on their hands to have a contest. That’s how the Maridoe Samaritan (Fund Invitational) came about. It started by word of mouth.
As soon as that tournament was over, Scottie Scheffler won, and we all of a sudden had Viktor Hovland who got beat, on the way home said, ‘I want to do this again.’ I basically want to take Scottie down the next time. So in a couple weeks … we did the 2.0. We were the only ones out there, doing something like this. It was the right thing to do and we stepped forward and we made the decision that golf was the perfect sport as a complement to maintain the COVID-19 protocols. You could do both.
Scottie Scheffler won the Maridoe Samaritan Fund Invitational at Maridoe Golf Club in Carrollton, Texas, on April 30, 2020. (Photo by Maridoe Golf Club)
On the homogenized fields that came together at Maridoe – most notably for two Maridoe Samaritan Fund Invitationals in April and May…
I will dare say that never again in our lifetime, in my opinion, that you’ll have a tournament like we had our (Maridoe) Samaritan (Fund) tournaments in the spring. I dare say you’ll never ever have the best juniors, the best college amateurs, mid-ams, PGA Tour professionals, Canadian professionals, Latin American professionals, Korn Ferry professionals, all playing at the same time, the same tournament. There’s no ego in it, and everyone played together and were so grateful and had a great time. I don’t think these people will ever stand down in their golf employment to have that privilege and I’m not sure those on the PGA Tour would mentally be accustomed to playing with amateurs and so to me, it was one of those— talk about making the ambrosia of lemonade by virtue of having the COVID-19. It actually created an opportunity to homogenize all of the different aspects of amateur and professional golf, placed them into one cauldron and everybody had a brilliant time. And I’m probably as proud of that as anything.
On future hosting opportunities, including potential interest in a U.S. Open…
My instructions to (golf architect Steve Smyers) very clearly were I want to have Maridoe Golf Club never hear the terrible words, ‘Had you only done something different, you could have hosted a U.S. Open, a U.S. Amateur or the North Texas Championship,’ and so I do not want to hear those words.
So Maridoe was created to be able to host anything successfully. The design, thought process, time and motion, choreography of the property was delivered and exists today to host anything that is played anywhere at any time, with or without spectators. You talk about a U.S. Open in particular, I would never be so arrogant or brash or egocentric to say we deserve a U.S. Open or a U.S. Amateur. That’s for the USGA to decide and we’ll let the chips fall where they fall.
But Maridoe was designed to host the very best, the very best players, and is so strategic and so mentally taxing that it will separate the richest cream from cream and the champion will be clearly identified and I think that’s what the USGA tends to do with their championships in particular – the U.S. Amateur, U.S. Open. If we were ever blessed and honored with the opportunity to have, for example, a U.S. Open or anything of great significance, we would be honored and it would be a privilege. We wouldn’t be surprised because we prepared for it but we would not be so arrogant as to say that we have to have it because we deserve it. That’s for the USGA to decide.
Huddleston, left, with top finishers at the Maridoe Junior Invitational. (Photo submitted)
On where the difficulties lie at Maridoe, and what it takes to be successful there…
My philosophy on championship golf is that the individual who is a great player who cannot think his way around the course carefully should fail compared to those who are elite players who can manage themselves around the course strategically and thoughtfully. So Maridoe was created to make that separation. One of the things about elite golf today particularly at the young, collegiate level, is that the ability to work the ball and flight the ball is becoming a lost art because the technology – the ball and the equipment – has allowed these young athletes in great shape to swing as hard as they want to and technology keeps it pretty much on course. So they’re used to just hitting it hard and high and my goal was the person who comes there who’s mono-dimensional who leaves their brain in the trunk of their car in the parking lot has no chance against someone who can flight the ball, work the ball and strategically think his way around Maridoe.
On Huddleston’s start in golf…
We were always around golf and dad was fantastic and he was special. We just were raised since we were very young that golf was important. I will say that when my father said we couldn’t play football and there were sports where he said I will ask you not to play because you’ll wind up being arthritic, your knees will be injured, potentially. It’s not one of the 90-year-old sports. I said what’s a 90-year-old sport?
