The old record was set in 2014 and matched in 2018.
The Cantlays are pretty good at golf.
Patrick Cantlay is ranked fourth in the world and the reigning FedEx Cup champion. His youngest brother, Jack, is proving his worth, too.
During the first round of stroke play Monday at the 74th U.S. Junior Amateur at Bandon Dunes in Oregon, the 18-year-old set a United States Golf Association record for lowest nine-hole score, when he shot an 8-under 28 during his inward nine. The previous record of 29 was set by Eric Bae (2014) and Yuki Moriyama (2018).
Jack, who was four over after eight holes, had two eagles on his inward nine, which was the front. He made an eagle on both of the par 5s, the third and ninth holes. He birdied four other holes, Nos. 1, 4, 5 and 8.
Jack Cantlay, the 18-year-old brother of Patrick Cantlay, set a U.S. Junior Am record with a front-nine 28 on Monday at Bandon Dunes. Previous nine-hole record was 29, done twice. pic.twitter.com/QFYIgVO6B9
“I think that’s the first time I have broken 30,” Jack said. “There’s a first time for everything, I guess. It’s just another round of golf, sometimes you play good and sometimes you play bad.
“Today I played good.”
Jack, an incoming freshman at Long Beach State, finished at 5-under 67 following his first round, one shot behind leaders Erich Fortlage and Harvey Young.
Jack plays his second round of stroke play Tuesday at Bandon Trails, the co-host for stroke play. The top 64 players following stroke play advance to match play, which begins Wednesday.
Nicholas Dunlap now gets his name etched into the U.S. Junior trophy after a long week at the Country Club of North Carolina.
As Nicholas Dunlap correctly noted on Saturday night, the U.S. Junior “is the big one” in junior golf. Dunlap now gets his name etched into the trophy after a long week at the Country Club of North Carolina in Pinehurst, North Carolina.
“My heart is still beating 100 times fast. This is unbelievable,” he said by way of reaction.
Dunlap, a 17-year-old from Hunstville, Alabama, playing his second USGA championship, took down Cohen Trolio on Saturday evening at the end of the scheduled 36-hole final. Dunlap prevailed by a 3-and-2 margin after being in control of the match for much of the day.
Trolio, who will play for LSU beginning this fall, did this dance backwards. Two years ago, he was a semifinalist at the U.S. Amateur played at nearby Pinehurst No. 2. His trip to the U.S. Junior finals gets him a return trip to that championship next month (though he was already safely in courtesy of his 2019 U.S. Am run).
Cohen Trolio hits his second shot from the fifth fairway during the final match at the 2021 U.S. Junior at The Country Club of North in Village of Pinehurst, N.C. on Saturday, July 24, 2021. (Chris Keane/USGA)
Dunlap’s spoils are on an entirely different level. Courtesy of his win, he’ll play the 2022 U.S. Open.
“It’s my first PGA Tour event, first major,” Dunlap said. “I’m sure I’m probably going to be this nervous or even more. As a 17 or — I don’t know if I’ll be 18 by then, it’s just going to be a learning experience for me, and I’m going to go into it with as much confidence as I can and play my game.”
At CCNC, Dunlap benefited from a caddie who has been on that stage. Jeff Curl, who played the 2012 U.S. Open at Olympic Club, proved to be a formidable partner when it came to navigating the match-play bracket.
“You know, more words than I could ever say to thank Jeff,” Dunlap said. “He’s been there through all my ups and downs. He’s taught me so many things. He had, gosh, 20, 40 times this week he would either call me off, different club, different read on a putt, and without him this week there’s no way I would be here.”
Already this year, Dunlap has won the Dustin Johnson Junior World Championship by two strokes, placed second in the Pete Dye Invitational, tied for second in the Wyndham Invitational and tied for fifth in the Western Junior. Interestingly, he’s a former national finalist in the NFL Punt, Pass & Kick competition.
Saturday, however, was on a different level. It will forever be the day that Dunlap became a USGA champion.
“I’ve won tournaments in the past, but nothing like this,” he said. “This is unbelievable. The setting of it, in Pinehurst, to win — hopefully maybe I can win and defend next year, but to win this year at Pinehurst on this golf course, I’ll remember it forever.”
John Crooks and Tim Straub were back recruiting this week at the U.S. Junior, where they happen to be past champs.
