Ethan Fang (USGA Photo)
Ethan Fang was one of the first competitors to arrive on property at Hazeltine National Golf Club on Wednesday morning, and as things turned out, the last one to depart the facility hosting the 124th U.S. Amateur Championship.
The 19-year-old from Plano, Texas, pulled into the parking lot around 6:30 a.m. to participate in the 14-man playoff to determine the final 11 spots in the match-play draw. Two holes into that intense-filled exercise, the Oklahoma State University rising sophomore found himself as the No. 64 seed, squaring off against the near-record-setting medalist Jimmy Ellis, a competitor 20 years his senior who had shot a 9-under-par 61 just 24 hours earlier at stroke-play co-host Chaska Town Course.
Adding more drama to the encounter was the fact that Fang had some 4½ hours of downtime before the 1:10 p.m. CDT match. The U.S. Amateur rookie grabbed some breakfast, played on his phone and did his best to re-energize himself to face Ellis, an oil and gas landman who resides in Atlantic Beach, Fla.
Whatever mojo Fang took from the morning playoff had worn off, as he lost three of the first four holes. But Fang slowly clawed his way back and by 5:45 p.m. local time, he was being surrounded by OSU coaches and family members following a 2-up victory.
“It was definitely different,” said Fang of playing someone two decades older. “I never played someone who was so old in a tournament before. It was fun. Didn't really expect much. Just went out there and had fun.”
Ellis, the first mid-amateur to claim medalist honors in 11 years, was the first solo medalist to lose in the opening round since Mark Goetz in 2021 at Oakmont (Pa.) Country Club.
For the first time this week, the competitors faced a stiff breeze (10-15 mph with gusts in the 20s) and cooler temperatures as a frontal system began moving into the area. Tee times were pushed up two hours in preparation for an evening storm that was expected to dump as much as 3 inches of rain. The players in the late-afternoon matches encountered a brief 10-minute rain shower.
The Fang/Ellis encounter was one of 13 Round-of-64 matches to go the full distance, and seven went extra holes.
After Fang took a 2-up lead with a par on No. 13 and a birdie at the par-5 15th, Ellis closed the gap by converting a 20-foot birdie on the iconic 16th, a dogleg-right par 4 that hugs Lake Hazeltine. His chance to tie the match on the 186-yard, par-3 17th went awry when he was in-between clubs and decided to hit a hard 8-iron instead of a soft 7-iron. The tee shot came up well short of the flagstick and he missed a 12-footer for par after his opponent was in for bogey.
“I don't know, the back nine, some of those holes [are] just pretty much impossible to hit the green and it just turns into a short-game contest,” said Ellis, whose 61 on Tuesday was one off the USGA and U.S. Amateur 18-hole record set by Billy Horschel at the same venue 18 years ago. “And I'm not going to beat the young guys in a short-game contest.
“You've got to get the ball in the fairway, and you've got to somehow find a way to make pars, and I just didn't do it.”
On the uphill 455-yard 18th, both players found the fairway and green; Ellis 20 feet from the hole and Fang 12 feet above it. After Ellis missed, Fang cozied his birdie putt into the hole, drawing a loud yell from his small support group that included OSU coach Alan Bratton, who caddied this week for Preston Stout and was eliminated earlier in the day.
“It doesn't really matter who you play in match play,” said Fang, who finished third in this year’s Big 12 Conference Championship and made the cut in this year’s Southern Amateur (T-29) and Western Amateur (T-31). “Just got to compete with the guy and hopefully you win.”
Winning and performing well is something Florida State rising junior Luke Clanton is doing a lot of lately. The Hialeah, Fla., resident rose to No. 1 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking®/WAGR® on Wednesday and likely will be the Mark H. McCormack Medal recipient after this week’s U.S. Amateur. He continued his torrid play with a 4-and-3 win over University of Colorado rising senior Dylan McDermott. Clanton owns three top-10 finishes in PGA Tour events in 2024 and nearly earned low-amateur honors in the U.S. Open at Pinehurst. He arrived at Hazeltine on Sunday night after finishing fifth in the PGA Tour’s Wyndham Championship.
Against McDermott, he built a 3-up lead through nine, birdied the par-3 13th to go 5 up and then was shaking hands two holes later.
