His homeland has 27 golf holes. Now he’s the U.S. Open’s low amateur

OAKMONT, Pa. — A hundred miles south of Cuba — and 1,500 miles south of Oakmont — the North Sound Golf Club took off early on Saturday evening.

By the time a reporter tried their phone line at 6:45 p.m. on Saturday, 15 minutes before closing, the extensions for the pro shop, head pro and grounds crew were all dial tones. If they were celebrating, it was for good reason.

Their native son, Justin Hastings, was the U.S. Open’s low amateur.

Hastings will play in his first major championship Sunday at Oakmont, where he currently sits at nine over par and T45, but he’s already won the weekend. Hastings, who is from the Cayman Islands (a British overseas territory of three coastal islands), will leave with a medal no matter what he shoots on Sunday. He was the only amateur to make the cut, which makes him an early appointment as U.S. Open low amateur.

Hastings, a 21-year-old who just wrapped up his senior season at San Diego State, entered the week a U.S. Open longshot. He was not the most decorated amateur in the field, which also included 2024 U.S. Amateur champion Noah Kent, nor was he the most decorated major championship competitor, having missed the cut in his only prior major at April’s Masters.

But Hastings is used to life as an underdog. He grew up in a territory of just 73,000 people in the middle of the ocean, and yet he’s holding his weight in the U.S. Open, against the best field in golf, on what many consider the toughest course in the world.

“There’s a few [pros] that have never heard of [the Cayman Islands], so that’s always a funny one,” Hastings said Saturday. “There are a few that have heard of it in movies and say, Oh, it’s the tax haven.“

It would be understandable if Hastings did not love the limelight. After all, it would be hard to find a player in this U.S. Open or any further from golf’s cultural epicenter. He grew up playing at North Sound Golf Club, which is a special place on the Cayman Islands because it is the only 18-hole golf course on the island. Those tired of North Sound’s ocean views and sandy dunes can go only to the ocean views and sandy dunes of the Ritz Carlton Golf Club located less than a thousand yards away.

“The conversation goes, How did you get into golf? And I never have a good answer for them,” Hastings said. “There’s only one golf course. I’m lucky enough to have a good support system down there. My coach, Tim, has been really amazing for me since I was 5 years old. He’s been running the national team for a while, and he’s out here with me, so the two of us have kind of had a great time the last few years getting to where we are now.”

Golf, thankfully, has never counted scores based upon affluence — and particularly not the U.S. Open, where wee Francis Ouimet claimed a national championship at Brookline as a teenage amateur raised across the street. The scorecard is the great equalizer, and in that department, Hastings has performed well. He qualified for the U.S. Open by way of a victory in the Latin America Amateur, and he will use that victory to play in all the majors but the PGA Championship. After that, it’s time for the real world: Hastings will turn pro after Portrush and head straight to Ottawa, where he has status on the PGA Tour Americas.

In the meantime, though, he will take the afternoon on Sunday to collect some hardware at the U.S. Open — and perhaps dole out a handful of nationally televised interviews.

“Oh, yeah, yeah,” he said of his Saturday NBC spot. “That’s a first.”

Back home on Grand Cayman, business will grind on as usual at the Cayman Islands’ only golf facility on Sunday morning. It will be a day just like all the others, spare for a trophy ceremony expected in the early evening hours.

By then, the North Sound Golf Club will be closed again … and preparing a spot in its trophy case.