Dan Sullivan (left) and Louis Brown (USGA Photo)
Dan Sullivan (photo above) nearly walked away with a trophy in his last visit to The Honors Course in May. Now the Southern Californian has another chance at the biggest prize in senior amateur golf.
Sullivan, 57, of Pasadena, defeated Matt Sughrue, 6 and 5, on a hot Wednesday afternoon in southern Tennessee to earn his spot in Thursday’s 18-hole final of the 69th U.S. Senior Amateur Championship, where Louis Brown will be his opponent. Brown, 61, of Marietta, Ga., claimed the second semifinal, a 1-up victory over Robert Nelson.
This will be both players’ first USGA final, although Sullivan, the runner-up in the senior division of the Lupton Memorial in May, has made two U.S. Mid-Amateur semifinals in 2016 and 2017. He also advanced to the Round of 16 of the 2009 U.S. Amateur Public Links, losing to eventual winner Brad Benjamin at the OU Jimmie Austin Golf Club, in Norman, Okla.
Brown, a former touring and teaching professional who won the 2020 Georgia Senior Amateur, is bidding to become the fifth Georgian to win the U.S. Senior Amateur, joining Bill Ploeger (1999), Doug Hanzel (2013), Bob Royak (2019) and Rusty Strawn (2022).
Both finalists are now exempt into the 2025 U.S. Senior Open at The Broadmoor, in Colorado Springs, Colo., the 125th U.S. Amateur at The Olympic Club, in San Francisco, Calif., and next month’s U.S. Mid-Amateur at Kinloch Golf Club, in Manakin-Sabot, Va.
Temperatures for the afternoon semifinals creeped into the mid-90s with just a subtle hint of a breeze.
Sullivan, competing in his 13th USGA championship but first U.S. Senior Amateur, arrived at The Honors Course already on a hot streak after winning the Southern California Golf Association Senior Match Play in early August, defeating 1996 U.S. Amateur Public Links champion Tim Hogarth and past U.S. Senior Amateur semifinalist Craig Davis in the semifinals and championship match, respectively, at Spanish Hills in Camarillo. Once he navigated the two days of stroke play to qualify, he felt very comfortable and confident once the format switched.
“I’m happy to be here,” said Sullivan, a real estate lender for a bank based in Los Angeles. “And regardless of what happens tomorrow, I'm having a blast. I'm just going to try to keep enjoying it and see what happens.”
Against Sughrue, the 2016 runner-up and three-time quarterfinalist, he was nearly flawless, making just one bogey in the 13 holes. The margin of victory equaled the fifth largest for a semifinal in U.S. Senior Amateur history. Sullivan was the equivalent of 2 under par, with the usual concessions for match play.
Sullivan won four of the first five holes, but only one, the par-4 fifth, was a birdie, as Sughrue got off to a sluggish start. In fact, the family marriage therapist/sports performance mental coach lost the par-4 first hole in two of his last three matches. He recovered against Bryan Norton (Round of 32) and Mark Knecht (quarterfinals), but not against Sullivan. Sughrue cut the margin to 3 down with a conceded birdie (his tee shot was a foot from the flagstick) on the par-3 eighth, only to immediately give it back when he failed to get up and down for par on the ninth from short and right of the putting surface.
Sullivan then parred 10 and birdied the par-5 11th to take a commanding 6-up lead, and hats came off two holes later when Sullivan registered his third birdie of the match.
“I love match play, especially on a course like this where I was far more nervous in stroke play because a bad swing can cost you three or four shots,” said Sullivan. “In match play it just costs you potentially a hole, and you just pick it up and move to the next hole. I honestly would rather play match play sometimes.”
Sullivan eliminated Dave Bunker, of Canada, in Wednesday morning’s quarterfinals, 1 up, thanks to a brilliant 8-iron approach from 145 yards to 7 feet on the par-4 closing hole. Sullivan rolled in the birdie putt to reach the semifinals.
Brown, a partner and wealth advisor for a financial firm, never trailed in beating Nelson, 63, of Fairhope, Ala. Admittedly exhausted from his fifth round of match play since Monday and a 19-hole quarterfinal victory over Andrew Whitacre, of The Woodlands, Texas, earlier on Wednesday, the No. 3 seed from stroke play managed to overcome some tired swings to fend off Nelson.
Nelson simply ran out of U.S. Senior Amateur champions to face. Before his semifinal encounter, he had knocked off Chip Lutz (2015), Royak and Todd White (2023).
He had a good chance to take out Brown until his tee shot on the par-4 15th found the penalty area which gave his opponent a 1-up lead. The Southern Methodist University graduate then followed Brown’s poor tee ball on the par-3 16th into the penalty area, and both made double-bogey 5s. Nelson had another golden opportunity on the par-5 17th but pushed his second to the right of the green, and a poorly executed pitch left him 25 feet from the flag. Both competitors two-putted for matching pars.
“I just wanted to throw up,” said Nelson, competing in his second U.S. Senior Amateur “That changes the whole match. It does. I keep those two balls out of the water, and I'm good. Or I'm better.”
On 18, Nelson pushed his drive on the 428-yard, par-4 into the trees, and had to punch out, while Brown comfortably found the green with his second from the fairway. Nelson’s third carried just over the green, and when Brown lagged his 30-footer to 2 feet, Nelson conceded the match.