He says well golf, bird-hunting or trout fishing. I said what about tennis? He said, tennis is a nice sport but there aren’t too many people who come back from Hawaii and say you’ve gotta go play this tennis court on this promontory of crashing waves. So I probably emphasized golf over that. It was just our family, it’s what we did. Also being around the various golf associations and the USGA and my father had a tremendous respect for that.
Albert Huddleston (second from right) stands with (from left) Jackson Rivera, Tommy Morrison and Luke Potter near a body of water at Maridoe Golf Club, where bass fishing is a popular way to pass the time. (Photo submitted)
On the Maridoe name, how it came to be and what it represents…
My wife Mary, she does not play golf. She, when approached, supported me about wanting to do this golf club, which no wife should ever let a husband do realistically, which is an indication of how nice she really is. And she is.
But, when she was born, the doctors handed her to her father and he gazed down on her and looked at her and said my goodness, look at these beautiful brown eyes. They remind me of doe eyes. And they named her Mary. So he nicknamed her Marydoe. He’s now deceased. So myself and her brother, that is a nickname that we use. That’s what I’ve called her. So I said I think Mary Doe would be great. I was playing around with it, I said what about Maridoe so phonetically it would be Mary-Doe.
The way I do a capital M is essentially the logo. And after I said this story (to members of a hired branding agency), the three ladies and the gentleman there who owned the company, they were all going, ‘That’s the most wonderful thing I’ve ever heard.’ They said, we need to do this. So that was how it was born. I will give them great credit, they came back because we have a 33-acre lake with bass fishing. They took my M and they put a reverse loop on the backside, that I don’t use when I sign a capital M, to be reminiscent of a fishing loop to designate that Maridoe Golf Club subconsciously has a fishing loop in it’s logo. So nobody knows that.
Juniors Luke Potter and Preston Summerhays put on a shot in the 36-hole final of the Maridoe Amateur. Ultimately Potter left with the title.
Luke Potter likes to go it alone on the golf course. When the 16-year-old made his U.S. Amateur debut in August, he carried his own bag. He did the same for the past six days at Maridoe Golf Club in Carrollton, Texas, this week.
When the formula works, you stick to it. Potter got himself through three rounds of stroke play and six more rounds of match play this week at the marathon Maridoe Amateur, a new event for the nation’s top amateurs that unfolded under the watchful eye of U.S. Walker Cup captain Nathaniel Crosby.
“I just like to work alone on the course,” said Potter, from Encinitas, California. “Maridoe is not that hard of a walk so I thought I could do it. I kept my energy and I did just that.”
The field for the event was selected based primarily on rankings, with priority given to U.S. players. It was an overwhelmingly college-age field, with just a handful of juniors. As it turned out, Potter and 18-year-old Preston Summerhays were the last two players standing for Sunday’s 36-hole final.
And they’d had plenty of sparring practice leading up to the title match.
Potter recently spent a week at the Summerhays home in Phoenix. They played three or four competitive rounds, which was motivation for each of them. Summerhays, who won the 2019 U.S. Junior Amateur, will arrive on the Arizona State roster next fall. Potter will be there a year later.
It’s good and bad to play a friend under such high stakes, Potter said. He faced the same situation in the Round of 64 against Alexander Yang. Yang conceded Potter few putts.
“I knew Preston’s strengths and weaknesses, same with my buddy Alex’s strengths and weaknesses,” Potter said. “It’s good to play against your buddies, in my opinion. I beat them both so at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter.”
In the final match, the first 18 holes went back and forth with Summerhays getting an early 1-up lead. Potter fought back to lead by as many as three holes and then the two hit the halfway point tied. Potter surged in the afternoon and was 5 up by the time the match hit the back nine. On the par-4 10th hole, he was in the fescue but pulled off a clutch recovery shot from 210 yards – over water, bunkers left and right, couldn’t miss long – to set up a par.
“I striped a 4-iron to about six or seven feet and then when I won that hole, I went 6 up so I kind of knew I was in full control,” he said.
