Jose Luis Ballester (USGA Photo)
Nobody will confuse Noah Kent for Clark Kent, but this week at Hazeltine National Golf Club the 19-year-old has looked like Superman. The Naples, Fla., resident and University of Iowa sophomore played a remarkable quarterfinal match on Friday to reach the semifinals of the 124th U.S. Amateur Championship.
How does six birdies and an eagle sound? Those were the numbers on Kent’s scorecard as he ended the Cinderella run of No. 64 seed Ethan Fang, 3 and 2.
Kent, of Naples, Fla., is joined in Saturday’s semifinals by University of Illinois senior and 2024 U.S. Open qualifier Jackson Buchanan, 22, of Dacula, Ga., and Spaniards Luis Masaveu, 21, and Jose Luis Ballester, 20, the latter of whom is a senior at Arizona State University.
Either way, the winner between Masaveu and Ballester will become the first player from Spain to reach a U.S. Amateur final, surpassing the semifinal run by Sergio Garcia in 1998. Countrywoman Azahara Muñoz, who also attended Arizona State and won the 2008 NCAA title, was the runner-up in that year’s Women’s Amateur at Eugene (Ore.) Country Club.
Although there were intermittent rain showers most of the morning, the skies cleared in time for the mid-afternoon start time, and the eight competitors had comfortable temperatures for their quarterfinal matches.
Fang, who was the equivalent of 3 under par with match-play concessions, could have used some kryptonite to slow down Kent. After making a 25-foot birdie on the par-4 opening hole, he watched Kent match it with a 15-footer. Then Kent stuffed his next two shots close on Nos. 2 and 3 – the former winning the hole and the latter tying the par 5 – for a 1-up lead, one that he would not relinquish. He made another birdie on the par-3 fourth, and after Fang, an Oklahoma State sophomore from Plano, Texas, who played last season at the University of California-Berkeley, birdied the 456-yard fifth, Kent answered on the 182-yard eighth with a birdie and a winning 4 on the par-4 ninth.
“There was no wind early, and I knew the course got rain, so it was a little soft,” said Kent. “I kind of got in the zone really early, and everything just kind of felt right in the beginning of the round.”
A rare mistake on No. 10, one of Kent’s two bogeys on the inward nine, led to a Fang win, but then the former youth ice hockey player delivered the shot of the day, holing out a 35-yard chip from gnarly greenside rough for eagle on No. 11 to return his advantage to 3 up.
“All my family is standing behind the green, and they were going crazy,” said Kent, who came up short with his 7-iron approach from 215 yards. “I saw it drop in. It was like an out-of-body experience.”
Another birdie on 12 essentially sealed the deal.
After opening stroke play with a 5-over 77 at Hazeltine, Kent rebounded with a 64 at Chaska Town Course to sneak into match play. Encouraging words from his mentor and Minnesota native John Harris, who won the 1993 U.S. Amateur and the 2001 USGA Men’s State team for the Gopher State at Hazeltine, have psychologically eased Kent through the grueling process of advancing through the bracket.
“I talked to him this morning,” said Kent of Harris, a past four-time USA Walker Cupper and University of Minnesota standout golfer and ice hockey player who is currently in Florida. “He was just like, ‘Keep it simple today. Keep doing what you're doing. You're good enough, and you belong here.’”
Kent will face fellow Big 10 Conference rival Buchanan in the first of the two semifinal matches on Saturday. For the first time all week, Buchanan wasn’t taken to the 18th hole as he eliminated Notre Dame sophomore Jacob Modleski, of Noblesville, Ind., 4 and 3. On Thursday, he pulled off a pair of dramatic 1-up wins over world No. 1 Luke Clanton and 2024 Canadian Amateur champion Tyler Mawhinney, a 16-year-old Floridian who is a member of the USGA’s inaugural U.S. National Junior Team. He also beat 2023 USA Walker Cupper Preston Summerhays in Tuesday’s opening round, a day after birdieing his final two holes at stroke-play co-host Chaska Town Course just to make match play.
Against Modleski, Buchanan jumped out to a 1-up lead with a birdie on the first hole and he played the equivalent of 2-under-par golf over the 15 holes, including a 30-foot birdie on the par-4 12th that gave him a 4-up advantage. He now is two victories away from become the first Illinois player to win the U.S. Amateur and just the second USGA champion, joining 2018 U.S. Senior Open winner Steve Stricker.
“It feels weird,” said Buchanan of not going the distance in a match. “It doesn't even feel like I won. Like I didn't go to 18? All right. I played solidly. That's it really.
“Mentally you tell yourself I can win this thing, but the moment you think that you're toast. So just kept telling myself Jacob's not out of this. He's still really good.”