Back in 2018, when then-Campbell-freshman Pontus Nyholm qualified for the 2018 NCAA Championship at Karsten Creek in Stillwater, Oklahoma, Camels head coach John Crooks orchestrated a detour. There was a scroll in Oklahoma City that Crooks wanted to see.
The player scroll is a familiar tradition for USGA championships, and Crooks knew that the one from the 1967 U.S. Junior at Twin Hills Golf Club would have his name on it – if it was still there.
“I called ahead and they were very gracious, met us and had carts for us,” Crooks remembered. “They showed me that I signed during registration for all the participants and then we rode by the golf course.”
Crooks’ run to that U.S. Junior title rarely comes up within his team, but it’s nice for the longtime coach of both Campbell golf teams to occasionally reference if he needs to drive home a point with a player.
Crooks spent this week recruiting at the U.S. Junior just up the road from Campbell. Walking the fairways at Country Club of North Carolina in Pinehurst, North Carolina, was a return to normalcy. For much of the past year, in-person recruiting was off-limits because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Because of COVID, I don’t know how other coaches felt but it’s just like I’ve just been standing in quicksand, there was nothing I could do, no place I could go,” he said. “To be able to walk the golf course and go up and down and walk nine holes and then nine more and then nine more, that’s what we’re supposed to do during the summertime, see players and be seen by players.”
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Crooks won his U.S. Junior title in his first and only trip to the championship when he was 17. He had a local caddie at Twin Hills – one who had just signed to play basketball on scholarship at a school in Oklahoma and who Crooks distinctly remembers being unfamiliar with how to tote a golf bag. He would often pick it up by the handle and carry it that way.
Crooks met Andy North, a three-time PGA Tour winner turned ESPN golf analyst, in the final and got an early advantage. He was 6 up when he made the turn and held on to that advantage even as North came to life on the back nine. Crooks won, 2 and 1, when he birdied the 17th on top of North.
“I can’t tell you the length of every putt that I hit but I think that I played that round over in my head so much that if I can’t remember every shot I can remember most of them,” he said.
In the years since, Crooks has only seen North in person one time.
Back when Crooks competed, a player aged out of U.S. Junior eligibility when he was 18. Now, junior players have an extra year to compete. Plus, there weren’t as many outlets for word of the tournament to spread.
Still, Crooks was very much aware what it meant to be a U.S. Junior champion even before he was one.
Crooks isn’t the only current college coach for whom U.S. Junior week means a little something extra. Cincinnati men’s coach Doug Martin won in 1984 and Davidson men’s coach Tim Straub won in 1983.
Straub is one of a distinguished group to finish runner-up (in 1982 at Crooked Stick in Carmel, Indiana) before going on to win the next year at Saucon Valley in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
“The first year – the U.S. Junior when I was 15 – it was the first real big national tournament I played in,” Straub said. “I remember thinking it was the hardest golf course I’d ever seen in my life.”
A deep run in ’82 meant Straub returned in ’83 as the favorite. He also felt he was playing like one.
For Straub, winning in ’83 meant also getting a spot in the U.S. Amateur. College coaches began to turn their heads, too. Straub went on to play college golf at Wake Forest where he was a member of the 1986 NCAA Championship team.
“Even from the previous year I knew what an accomplishment it is to play well in the U.S. Junior,” he said.
And no matter how many years go by, that’s one thing that never changes.
Luke Clanton was the breakout star of the week at the U.S. Junior, but Cohen Trolio and Nicholas Dunlap will play for the title.
At USGA amateur championships, there’s always the realization that good things must come to an end. On Friday afternoon at the Country Club of North Carolina in Pinehurst, North Carolina, Luke Clanton met his end short of a trophy but with a big bag of wins regardless.
Clanton, the 17-year-old from Miami Lakes, Florida, tore through the match-play bracket mid-week and downed three top players to score a semifinal pairing opposite Cohen Trolio, himself a semifinalist from the U.S. Amateur at Pinehurst in 2019. Trolio proved to be the buzzsaw that Clanton couldn’t get past.
“It just didn’t go my way today,” said Clanton, who at No. 33 had the highest seed of any semifinalist. “I can’t really say anything else. I just didn’t perform nearly good enough. Congrats to Cohen; Cohen played really well. I hope he pulls through and wins the championship match. He deserves it, as good as he played today.”
Clanton, who has committed to Florida State, birdied the first hole but found the tables turning when Trolio, who will play for LSU, birdied Nos. 3 and 5. Trolio extended his lead by winning Nos. 7-9 then 11 and 12. The match was over by No. 14.