“Well, that's what we're all here for,” said Brown, a former All-Southeastern Conference performer at the University of Georgia who was the 1989 Australian Tour Rookie of the Year. “I've just been trying to focus on playing my game. I've done that pretty well. That's gotten me to this point.
“I'm thrilled for the opportunity, but got more work to do, got more golf to play.”
Brown’s first USGA championship came 43 years ago when he advanced to the quarterfinals of the U.S. Junior Amateur at Sunnyside Country Club, in Fresno, Calif. He played in one U.S. Amateur before turning pro, but hasn’t played a ton of competitive golf since regaining his amateur status “around 2005.” He had previously qualified for two U.S. Senior Amateurs without much success.
This week, however, he was one of four players to better par in stroke play (1-under 141).
“I never play this much golf,” said Brown. “I work. I run a business. I'm not used to playing this much, working on my game. But it's a thrill to be here competing.”
White, a member of the victorious 2013 USA Walker Cup Team and winner of the inaugural U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship in 2015 with partner Nathan Smith, didn’t bring his best stuff to The Honors Course for his Friday quarterfinal against Nelson. He bogeyed two of the par-5s (2 and 11), made another critical bogey on No. 15 to lose the hole, and missed a 10-footer for birdie on the 17th that would have tied the hole and maintained his 1-up lead.
Then on No. 18, he clubbed down to a gap wedge for a 129-yard approach shot that sailed just long into light rough. His pitch rolled 3½ feet past the hole and then he missed the comebacker to extend the match.
“Last year I rode my putter to victory,” said White. “Well, this morning my putter sent me home. I didn't putt well today.”
Andrew Whitacre, a Carmel, Calif., native who caddied at Pebble Beach Golf Links in high school, junior college and a couple of years in his 20s, built a 2-up lead through 14 holes, only to lose Nos. 15, 16 and 17 to go 1 down to Brown. The real estate developer looked set to lose a fourth consecutive hole on 18 after his approach came up short and right of the green. His third flew over the green, leaving him 50 feet to the flagstick. Brown’s 60-foot lag putt came up short and 7 feet to the right and below the hole.
Faced with a do-or-die situation, Whitacre chose to remove the flagstick for one last desperation shot. True to the fickleness of match play, he miraculously holed out and Brown missed, forcing extra holes, where Whitacre anticlimactically missed a 4-foot par putt to extend.
“It had a pretty good line on it, and I hit it [hard enough] to give it a chance … and then two feet from the hole, it just made a left turn, and I was like, oh, my God, that's going in,” said Whitacre of his remarkable par on 18.
“We were talking about yesterday that better short game, the mental side [wins matches]. [Two-time U.S. Senior Amateur champion] Paul Simson [was] talking about putting, and you need to learn to putt to win to take it to [your game to] another level. You have to stroke those eight-footers on fast greens and not be afraid to knock it three feet by and things like that. It was a learning experience.”
What’s Next
Thursday’s 18-hole championship match will commence at 8 a.m. EDT. Admission is free, and spectators are encouraged to attend.
Notable
- The two semifinal losers, Matt Sughrue and Robert Nelson, each received bronze medals and are exempt into the next two U.S. Senior Amateur Championships: Biltmore Forest Country Club, in Asheville, N.C., and Baltimore Country Club (East Course), in Maryland.
- Dan Sullivan had to withdraw from Monday’s U.S. Mid-Amateur qualifier at Red Hill Country Club, in Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., because of the U.S. Senior Amateur. No worries. He’s now in the field by virtue of advancing to the championship match.
- Sullivan is vying to become the first player from Southern California to win the U.S. Senior Amateur since Kemp Richardson claimed the second of his two titles in 2003. Like Richardson, Sullivan is a University of Southern California graduate, but he didn’t play on the school’s golf team.
- Sullivan plays his golf primarily at Brookside Golf Course, a 36-hole public facility in the shadow of the Rose Bowl.
- Dave Bunker’s quarterfinal loss to Sullivan meant the streak of no international champions in the U.S. Senior Amateur will continue for yet another year. It is the only one of the USGA’s 15 championships not to have a foreign winner. That even includes the USGA’s two retired events, the U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links and U.S. Amateur Public Links. Jody Fanagan, the runner-up last year from the Republic of Ireland, is the only international player to reach a U.S. Senior Amateur final.
- Nelson attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, from 1979-83 when the school decided to shutter its men’s golf and baseball programs. Golf has since been brought back and produced two-time U.S. Open champion Bryson DeChambeau, and U.S. Amateur champions Hank Kuehne, Colt Knost, Kelly Kraft and DeChambeau. Football was king at SMU during that era, but it also was when the program received the “death penalty” from the NCAA for multiple violations, including providing extra benefits to players such as future Hall of Famer Eric Dickerson.
- Louis Brown’s father, Johnny, was a sports editor of the Newnan (Ga.) Times-Herald newspaper for 50 years and served as Coweta County commissioner for 16 years. He also was an announcer for radio station WCOH and was inducted into the Georgia Radio Hall of Fame before passing away 20 years ago.