Tiger Christensen, of Germany and a rising senior at the University of Arizona, has competed in a number of high-level amateur and professional competitions, including the 2023 Open Championship, so when world No. 2 Gordon Sargent’s name popped up in his bracket, the 20-year-old wasn’t fazed. Christensen has played with the Vanderbilt University All-American a number of times over the past few years, so he knew the challenge he presented.
Christensen didn’t need his putter for the first three holes – he knocked it to a foot on No. 1 and both par putts on Nos. 2 and 3 were conceded – in taking a 3-up advantage that eventually translated into a 4-and-3 victory.
Sargent, who was hoping to reverse his fortunes in match play, fell to 0-4 in the U.S. Amateur. That included a 2-and-1 loss to eventual champion Nick Dunlap a year ago at Cherry Hills Country Club.
“We played a bunch in college, and I played with him at the [2023] World Am [in the United Arab Emirates],” said Christensen, the No. 52 player in WAGR. “I've played a major, too, now. So you see each other week in and week out. It's not that crazy as it might seem from the outside. It definitely was cool. I respect him a lot. I think he's one of the great players we have [in amateur golf]. It was definitely a lot of fun.”
Christensen, whose first name resonates in golf with Tiger Woods capturing nine USGA titles (three consecutive U.S. Amateurs from 1994-96), but his parents weren’t thinking of the Hall of Famer when naming their son. Neither Alex, a music producer/DJ, or Nicci, an ex-singer, have a golf background.
“My dad got into golf like a year before I was born [in 2001],” said Christensen, who just missed making the cut in the DP World Tour’s BMW Open in Germany and The Amateur Championship at Royal Liverpool. “He just thought the name was really cool. It sounded cool, and they didn't really know what to name me. They didn't want to name me anything very common, so I guess they just stuck with it. But it wasn't anything that had to do with golf. Might as well be that I played soccer or whatever. Could be anything.”
The championship began with six of the eight boys from the USGA’s inaugural U.S. National Junior Team, but only Tyler Mawhinney, of Fleming Island, Fla., remains standing after he defeated fellow 16-year-old Le Kanh Hung, of Vietnam, 4 and 3. Six days ago, Mawhinney wasn’t in the field, only to go wire-to-wire at the Canadian Amateur to earn the final exemption.
Mawhinney built an early 2-up lead, made a clutch par save on No. 5 to maintain his momentum, and eventually pulled away late, including an eagle 3 on the par-5 15th hole to close out the match.
“It's always easier playing with the lead, at least for me, because you kind of have more control over the match,” said the rising high school junior who was supposed to start classes on Tuesday. “My dad, he always tells me, out of sight, out of mind.
“So if you get far enough ahead…people start thinking about lunch instead of the match. I'm thinking about lunch now. I'm pretty hungry.”
Sargent’s three other teammates from the victorious 2023 USA Walker Cup Team also were sent home in the Round of 64. Arizona State All-American and world No. 6 Preston Summerhays was defeated by University of Illinois standout and 2024 U.S. Open qualifier Jackson Buchanan, 2 up; world No. 5 Benjamin James, an All-American at the University of Virginia, was beaten by world No. 10, Jose Luis Ballester, of Spain, a teammate of Summerhays at Arizona State, 2 and 1; and University of North Carolina All-American and world No. 8 David Ford fell to world No. 14 and UCLA standout Omar Morales, of Mexico, 1 down.
Morales, the 2024 Latin America Amateur runner-up and two-time U.S. Open qualifier, won the par-4 18th hole with a par after Ford failed to get up and down from 10 yards short of the green.
Gunnar Broin, the only Minnesotan of the six in the field to make match play, had his run ended by No. 3 seed Luis Masaveu, of Spain, 3 and 2. Broin, who had a large following of fans, tied the match with a par on No. 12, but his opponent won the next three holes to pull away.
Masaveu, No. 2 seed Ethan Evans, of Mercer Island, Wash., and No. 5 seed Paul Chang, of the People’s Republic of China, were the only top-8 seeds to reach the final 32. Evans eliminated mid-amateur and playoff survivor Omar Tejeira Jaen, of Panama, 3 and 2, and Chang, who reached the Round of 16 a year ago, bounced another mid-amateur and playoff survivor, Nate McCoy, 5 and 4.
