How this self-made long-shot from Uganda made U.S. Amateur history

CHASKA, Minn. — On Monday, early on a perfect, windless Minnesota afternoon, Godfrey Nsubuga stepped onto the 1st tee at Hazeltine National Golf Club ready to play the biggest tournament of his life — and immediately hit a snap-hook. It swooped left and landed feet from the waist-high fescue.

His fill-in caddie, Parker Etzel, a member of the South Dakota men’s golf team, jumped into action, trying to keep his man positive, to keep his head right, to convince him this would be an easy one to shake off. But there was no need. Nsubuga? He laughed.

“He’s like the most positive, energetic dude ever,” Etzel says.

In the first round of the 2024 U.S. Amateur Championship, Nsubuga smiled, fist-pumped, hit driver off the deck, laughed, sang Ed Sheeran and smiled some more. His driver, 3-wood and 4-iron were borrowed from Hazeltine members. His bag belonged to a friend.

But Nsubuga, 24, also made history. He became the first player to represent Uganda in the most prestigious amateur golf event in the world. It didn’t happen overnight, and it started in Africa, with golf clubs made out of Eucalyptus trees, with little coaching and on a golf course that’s actually just a soccer pitch.

Godfrey Nsubuga [Pronounced SUE-Gah-BAH] grew up in Lugazi, Uganda, a country in East Africa that’s not necessarily known for producing elite golfers. Nsubuga and his friends started out playing soccer, but eventually golf grew on them. They’d find branches from Eucalyptus trees, cut them down and shape them into golf clubs. They had to make their own golf balls, too. When the soccer game was over on the nearby pitch, they’d turn it into their golf course, setting up holes ranging from 25 to 50 yards.

Golf is extremely expensive in Africa, so most aspiring players start out as caddies to get limited playing privileges. If they are good, that might attract the attention of members, which leads to more playing opportunities. Nsubuga got his start as a ball spotter at Mehta Golf Club, moved up to caddie and, when he was 15 — two years after he received his first set of golf clubs — joined the junior national team that allowed him to play for free. (His low round on his home course is 12 under.) That opened the door for more tournaments, which meant better competition and more world ranking points.

“Caddying would help us a lot because we could practice,” Nsubuga says, “and then through caddying you’d get the money to play tournaments.”

Eventually, people started to take notice.

Charles Penny II was hired as the Winston-Salem State University men’s golf coach in 2021, and soon after he received an unexpected call from a Uganda native in the States who tipped him off on a player to put on his radar. Penny first chatted with Nsubuga in 2021 and didn’t get a chance to meet him in person until January 2024, when he enrolled in school. He’s been able to practice, but due to hiccups with the enrollment process he has yet to be cleared to play by the NCAA. They are hopeful that comes in January 2025.

“I like to recruit great young men, great students, and then we look at the golfer,” says Penny, while on-site watching Nsubuga on Monday. “His ability to stay positive and to always have an attitude of gratitude, you don’t really hear him ever get down. In everything he does, he’s happy. Even in moments of adversity. He’s a model for young men trying to play good golf. It’s infectious.”

While he can’t play collegiate events yet, Nsubuga is still getting better. In June 2023 he wasn’t ranked in the top 3,000 in the men’s World Amateur Golf Ranking, but a runner-up finish at the Coast Open Barry Cup in July helped him leap to 625th. He’s played in only two events this year that count toward his ranking — missing the cut at the Africa Amateur Championship in February and finishing 79th at the Pacific Coast Amateur in July — and entered this week ranked 217th. At U.S. Amateur Final Qualifying last month — in the first tournament he ever played in the U.S. — Nsubuga hit 16 of 18 greens and shot a three-under 68 at Mid Pines in Southern Pines, N.C., to secure one of the 13 U.S. Amateur spots, making history for his country.

Looking for some last-minute prep before the U.S. Am, Edrine Okong, who grew up playing golf with Nsubuga in Uganda, introduced him to Trillium Rose. Okong is three years older than Nsubuga and played collegiately at Howard, where Rose, the director of instruction at Woodmont Country Club in Rockville, Md., volunteers. He told her she needed to meet Nsubuga, so days before he left for Minnesota, Nsubuga visited Rose on the far corner of a range and got introduced to TrackMan for the first time in his life. He told Rose he didn’t know his carry numbers but knew his distances within about three yards. He told her he hits a 9-iron about 150 to 153. Then he took a swing.

