This teen lost the U.S. Amateur final. But he gained something invaluable

CHASKA, Minn. — Noah Kent widened his stance and prepared for the most important chip shot of his life. He was short-sided and had 25 yards to the pin, with about 20 yards of rough to clear.

He needed to hit a flop shot, like the one he hit on the 13th hole on Thursday morning. One Phil Mickelson might hit. Kent’s always been a big Mickelson fan; growing up he loved watching Lefty attempt those risky shots. He practiced them all the time too, hitting crazy, physics-defying flops probably a thousand times. He says he has soft hands and feels like he can pull off any shot.

But this flop shot was different. It was his 36th hole of the day. His lie wasn’t great. And he needed to make it to have a chance at winning the U.S. Amateur.

The Iowa sophomore looked at the hole one last time, took a big swing and plunged his club into the turf. For a few long seconds, the couple thousand people huddled around the green were silent. Dozens of fans wearing yellow Caitlin Clark shirts held their breath.

You might know by now that Kent’s last-gasp pitch from just off the 18th green at Hazeltine National Golf Club Sunday night did not go in. It came out too hot, missed to the left and rolled out, leaving Jose Luis Ballester an easy two-putt par and 2-up, U.S. Amateur-clinching victory.

But can you win a U.S. Amateur without actually winning a U.S. Amateur? Only one person gets the trophy, sure, but there is no shortage of other victories up for grabs. There are literal wins, those came in bunches for Kent during the match play portion of the tournament preceding Sunday’s final match. There are also metaphorical ones, like exemptions into the U.S. Open and Masters that both the winner and runner-up receive.

And don’t count out moral victories, either. It’s easy to point out that the title of “U.S. Amateur runner-up” is definitionally a historical footnote, but for the 560th-ranked amateur in the world, it’s much more than that.

It’s proof that Noah Kent belongs, and that’s a different kind of trophy.

Dana Fry, the golf course architect and Noah’s stepfather, came into Noah’s life in June 2014. Noah was 9 years old.

Noah’s mom, Trisha, and dad, David, divorced a few years earlier. David was a good player, qualified for the U.S. Junior Amateur and later became a golf pro. He’s now the GM at The Golf Club at Crown Colony in Estero, Fla.

David tried to get Noah and his sister, Cameryn, into golf, but Noah’s first love was hockey. He played on a team coached by former NHL player Brian Rafalski, and some of Fry’s first memories with Noah and Trisha are tagging along for traveling hockey trips.

But everything changed in 2017, the year Erin Hills hosted the U.S. Open. Fry was on the design team at the Wisconsin bucket-list course, and he helped coordinate a meeting between Noah and Rory McIlroy. A few months later they met again, when TaylorMade hosted a photoshoot at Shelter Harbor Golf Club in Rhode Island, which Fry designed. Noah and McIlroy hit it off a second time, and when the young hockey player returned home, he wasn’t a hockey player anymore.

“I decided I’m quitting all my other sports,” Noah told Fry and Trisha, matter of factly. “I’m going to dedicate my life to golf, and I’m going to win on the PGA Tour.”

Young Noah started playing obsessively at Calusa Pines Golf Club, and later at Naples National. Before long, more golfers arrived in his orbit.

At the 2019 Terra Cotta Invitational in Naples, Fla., Noah watched a towering young stud, Tommy Morrison, power his way around the course. Morrison, now the 18th-ranked amateur in the world, was one of the top players in his age group. (At 6-foot-8, he was also one of the most imposing.)

Morrison took 5th that year in Naples, and when his round was over, Noah invited him to play nine more holes. Morrison agreed, and they’ve been buddies since. Noah has caught up to Morrison in the years since — and not only on the course. When they met in 2019, Noah was 5-5. He’s now 6-5.

“I think it was one of the nicest things anyone ever did for Noah,” Fry says now. “Everyone was physically looking up to Tommy and that started a friendship. That was the guy Noah was always chasing.”

The duo played a U.S. Amateur practice round at Chaska Town Course last week, and on the par-4 7th hole Noah blasted a monster drive down the middle. (He typically flies it about 330 yards.) Morrison looked at Fry and Trisha and grinned.

“What do you feed this kid?”

Like the rest of the world, Noah Kent felt the golf bug bite hard during the Covid boom.

He took advantage of remote learning opportunities to travel to different countries with Fry. Perhaps just as importantly, he began to grow into his frame. He started to get better. Lots better. When he was 16, he played Seminole with Fry and legendary golf pro Bob Ford. When Noah drove the first green, Ford flashed a look at Fry.