Still, for Clanton, head-to-head victories over top-seeded Kelly Chinn, CCNC member Jackson Van Paris and two-time Alabama State Amateur champion Gordon Sargent made him arguably the breakout star of the week on a bracket loaded with talent.
“It was an awesome learning experience, but it’s a tough one to really handle,” Clanton said. “I really wanted to win this one.”
Luke Clanton reacts to a missed putt on hole seven during the quarterfinals at the 2021 U.S. Junior at The Country Club of North in Village of Pinehurst, N.C. on Friday, July 23, 2021. (Chris Keane/USGA)
As for Trolio, the 18-year-old seems to find his flow in Pinehurst. His breakout performance came two years ago at the U.S. Amateur. He played the Southern Amateur at Old Waverly Country Club in West Point, Mississippi, where his dad V.J. is the head of instruction, last weekend before immediately hopping a plane to play this event, which started Monday.
“Yeah, I’ve been playing super solid golf for the last couple months. This week just kind of hit the flow. I finished fourth round at the Southern, kind of literally hopped on a plane, flew here, played a practice round on Dogwood the next day. It was just kind of the same flow.”
Junior golf is a small world, and it’s not often a player catches a man on the other side of the bracket with whom he’s unfamiliar. Trolio admitted to knowing both Luke Potter and Nicholas Dunlap – the other two semifinalists – and will ultimately meet Dunlap in Saturday’s 36-hole final after the Huntsville, Alabama, native dispatched Potter, of Encintas, California, by a 3-and-2 margin.
Potter had the upper hand for much of the front nine, with Dunlap 2 down entering the back nine. But Dunlap fought back and ultimately closed out Potter when he birdied Nos. 14 and 15 then won No. 16 with a par.
“It’s unreal,” Dunlap said of his spot in Saturday’s final. “I’ve played the last six or seven weeks on the road, and I want to win everything I play in, obviously, but I’ve been trying to get my game ready for this week and for the next week for the U.S. Am. To be able to do it, it feels great.”
The winner of Saturday’s final will earn, among other things, an exemption into the 2022 U.S. Open.
Get to know the player who took down the two U.S. Junior Amateur favorites in the same day.
Welcome to the Luke Clanton show.
If you’re unfamiliar with the 17-year-old from Miami Lakes, Florida, let me hit you with some knowledge. He’s committed to Florida State, has won the Class 2A state title in two of the last three years and is off to a blistering start at this year’s U.S. Junior Amateur at The Country Club of North Carolina in the Village of Pinehurst.
“It was kind of funny because me and Ben were talking on the first tee and we kind of knew the whole day was going to be one-sided with the crowd,” explained Clanton.
Clanton took down top-seed Kelly Chinn in the morning Round of 32 on Thursday, 1 up, and then defeated Pinehurst local favorite Jackson Van Paris, 2 and 1, in the Round of 16.
“But it was an unbelievable experience with everyone out here. I can’t even think – I was looking down an iron shot and I saw like a bunch of people surrounding the green, so that’s kind of cool,” he continued. “I just said, ‘one shot at a time,’ and I played really well today. I think I only had one bogey and five birdies. It was just kind of one of those days where I took it one shot at a time, and Jackson is a great opponent, great player, known him for a while. It was fun today, and I just played a little bit better today. That’s it.”
Already this year, Clanton has three top-5 finishes, including a T-2 at the Dustin Johnson Junior Worlds. Last year he won the Arnold Palmer Invitational Junior and posted three top-10 finishes.
“He’s a great player, and he’s definitely a guy that you go into the match knowing you have to play good to beat,” said Van Paris after the match. “He’s not going to lay over. He’s a great competitor. I have no doubt that he’ll continue playing well and keep it going for the rest of the week.”
Awaiting Clanton in the quarterfinals is Vanderbilt-bound Gordon Sargent, a two-time defending Alabama State Amateur champion and three-time Rolex Junior All-American.
For Clanton, he believes in himself just as much as Van Paris.
Is there a junior player on a better streak than Caleb Surratt right now?
Not surprisingly, doors flew open for Caleb Surratt when he learned how to win. After a 2020 golf season during which Surratt appeared in the final pairing in the final round over and over, but never came home with anything to show for it, something clicked in April at the Terra Cotta Invitational.