One of the crazier matches on Day 1 saw University of Arizona rising sophomore Zachery Pollo fritter away a 5-up lead with five to play against 2023 U.S. Junior Amateur champion and Duke University rising sophomore Bryan Kim, only to win the match on the 20th hole. Pollo was one of six survivors of Wednesday’s 14-for-11 playoff for the final match-play spots to advance.
What’s Next
Match play continues on Thursday with the Round of 32 and Round of 16, starting at 8 a.m. CDT. The Round of 16 is scheduled to commence at 2 p.m. Tickets are available for purchase, while Peacock will have live streaming from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. EDT, with Golf Channel picking up the coverage from 6-8.
Due to the strong likelihood of overnight inclement weather, anyone planning to utilize general parking to attend the 124th U.S. Amateur on Thursday will need to park their vehicle at Chaska Town High School (545 Pioneer Trail, Chaska, MN 55318). This includes all volunteers, media members, general spectators, and those using rideshare. All attendees will walk from Chaska High School, across Pioneer Trail, and onto the grounds at Hazeltine. The USGA and Hazeltine National Golf Club will revisit the parking plan on Thursday afternoon and communicate any further adjustments at that time for the remainder of the week.
Notable
The 14-for-11 playoff for the final match-play spots lasted two holes with local favorite and Hazeltine caddie Gunnar Broin, of Shorewood, holing a 22-foot birdie on the par-3 17th to garner one of the last spots. Broin is a fifth-year senior at the University of Kansas.
Garrett Engle, of Harrisburg, Pa., outlasted U.S. National Junior Team member Henry Guan in 25 holes, which tied for the third-longest match in U.S. Amateur history. Engle won this year’s Dogwood Invitational and was the runner-up in the Porter Cup.
Peter Fountain beat fellow North Carolinian Jackson Van Paris in 21 holes after the latter forced extra holes by winning Nos. 17 and 18. The other match to go 21 holes saw Calum Scott, a 2023 Great Britain & Ireland Walker Cupper from Scotland who is a rising senior at Texas Tech, defeat Mahanti Chirravuri. Scott is hoping to follow in the footsteps of countryman Richie Ramsay, who won this championship at Hazeltine 18 years ago.
Caleb Shetler, another playoff survivor, rallied to eliminate No. 6 seed Sebastian Moss, in 20 holes.
Wheaton Ennis, an Idaho resident who won this year’s Arizona Amateur to become exempt, edged Ziqin Zhou in 19 holes. Another state amateur champ, Tom Fischer, of Birmingham, Ala., rallied to beat Texan Matthew Comegys in 19 holes.
Fifteen countries were represented among the final 64. Besides the United States, the countries were Argentina, Canada, the People’s Republic of China, Germany, Mexico, the Netherlands, Panama, Scotland, South Africa, Spain, Thailand, Ukraine, Vietnam and Wales.
Sohan Patel, 15, of Weston, Fla., was the youngest player to make match play. Medalist Jimmy Ellis, 39, of Atlantic Beach, Fla., was the oldest.
Jackson Herrington, 18, of Dickson, Tenn., the runner-up in this year’s U.S. Amateur Four-Ball (with Blades Brown), registered a hole-in-one on the 238-yard, 13th hole with a 4-iron in his 4-and-3 win over fellow left-hander Patel. It was the first match-play ace in the U.S. Amateur since 2018 and the 26th known hole-in-one since records began in this category in 1993.
Of the eight state/Allied Golf Association champions who advanced to match play, Christian Brand won his title by the widest margin. The 36-year-old captured the West Virginia Amateur by 21 strokes. On Wednesday, he eliminated world No. 13 Christiaan Maas, of South Africa and the University of Texas, 2 and 1. Another mid-am, 36-year-old Dallas resident Bobby Massa, also advanced to the Round of 32 with a 2-and-1 win over Duke University standout Luke Sample. John Harris, a Minnesota native, remains the last mid-am to win this title (1993). Massa and Brand are the only two mid-amateurs remaining.
Two U.S. Amateur champions are part of Golf Channel’s broadcast this week: John Cook (1978) and Colt Knost (2007). Knost also won the 2007 U.S. Amateur Public Links that year, joining an elite group of players to have won multiple USGA titles in the same year, including last week’s U.S. Women’s Amateur champ Rianne Malixi.