“He hit one that was like 152.7 yards,” Rose says. “OK, I guess you don’t need a TrackMan.”

In just an hour, Rose came away impressed and inspired. She said Nsubuga is the ultimate feel player, someone with great hands and a natural feeling that reminded her of a skill set similar to Seve Ballesteros. They discussed the importance of carry distances and worked on his club path and face angle to minimize a big draw he plays. It got analytical with the data points but Nsubuga understood, incorporated the tweaks and immediately seeing the changes.

“His strength is his feel,” Rose says. “He knows where the ball is going to go based on doing different things with his hands. He can hit the ball high and low and can juice a 7-iron to get more roll or take it back. He’s very unpolished, almost like a musician who sight-reads, but if you put music in front of him he’s like, ‘I don’t know what this is.’ The whole thing is just gobsmacking in a really refreshing, wonderful way.”

Nsubuga landed in Minneapolis on Friday night without a place to stay and without a caddie. He recently created a GoFundMe page to help pay for travel and expenses for the U.S. Amateur and other future events, but Hazeltine members stepped in for this week. A member who lives off the 15th hole offered his spare room, and Hazeltine staff found him a last-minute caddie, Etzel, who nearly qualified for this tournament himself, and handled the payment.

After two days of practice rounds — and following the snap-hook on the first hole on Monday morning — Nsubuga made bogey and shot four-over 40 on the front. On 10 he got up and down from behind the green to save par, fist-pumped and then turned his head when he heard Kajerero Ssebbaale shout “well played” in Luganda. The familiar tongue was a surprise, and Nsubuga flashed a smile at his friend from back home. Ssebbaale, 44, lives in Chaska now but knew Nsubuga from their club in Uganda. Also following was Faithful Nakimali, 25, a friend Nsubuga went to high school with. They still stay in touch, and she drove seven hours from Kansas to watch him play. It was her first time on a golf course — she googled what to wear — and carried around a Uganda flag blanket, which Nsubuga draped around his shoulders hours later for a TV interview.

“He loves the game,” Ssebbaale said. “He loves, loves the game. He’s always at the club.”

Nsubuga’s lone birdie came on the par-5 11th, when he hit driver off the deck and then lofted a nifty pitch to about eight feet. He fist-pumped as his ball found the hole. On 12, he hit one off the hosel and found the bunker, making bogey. He called it a shank as soon as it left the club face, but he didn’t dwell on it.

“It doesn’t look like he’s very competitive because he’s talking to himself or cracking jokes all the time, but that’s his way of calming himself down and dealing with pressure,” Okong says. “He doesn’t look serious, but inside his head he is.”

Truth is, Nsubuga knows he can’t afford to get angry. Literally. Growing up, hitting or breaking a club in frustration would be too costly to replace.

“In times of pressure or when I have a mishit, I try and keep smiling, talk to my friends or just sing in my head,” Nsubuga says. His go-to song is “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran, which he knows every word of, but lately it’s been “I will pray” by Ebuka Songs. “It’s just a technique for me. It helps me calm down.”

He followed up his bogey by making a 36-footer for par on 13, this time with an even bigger fist-pump. He bogeyed two of his last three to shoot six-over 78. Needing to go low Tuesday at Chaska Town Course to make the match-play portion of the U.S. Amateur, Nsubuga shot three-over 73 to end his week. But he’s OK with it; he’s got a title defense to prepare for anyway. His next event is the Uganda Open, which he won last year.

“What really struck me the most was how much he’s done with so little polished resources or so little professional coaching,” Rose says. “It’s really refreshing to see someone who has been able to do so much out of the sheer love of it, and you can tell this guy loves it and his heart is in it. You just don’t see that every day.”

After his round on Monday, Nsubuga stopped to talk to his friends who visited, coach and host family for the week. He then looked at his caddie, Etzel, and said, “Say weebale.” He did, sort of, and Nsubuga told him that meant “thank you.”

They all laughed. Nsubuga smiled. He always does.