“I’ve got to disconnect from results and not waste my energy on reacting to shots,” Surratt explained. “I felt like I used to try to control everything that happens. Just kind of in that final round (at Terra Cotta) is when it finally clicked, I’m going to put all my energy into my process over the ball and then wherever the ball goes, goes.”
It’s an epiphany that took quite a bit of time. Surratt has spent lots of energy with swing instructor Chase Duncan in Raleigh, North Carolina – near the Surratts’ home of Indian Trails, North Carolina – working not only through the finer points of closing but also improving his golf swing and finding a process that works for him.
He used to get lazy over shots, he remembers, and sometimes come down under plane, which caused him to lose his posture at the ball. It was a move, he said, that was “not very high-competitive profile.” Add that fix, which has taken quite a bit of work plus physical and mental maturity, and Surratt’s presence on leaderboard after leaderboard isn’t all that surprising.
Surratt’s is one of the great growth stories in junior golf right now. He’s the recent Western Junior champion and entered this week’s U.S. Junior off a win last week at the Junior PGA Championship.
“I really want to win the U.S. Junior, to be honest with you,” Surratt said when asked for his next goal. “That was the goal at the start of the year, and I’m still in a position to do that.”
At the Country Club of North Carolina this week, there have been many mini wins. Rounds of 70-67 set him up with the No. 5 spot on the bracket. He narrowly dispatched Daniel Choi in the first round of match play, 1 up, and took down Rowan Sullivan in the next round by a more comfortable 5-and-4 margin.
Remarkably, given his resume, this is Surratt’s debut in the U.S. Junior. He has seemingly been in the conversation at every major junior event for a year: runner-up at the 2020 Dustin Johnson World Junior, third at the 2020 Ping Invitational and runner-up again at the 2020 Jones Cup Junior. He has top-10 finishes already this year at the Scott Robertson, Team TaylorMade Invitational and Wyndham Invitational.
“I just think, over the years, I feel like I’ve really just matured physically,” he said. “My body has gotten a lot stronger and I’ve been able to hit a lot of different shots but mainly I feel like I’m working with some great coaches now.”
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As Surratt moves toward a college career at Tennessee (he has verbally committed for the fall of 2022), he’s also looking at ways to break through on Tour. He narrowly missed Monday qualifying into the Palmetto Championship earlier this summer and has played Monday qualifiers for the Wells Fargo and Wyndham Championship, too.
— Junior PGA Championship (@JuniorPGAChamp) July 15, 2021
Despite an early-week announcement that the Junior Ryder Cup has been canceled this fall because of COVID-19 reasons (the European team will not travel to Whistling Straits in light of the lingering pandemic), Surratt can expect some facetime with the Ryder Cup team, too.
Surratt was the first player named to the junior team last week when he won the Junior PGA Championship at Kearney Hills in Lexington, Kentucky. He called making the team a lifelong goal, and is thankful U.S. team members will still be invited to Whistling Straits for the event.
“I’m honestly really happy they’re still making it happen that way we can still go hang out with all our friends and have a great week and still feel like it’s truly going on even though Europe won’t be able to come,” he said. “I’m excited for the experience, I think it’s still going to be really good.”
The U.S. Junior marks two weeks out of the last four that Jackson Van Paris has entered a major tournament as the local favorite.
Fifteen players in the starting U.S. Junior field hail from North Carolina, but only one man calls this week’s host site, the Country Club of North Carolina, his home course. That puts a target on Pinehurst native Jackson Van Paris’s back, if not for his peers then at least for fans – especially local ones.
This marks two weeks out of the last four being the local hero. Over the Fourth of July weekend, Van Paris played his way into the final match at the North & South Amateur at Pinehurst (thanks in large part to a dramatic semifinal victory) before finishing runner-up to Australian Louis Dobbelaar.
Van Paris won the last AJGA Invitational he played in February, the Simplify Boys Championship at Carlton Woods, but this is likely to be the last real hurrah. That story would write itself.
Van Paris hit the first tee shot off the first tee at CCNC’s Dogwood Course on Monday morning to start the championship. He had rounds of 72-70 (the 70 on CCNC’s Cardinal Course) to land the No. 17 seed on the bracket. On Thursday, Van Paris took out another of the Carolina guys – Spencer Turtz – in 15 holes to start match play. Now there are only three remaining.