Ballester, the 2023 European Amateur champion who was the highest-ranked player in the quarterfinals at No. 10 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking®, had a tussle against the last mid-amateur left in the draw, 36-year-old Bobby Massa, a high-performance athletic trainer from Dallas, Texas. Neither player had more than a 1-up lead for 15 holes until Massa found the penalty area on the par-4 16th to go 2 down. Ballester then closed it out with a winning par on the 119-yard 17th, a hole in which the USGA significantly moved up the tee and used a challenging front-right hole location.
Now he’ll do battle with close friend and 2022 Eisenhower Trophy (World Amateur Team Championship) teammate Masaveu, the only single-digit seed (No. 3) to avoid the upset bug. Ballester also has a chance to become the first Sun Devil since Jeff Quinney in 2000 to hoist the Havemeyer Trophy. Phil Mickelson (1999) and Billy Mayfair (1987) are the only other Amateur champs from ASU.
“It's amazing, just an incredible feeling, especially tomorrow morning I'm going to be competing against a really good friend,” said Ballester. “So it's not just me, but two Spaniards in the semifinals, which is incredible.
“I mean, I wish I could face him in the final, but just the fact that we're going to be competing for a spot in the final at the U.S. Amateur is just amazing.”
Masaveu had a tall task of facing two-time U.S. Open qualifier Brendan Valdes, of Orlando, Fla. Valdes helped Auburn University win its first NCAA Division I title in the spring, going 2-1 during the match-play stage of the team championship, including a key win over Fredrik Kjettrup of Florida State in the title match. Valdes had the upper hand early with consecutive birdies on Nos. 3 and 4 to grab a 2-up lead. Masaveu, who finished 78th in this year’s Open Championship at Royal Troon and won the Portuguese Amateur, chipped away, eventually tying the match with a birdie on No. 10. He then put the match away with a birdie on 14, a conceded 6-foot eagle on the par-5 15th, and a winning par on 16 to close it out.
“I don't really believe it right now,” said Masaveu. “When I went to the golf course today, I was like I'm playing in the quarterfinals, I have a chance to go to the semifinals. I was not really believing it, but I just kept myself trying to play my game, and that's what I did today.”
What’s Next
Saturday’s semifinal matches will commence at 1 p.m. and 1:15 p.m. CDT, with the 36-hole championship match set to begin on Sunday at 7:15 a.m. The afternoon portion of the final is scheduled to start at 12:30 p.m., but could be adjusted by USGA officials. Tickets are available for purchase, while Golf Channel has live coverage from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. EDT.
Notable
All four semifinalists are now exempt into the next two U.S. Amateurs at The Olympic Club, in San Francisco, Calif., and Merion Golf Club, in Ardmore, Pa. The two finalists are exempt into the 2025 U.S. Open at Oakmont (Pa.) Country Club and receive likely invitations to The Masters Tournament in April. The champion also earns an exemption into the 2025 Open Championship at Royal Portrush.
Noah Kent, Jacob Modleski and Ethan Fang were the only teenagers to reach the quarterfinals. All three are 19-year-old college sophomores; Kent at Iowa, Modleski at Notre Dame, and Fang at Oklahoma State (transferred from the University of California-Berkeley). Kent is the only one still in the draw.,
Of the eight quarterfinalists, only Jose Luis Ballester (10), Brendan Valdes (11) and Jackson Buchanan (17) are currently in the top 20 of the World Amateur Golf Ranking®. On the opposite end was 36-year-old mid-amateur Bobby Massa, who entered this week at No. 2969, simply because he doesn’t play a full summer of amateur golf. Massa will play in next month’s U.S. Mid-Amateur at Kinloch Golf Club in Virginia after reaching the quarterfinals last year at Sleepy Hollow.
Massa is more than just a good golfer. The professional trainer has a 40-inch vertical leap and has rolled a 300 game in bowling.
Eric Lee, who also transferred to Oklahoma State from Cal, was among Fang’s support group. They are traveling together back to Stillwater, Okla., after this championship, to begin classes. Lee missed the cut by seven strokes.
Kent started to take a major interest in golf when he met Rory McIlroy at the 2017 U.S. Open at Erin Hills. The encounter happened through his stepfather, Dana Fry, one of the architects who helped design the layout that will also host next year’s U.S. Women’s Open Presented by Ally. McIlroy had asked Fry during the runner-up to the competition for some advice on the course.
Kent is wearing a golf glove that has the initials JH (for John Harris), NK (Kent) and his girlfriend (Livi), a member of the University of Iowa dance team.
Buchanan’s support group has been small this week. His father, John, flew up for Friday’s quarterfinals and teammate Max Herendeen stuck around after missing the cut. In fact, Herendeen’s caddie, Tony Vowles, jumped on Buchanan’s bag for match play.