He eventually won by an 8-and-6 margin.
Potter had played three tournaments at Maridoe so far in 2020: The Maridoe Samaritan Fund Invitational 2.0 in May, the Maridoe Junior in June and the Southern Amateur in July.
“Four times a charm for sure,” he said. “Experience really does matter here and this is probably the best field and so I’m happy to win this one.”
https://www.instagram.com/p/CIeS7UXFRwd/
After rounds of 73-76-73 in stroke play this week, he landed the No. 3 seed on the 64-man match-play bracket. He named his Round-of-32 match against Baylor’s John Keefer and his quarterfinal match against Oklahoma’s Jonathan Brightwell as being some of the toughest. Still, Potter loves this one-on-one format.
“You can be a little bit more aggressive and things can go against you really quick,” he said. “In that second 18, I got hot and that’s match play.”
As the field shrunk, it allowed players making a deep run to put on a show for Crosby. This isn’t the first time that a spot on the Walker Cup team has crossed Potter’s mind. In February, Potter won the AJGA Simplify Boys Championship on Carlton Woods on the strength of a 10-under 62 in the second round. His 20-under total was a new AJGA record.
“After the big win in Houston earlier this year, I was inside the top 100 in the rankings so it entered my mind there but I had a bad summer so I just kind of threw it out the door,” he said.
Sunday’s final pairing could easily be a match-up you’d find on the last day of the U.S. Junior Amateur, the title many juniors covet. After all, it comes with a U.S. Open exemption.
Both of those events make Potter’s 2021 goal list. He’d like a title in the former and a spot in the latter.
“A U.S. Junior win would be awesome,” he said. “I know it’s a big goal and one tournament. If I can just keep improving, I think I can reach that goal. The U.S. Open being at Torrey Pines in 2021, I’m making that a premium on trying to qualify and hopefully make the cut.”
Medalist Will Holcomb and Sunnehanna Amateur champion Preston Summerhays will face off at the top of the Maridoe Amateur bracket Saturday.
Five days and six rounds into the Maridoe Amateur, the quarterfinals are set. Half of the remaining field was seeded inside the top 10, and that includes Will Holcomb.
The Sam Houston State fifth-year senior is channeling some of his Pinehurst magic on this bracket. Twice in the past year and a half, Holcomb played his way deep into match play at that resort’s famed No. 2 course – at the 2019 U.S. Amateur (semifinals) and the 2020 North & South (finals).
On Friday at Maridoe Golf Club, Holcomb got past Coastal Carolina’s Zack Taylor in the morning but needed an extra hole to do it. He then defeated Oklahoma’s Logan McAllister by a 4-and-3 margin in the afternoon. It doesn’t get any easier from here. Holcomb will face Preston Summerhays, the 2019 U.S. Junior champion, in the quarterfinals. Summerhays also won the prestigious Sunnehanna Amateur over the summer.
Summerhays, a Class of 2021 player bound for Arizona State next fall, dispatched two college players in Oklahoma’s Patrick Welch and SMU’s McClure Meissner, the latter having the distinction of winning the Southern Amateur at Maridoe over the summer.
Down the bracket, No. 45 seed Benjamin Shipp, who won the South Beach International Amateur to end 2019 continues a gritty run that included victories over Santa Clara’s Matthew McCarty and SMU’s Noah Goodwin on Friday. Now he faces Christopher Gotterup, who had a similarly tough road. Gotterup, a Rutgers senior, barely got past stroke-play star Frankie Capan, of Florida Gulf Coast, on Friday afternoon.
Sam Choi, the New Mexico player, and Ryan Grider, a Baylor junior who won the 2019 Texas Amateur, will meet on the bottom of the bracket. The winner of that match will face the winner of a showdown between Luke Potter, a high school junior verbally committed to Arizona State, and Jonathan Brightwell, a fifth-year senior at Oklahoma who got past U.S. Amateur medalist Wilson Furr and Arizona State’s David Puig on Friday.
After a double-round day of matches on Saturday, two finalists will play a 36-hole final on Sunday to determine a champion.