“The course was playing tough,” Van Paris said of a day he made only three birdies. “Neither Spencer nor I played our best. But it was just a grind. It’s one of those matches that neither of us played the way we wanted to, but you’ve just kind of got to grind it out. I got fortunate, I made a few really important putts for par and kind of kept momentum on my side for the most part, which was great, and then ended up making some birdies coming in, which was nice.”
Van Paris noted it was “weird” playing someone from North Carolina. You never want to meet a friend so early in the bracket, he said, but he may keep running into that problem. The 18-year-old has to get past Dutch buzzsaw Benjamin Reuter, who is playing his first USGA championship, in the next round and assuming that good friend Kelly Chinn makes it through another round, too, at the top of the bracket, the two would meet in the Round of 16.
“I mean, if you want to win the event you’ve got to beat them all anyways, so that’s kind of the way I look at it,” van Paris said. “So yeah, I don’t look at it any differently than even if I was playing a bunch of guys I’ve never heard of. I wouldn’t look at it any differently. You’ve just got to go out and try to play your game and play a little better than the guy you’re playing against.”
Van Paris got his edge over Turtz in the Round of 64 when he won three consecutive holes at Nos. 8-10. It was the little things that kept him in the match – like on the par-3 third when Van Paris got up-and-down from a drop zone for bogey and Turtz three-putted from 40 feet. They tied that hole.
“Stuff like that kind of needs to happen if you want to win matches when both guys are playing very well,” he said. “It was by no means a birdie fest out there.
“It’s really nice when you know you’re kind of grinding and you can kind of steal a few.”
Spoken like a guy with a little local knowledge on his side.
Mike Keiser, owner of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, has long been on a mission to introduce American amateur golfers to links golf. Given that goal – and the overwhelming success of his iconic resort on the Oregon coast – it’s a bit surprising that Keiser felt, well, surprise when Bandon Dunes first appeared on the USGA championship schedule as host site of the 2006 Curtis Cup and players raved about the experience. Keiser looked at that week as a trial. Would players want to make the trek? Would they like the venue?
“The contestants wanting to come is quite a pleasant surprise for (recently retired USGA CEO) Mike Davis, the USGA and us,” he said. “We didn’t know that early on.”
Fifteen years later, Bandon Dunes’ dedication to amateur golf aligns even closer with the USGA’s. Golf’s governing body announced Tuesday it will bring 13 of its amateur championships to the iconic resort over the next 24 years. That starts with the U.S. Junior in 2022 and runs through 2045, when Bandon Dunes will again host the U.S. Junior plus the U.S. Girls’ Junior.
The full list looks like this:
2022: U.S. Junior Amateur
2025: U.S. Women’s Amateur
2029: Walker Cup
2032: U.S. Amateur and U.S. Women’s Amateur
2035: U.S. Girls’ Junior
2037: U.S. Amateur Four-Ball and U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball
2038: Curtis Cup
2041: U.S. Amateur and U.S. Women’s Amateur
2045: U.S. Junior Amateur and U.S. Girls’ Junior
Bandon Dunes at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon (Courtesy of Evan Schiller)
Since the 2006 Curtis Cup, Bandon Dunes – home to five of the top 10 resort courses in the U.S. – has hosted six other USGA championships, including the 2020 U.S. Amateur. John Bodenhamer, the USGA’s senior managing director of championships, goes back to Keiser’s often-expressed support of USGA amateur championships and his comment that he’d host one every year.
Eventually, Bodenhamer decided to explore that sentiment a little further.
“We came together on a list of championships that were important to him and to us – all of our championships are important but there are some reasons we chose the current rota that we have and it just all came together,” Bodenhamer said.
To announce a single site as host of such a large chunk of championships – and extend that schedule so far into the future – is an unprecedented move by the USGA. The organization did something similar in 2020 by announcing Pinehurst as a U.S. Open anchor site (with championships scheduled for 2029, 2035, 2041 and 2047) and home to a second, smaller USGA headquarters.
The USGA’s big-picture thinking with Bandon Dunes encompassed several elements, not the least of which is player experience. Bodenhamer echoed a thought that has crossed many USGA champions’ lips through the years: It matters where you win your USGA title.
It’s also not a coincidence that Bandon’s long list of championships starts with the U.S. Junior in 2022. It’s the start of a player’s journey through the USGA.
“Jordan Spieth won two Juniors and the next Jordan Spieth, to be able to say that he or she won at Bandon Dunes will be pretty special,” Bodenhamer said. “We think that elevates our relationship with the players.”