“What the hell?”

On the course and later at lunch, Fry and Ford discussed Noah’s path. Ford saw a great talent and could tell Noah was well-spoken and well-adjusted, and they kicked around names wondering who might be the perfect coach to take him further. Ford offered one key piece of advice.

“Don’t let anybody mess with this kid.”

Ford suggested they find someone with a proven track record to help Noah, who was hoping to land with Claude Harmon III. Harmon was already with clients like Dustin Johnson and Brooks Koepka, but Kent had an in. After an introduction from former U.S. Am winner John Cook, Harmon agreed to take Noah on.

“He believes in him, and he instills that belief in Noah,” Fry says. “He’s always struggled with the belief. He was always a good player, and he’s buddies with all those elite players — Ben James and Tommy Morrison and Nick Dunlap — and he’s played with all those guys. But in his mind they were better. In the bigger events he just wasn’t coming through. Claude would tell him he was getting in his own way. He’d say, ‘You have to accept the fact that you are this good.'”

Fry paused.

“The difference is now Noah believes it.”

Noah, 19, has a growing list of mentors and people in his corner, and among them is John Harris, another former U.S. Amateur champion and University of Minnesota star athlete. They met years ago at Calusa Pines and have been in touch since.

Harris is undergoing treatment for leukemia, so he wasn’t at the U.S. Amateur, but he was watching from Florida. Noah kept Harris close, talking or texting daily and even writing Harris’s initials on his golf glove.

“He is physically and mentally mature,” Harris told GOLF.com via email. “His physical game developed before he gained enough experience to be competitive in every event. But he kept a good attitude, learned from his experiences and matured into an aggressive and confident player.”

The most valuable experience has arrived for Noah at the University of Iowa, where he will soon start his sophomore year. He chose Iowa because coach Tyler Stith was the first to believe in him, but it didn’t take him long to return the favor. Before a fall upperclassmen vs. lowerclassmen match last fall, and not far removed from a wrist injury that kept him out a couple of months, Noah requested to face fifth-year senior and two-time Big Ten individual champion Mac McClear.

He won 3 and 2.

Before U.S. Amateur match play began on Wednesday, Stith reminded his young star of that memory.

“When you’re lying in bed tonight, create an image of someone you wouldn’t want to face,” he said in a text shared with Golf Channel. … “Tomorrow that person is you.”

Kent responded quickly.

“I am that person is right.”

The next morning, Kent went on a tear. He won matches 4 and 2, 2 and 1, 4 and 2, 3 and 2, and 2 up to get to the final. As the 560th-ranked amateur in the world, he was the underdog in almost all those matches — not that he cared.

“They talk about it, and it’s like, ‘You’re 560 in the world,’ but I know I can beat anybody here,” he said Friday. “It doesn’t matter if they’re ranked 1, 1,000, 10, 20, it doesn’t really matter to me.”

On Sunday, he faced his stiffest competition yet in Jose Luis Ballester, the son of two Olympians who hits the ball a mile and flexes a game without discernible weaknesses.

The birdies came fast for Ballester, and a 4-up lead after the morning 18 proved to be just enough cushion to halt Kent’s furious comeback in the 36-hole match. The 10th-ranked amateur in the world won, but No. 560 pushed him to the brink.

As Jose Luis Ballester hoisted a trophy on the 18th green and posed with USGA brass for a dozen flashing cameras, Kent was off the green, not far from his final chip shot, smiling for a picture with his family.

“You can hang your head coming in second, but to fight like that,” he told the media, referencing his second-18 comeback. “I talked to Mr. Harris [during the break between rounds], and he said, ‘If you fight, you know in your heart you’re not going to be upset. If you don’t fight, it’s going to leave you haunted.'”

Kent will not leave Minnesota spooked. A lot changed in a week. He’s now in the 2025 U.S. Open and Masters. He’s on the Walker Cup radar. His ranking is skyrocketing.

“It was full circle for him this week,” says his dad, David Kent. “He’s been on the cusp of really knowing that it was his time, and all I kept telling him this week was, ‘It’s your time.’ It’s massive. And there’s a little bit of disappointment for him, but this is huge for him. He’s just getting started.”

After Noah finished talking with the media, and before he went to go sign autographs, he returned to his family and watched Ballester on the 18th green. His dad put his arm around him and patted his back. He leaned in and spoke to his son, and he told him he was proud of him.

Noah Kent leaves Hazeltine with a gift nearly as valuable as the trophy. After a week at the U.S. Amateur, he no longer has to wonder if he belongs. He knows.