Keiser is particularly excited at the prospect of introducing junior players to links golf.
“I think it’s a great opportunity,” he said, calling Bandon an educational tool in this sense.
A venue with all the magic (not to mention the name recognition) of Bandon Dunes and its seaside green complexes, golden gorse and expansive views has the power to elevate a championship that doesn’t end with the word “open.”
After Bandon Dunes appeared on Golf Channel in primetime as host of the 2020 U.S. Amateur, Keiser said resort phones rang off the hook for a month. Keiser hopes to see the junior events as well as future U.S. Amateur and U.S. Women’s Amateur broadcasts treated the same.
Aman Gupta plays his tee shot at the 16th hole during the semifinal round at the 2020 U.S. Amateur at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Bandon, Ore. on Saturday, Aug. 15, 2020. (Steven Gibbons/USGA)
Bodenhamer confirmed it’s too early to know what kind of network coverage future championships might receive (on NBC, say, versus Golf Channel in an NBC television contract that runs through 2026). In any event, viewers who remember watching the U.S. Amateur unfold last summer are likely to tune in to see juniors against that same backdrop.
“It will be nice to know that they will be televised with the ocean and the dunes and the links golf story as part of it,” Keiser said.
The upcoming Bandon championship schedule brings the U.S. Amateur back twice and the U.S. Women’s Amateur to the resort three times. Both will be played there in 2032 and 2041. Yet to be determined is whether those championships will run concurrently (as the now-retired U.S. Amateur Public Links and U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links did in 2011), or back-to-back, as the USGA treated the U.S. Open and U.S. Women’s Open at Pinehurst in 2014. Either way, both demographics are elevated.
“We think that’s a very positive message for the game, men and women being together, boys and girls being together – juniors,” Bodenhamer said. “We’ve done that before and we think this can carry that forward too.”
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For many USGA championship venues, hosting an amateur championship starts a relationship that may eventually lead to a U.S. Open or a U.S. Women’s Open. Chambers Bay hosted the U.S. Amateur in 2010 before the U.S. Open arrived in 2015, and Erin Hills hosted two amateur championships before debuting as an Open venue in 2017.
Bandon Dunes’ remote location presents an entirely unique set of obstacles for the USGA’s largest events, not to mention the fact that Keiser’s priority remains amateur golf.
“I would never say never but I think for the next 25 years, we’re going to be focused on amateur golf,” Bodenhamer said. “The next set of decision makers will talk about Opens.”
For his part, Keiser, 76, doesn’t think it will happen in his lifetime.
Last summer, Bandon Dunes, the resort’s original 18-hole course, shone on a U.S. Amateur broadcast that came at the end of a summer light on televised golf. Bodenhamer expects to see several, if not all, of the other four courses – Pacific Dunes, Old Macdonald, Bandon Trails and Sheep Ranch – used in future championships depending on the demographic of the event. In all, the resorts’ courses are ranked Nos. 1-5 as the best public-access layouts in Oregon, and each of them is in the top 15 on Golfweek’s Best ranking of modern courses built since 1960 in the U.S.
Asked his opinion on which course sets up best for match play, Keiser went right to Bandon Dunes’ closing stretch on the ocean.
“We have to give David Kidd credit for the 16th hole, the drivable par 4, with 15 being a very tough par 3, usually into the wind, being the warm-up,” he said. “You play this really long par 3 and then you have a short par 4 – those two right there, because that’s where most match-play competitions are concluded on the 15th, 16th before they get to the 18th. David Kidd, it’s as if he knew that he would be hosting the U.S. Amateur etc., when he designed the 16th hole.”
But Keiser is confident the Sheep Ranch, the newest course opened in 2020 and one that features nine greens on the ocean, will figure prominently for future championships.
“Have to say it’s a tie which is more photogenic, Sheep Ranch or Bandon Dunes,” Keiser said. “Let’s call it a tie.”
He could also easily call it a can’t-lose.
Sheep Ranch at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon (Courtesy of Bandon Dunes)
Mike Keiser, owner of Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, has long been on a mission to introduce American amateur golfers to links golf. Given that goal – and the overwhelming success of his iconic resort on the Oregon coast – it’s a bit surprising that Keiser felt, well, surprise when Bandon Dunes first appeared on the USGA championship schedule as host site of the 2006 Curtis Cup and players raved about the experience. Keiser looked at that week as a trial. Would players want to make the trek? Would they like the venue?
“The contestants wanting to come is quite a pleasant surprise for (recently retired USGA CEO) Mike Davis, the USGA and us,” he said. “We didn’t know that early on.”
Fifteen years later, Bandon Dunes’ dedication to amateur golf aligns even closer with the USGA’s. Golf’s governing body announced Tuesday it will bring 13 of its amateur championships to the iconic resort over the next 24 years. That starts with the U.S. Junior in 2022 and runs through 2045, when Bandon Dunes will again host the U.S. Junior plus the U.S. Girls’ Junior.
The full list looks like this:
2022: U.S. Junior Amateur
2025: U.S. Women’s Amateur
2029: Walker Cup
2032: U.S. Amateur and U.S. Women’s Amateur
2035: U.S. Girls’ Junior
2037: U.S. Amateur Four-Ball and U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball
2038: Curtis Cup
2041: U.S. Amateur and U.S. Women’s Amateur
2045: U.S. Junior Amateur and U.S. Girls’ Junior
Bandon Dunes at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon (Courtesy of Evan Schiller)
Since the 2006 Curtis Cup, Bandon Dunes – home to five of the top 10 resort courses in the U.S. – has hosted six other USGA championships, including the 2020 U.S. Amateur. John Bodenhamer, the USGA’s senior managing director of championships, goes back to Keiser’s often-expressed support of USGA amateur championships and his comment that he’d host one every year.
Eventually, Bodenhamer decided to explore that sentiment a little further.
“We came together on a list of championships that were important to him and to us – all of our championships are important but there are some reasons we chose the current rota that we have and it just all came together,” Bodenhamer said.
To announce a single site as host of such a large chunk of championships – and extend that schedule so far into the future – is an unprecedented move by the USGA. The organization did something similar in 2020 by announcing Pinehurst as a U.S. Open anchor site (with championships scheduled for 2029, 2035, 2041 and 2047) and home to a second, smaller USGA headquarters.
The USGA’s big-picture thinking with Bandon Dunes encompassed several elements, not the least of which is player experience. Bodenhamer echoed a thought that has crossed many USGA champions’ lips through the years: It matters where you win your USGA title.
It’s also not a coincidence that Bandon’s long list of championships starts with the U.S. Junior in 2022. It’s the start of a player’s journey through the USGA.
“Jordan Spieth won two Juniors and the next Jordan Spieth, to be able to say that he or she won at Bandon Dunes will be pretty special,” Bodenhamer said. “We think that elevates our relationship with the players.”
Keiser is particularly excited at the prospect of introducing junior players to links golf.
“I think it’s a great opportunity,” he said, calling Bandon an educational tool in this sense.
A venue with all the magic (not to mention the name recognition) of Bandon Dunes and its seaside green complexes, golden gorse and expansive views has the power to elevate a championship that doesn’t end with the word “open.”
After Bandon Dunes appeared on Golf Channel in primetime as host of the 2020 U.S. Amateur, Keiser said resort phones rang off the hook for a month. Keiser hopes to see the junior events as well as future U.S. Amateur and U.S. Women’s Amateur broadcasts treated the same.
Aman Gupta plays his tee shot at the 16th hole during the semifinal round at the 2020 U.S. Amateur at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Bandon, Ore. on Saturday, Aug. 15, 2020. (Steven Gibbons/USGA)
Bodenhamer confirmed it’s too early to know what kind of network coverage future championships might receive (on NBC, say, versus Golf Channel in an NBC television contract that runs through 2026). In any event, viewers who remember watching the U.S. Amateur unfold last summer are likely to tune in to see juniors against that same backdrop.
“It will be nice to know that they will be televised with the ocean and the dunes and the links golf story as part of it,” Keiser said.
The upcoming Bandon championship schedule brings the U.S. Amateur back twice and the U.S. Women’s Amateur to the resort three times. Both will be played there in 2032 and 2041. Yet to be determined is whether those championships will run concurrently (as the now-retired U.S. Amateur Public Links and U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links did in 2011), or back-to-back, as the USGA treated the U.S. Open and U.S. Women’s Open at Pinehurst in 2014. Either way, both demographics are elevated.
“We think that’s a very positive message for the game, men and women being together, boys and girls being together – juniors,” Bodenhamer said. “We’ve done that before and we think this can carry that forward too.”
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For many USGA championship venues, hosting an amateur championship starts a relationship that may eventually lead to a U.S. Open or a U.S. Women’s Open. Chambers Bay hosted the U.S. Amateur in 2010 before the U.S. Open arrived in 2015, and Erin Hills hosted two amateur championships before debuting as an Open venue in 2017.
Bandon Dunes’ remote location presents an entirely unique set of obstacles for the USGA’s largest events, not to mention the fact that Keiser’s priority remains amateur golf.
“I would never say never but I think for the next 25 years, we’re going to be focused on amateur golf,” Bodenhamer said. “The next set of decision makers will talk about Opens.”
For his part, Keiser, 76, doesn’t think it will happen in his lifetime.
Last summer, Bandon Dunes, the resort’s original 18-hole course, shone on a U.S. Amateur broadcast that came at the end of a summer light on televised golf. Bodenhamer expects to see several, if not all, of the other four courses – Pacific Dunes, Old Macdonald, Bandon Trails and Sheep Ranch – used in future championships depending on the demographic of the event. In all, the resorts’ courses are ranked Nos. 1-5 as the best public-access layouts in Oregon, and each of them is in the top 15 on Golfweek’s Best ranking of modern courses built since 1960 in the U.S.
Asked his opinion on which course sets up best for match play, Keiser went right to Bandon Dunes’ closing stretch on the ocean.
“We have to give David Kidd credit for the 16th hole, the drivable par 4, with 15 being a very tough par 3, usually into the wind, being the warm-up,” he said. “You play this really long par 3 and then you have a short par 4 – those two right there, because that’s where most match-play competitions are concluded on the 15th, 16th before they get to the 18th. David Kidd, it’s as if he knew that he would be hosting the U.S. Amateur etc., when he designed the 16th hole.”
But Keiser is confident the Sheep Ranch, the newest course opened in 2020 and one that features nine greens on the ocean, will figure prominently for future championships.
“Have to say it’s a tie which is more photogenic, Sheep Ranch or Bandon Dunes,” Keiser said. “Let’s call it a tie.”
He could also easily call it a can’t-lose.
Sheep Ranch at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Oregon (Courtesy of Bandon Dunes)
Wotnosky shot a 2-over 74 and is within striking distance of match play.
The Wotnosky name is starting to carry some weight in the amateur golf world.
Haeley is a rising senior at Virginia and has played in one U.S. Women’s Amateur and three U.S. Girls’ Junior championships. Grayson is entering his sophomore year for the Cavaliers.
And then there’s Davis. At 12 years, 6 months, 16 days old, he is now the second-youngest player to compete in U.S. Junior Amateur history. Wotnosky began the week at The Country Club of North Carolina with a 2-over 74 on the Dogwood Course with Haeley on the bag.
“It’s really fun. I’ve always been really good friends with my brother and sister,” Wotnosky said of his family support. “She keeps me loose and it’s always awesome to have another eye from someone who is a golfer and has played in tournaments.”
Wotnosky began the day on the par-4 10th with a bogey then settled in with a pair of pars followed by a pair of birdies on Nos. 13 and 14, his only two of the day.
Davis Wotnosky hits from the woods on hole 15 during the first round of stroke play at the 2021 U.S. Junior at The Country Club of North in Village of Pinehurst, N.C. on Monday, July 19, 2021. (Chris Keane/USGA)
“On No. 13, I hit an OK tee shot to about 50 feet. I hit the putt way too hard and it hit the back of the hole and bounced up and went down. So, I got really lucky there,” explained Wotnosky. “On 14 it’s a tough hole. I hit it center of fairway and then hit it to 30 feet. I had it lip in and that is always nice to have.”
Playing about 90 minutes down the road from his Wake Forest, North Carolina, home, Wotnosky remarked special it is to make his Junior Amateur debut in North Carolina.
“I wanted to play in this event, especially here, for a long time,” said Wotnosky. “I was pretty nervous on the first tee. I usually do not get nervous. I certainly felt it there.
“It’s been fun. I know this golf course and I have played it a few times. And to have all the people I know here is great.”
The youngest to ever play the event is Matthew Pierce Jr., who competed in the Junior Am in 2001 at the age of 12 years, two months, 15 days. In 1996, Kevin Na was 12 years, 10 months and 13 days old. He’s now fourth on the list of youngest competitors in the event.
