ARDMORE, Pa. — Andy Whaley couldn’t believe his eyes. Standing at the back of Merion East’s soaked 15th green, he smiled and laughed as his son, 22-year-old Jack Whaley, raised the Havemeyer Trophy after conquering the best amateur field in the world.
“Did I ever think he could win the U.S. Amateur? No. Did I ever think he’d win it this year? Absolutely not,” Andy Whaley told GOLF with a laugh as his son did the post-win media car wash.
Andy and his wife, Kerry, were scheduled to fly home on Saturday night. “That tells you how confident we were,” Andy Whaley said with a chuckle. Instead, Andy Whaley, carrying his son’s bag for the first time in five or six years, changed his flight and set out to walk Merion for a final day with his son.
This week’s U.S. Amateur at Merion was golf watching in its purest form. The famed golf course opened its doors to the world’s best amateurs and local crowds flocked by the thousands to walk its fairways, raid the pro shop and watch the best amateur golf has to offer. It was a week for the true, dyed-in-the-wool golf fans who appreciate and understand what the game has always been about.
It was fitting that, during a week about Merion, the Hugh Wilson design outside Philadelphia remained the main star throughout the week. The world’s best amateurs — Preston Stout, Miles Russell, Tyler Watts and others — all either failed to make it out of stroke play or made an early match play exit. This week was about getting to see Merion, one of the game’s great cathedrals, without it being overrun by giant buildouts and throngs of fans. It was just the world’s best ams and fans who wanted to soak in good golf at a place steeped in history. It was about the magic and mystique of a place we rarely see.
But as Jack and Andy Whaley made their way through the bracket, knocking off the last mid-am and then the Merion favorite Carter Loflin, a different story emerged. One with a meaning far greater than golf or trophies or cathedrals. A story as old as time, but one that never gets old.
That of the bond between fathers and sons.
Andy Whaley might say he didn’t think Jack Whaley could win the U.S. Amateur, but he always believed his son would achieve his golfing dreams. Andy first got Jack into golf as a 4-year-old, when he’d take him to the Pete Cowen Golf Academy in Rotherham, England. Andy would buy Jack a lollipop after every practice at the Academy. As fathers tend to do for their sons, Andy Whaley did everything he could to allow young Jack to play golf. Money was tight back then for the Whaleys. Jack didn’t get his first new set of irons until he was 16. When Andy bought his son a new 60-degree wedge when Jack was 12, he dipped into his savings, telling his son that he had worked hard and he deserved it.
That ladder brought Jack and Andy Whaley to Merion this week. Jack didn’t know if he’d be in the field, but as some top amateurs turned pro, he slipped inside the top 100 in the WAGR rankings and booked a ticket to Merion and told Andy he wanted him on his bag. The Merion experience started with Jack Whaley shooting 2 over through the first two days, which landed him in a 16-for-11 playoff to get into match play. Whaley nearly holed his shot on the par-3 13th and tapped in a birdie to advance. He beat Jackson Ormund in the Round of 64, dispatched Bowen Mauss in the Round of 32, took care of Christian Cavaliere in the Round of 16, handled Adam Bresnu in the quarterfinals, and outlasted Loflin to reach the championship match against Jay Leng Jr.
Andy Whaley has always shared a mantra with Jack: Drive forward, see where you go and just have fun
On Sunday, at famed Merion, Jack and Andy arrived with their eyes forward and calm nerves after a hectic semifinal Saturday. The job was clear. After 18 holes, Jack trailed Leng by two, but he never felt like he was in trouble. Andy had a front-row seat to the biggest day of his son’s life. But it was easy for Andy to be caddie Andy and not dad inside the ropes. He caddied for Jack a lot when he was younger. Then, they butted heads, needing a “250-meter rule” because Andy says that if he was closer than 250 meters and Jack hit a bad shot, then it was his fault.
“It’s Dad’s fault, you know, and that’s all right, that’s what I’m here for,” Whaley said, recalling those times he carried the bag as Jack struggled.
But Sunday was different.
“We’ve been through some good days and some bad days,” Andy Whaley said. “Today just felt mellow. He was good. He was good. We both knew we got a job to do. Focus on the job. Focus on what we need to do out on the course. There’s a lot of people come to watch good golf, so we needed to give them some good golf. … It has been surreal.”
Whaley quickly flipped the script on Leng during the afternoon in 18. He won four straight holes to take a 2-up lead as the rain started to pour. A birdie at No. 10 moved him to 3 up, and then Jack and Andy Whaley reached the 15th hole, still with a three-hole advantage, knowing they were close to a place they never imagined.
Whaley bombed his drive over the right fairway bunker and then hit his approach to some 10 feet. When Jack and Andy arrived at the green, they looked at their destiny and liked what they saw.
“I will admit that when we stood behind it, we did fancy it a little bit. We did like it. There wasn’t much in it. We did like it,” Andy Whaley said with a glimmer in his eye, a laugh and a big smile as the sun set on soggy Merion.
Andy placed the bag on the back of the green, planning to go to 16. But Leng missed his birdie putt, and then Jack Whaley, who once thought about quitting golf to stop wasting his dad’s money, settled over the biggest putt of his life with his dad watching. Jack Whaley took the putter back smoothly and sent the ball right into the middle of the cup. He unleashed a mighty fist pump and then turned to Andy and embraced his father, the two crying as the rain continued to pummel Merion.
“When it dropped, I just roared,” Andy said. “I screamed my bloody head off. … It’s surreal. I can’t believe it.”
“I think it was amazing,” Jack Whaley said of his championship-winning week with his dad on the bag. “I think, from the hours that my dad has taken me to practice and all the different golf lessons he’s taken me to, it feels like it was all worth it. Now he can actually see me happy and I can see him happy coming off the golf course, which is really good. I’m very proud of myself for this week.
“I wouldn’t be here without him. Everything is for him.”
As the Whaleys celebrated on Merion’s 15th green, Andy Whaley beamed as his son snapped photos with every fan remaining at Merion. He took some himself, but mainly, Andy Whaley just smiled and laughed in awe. What he saw, however, was not the U.S. Amateur champion or a likely Walker Cupper. It was his son, who handled himself in the manner that Andy and Kerry always wanted him to. It was the pride of a father who saw his son becoming the type of man he had always hoped for; the good golf is just extra.
“The pride of what he has achieved, for me, I like how he’s gone about it,” Andy said as his son took a photo with a young kid on the green. “Just the kind of guy he is and always will be, I hope. The pride in what he achieved is tremendous. But the pride in how he behaves and how he does it overrides it.”
As the crowds started to disperse, the stage belonged to the Whaleys. A cathedral of the game that is synonymous with Bobby Jones and Ben Hogan now also belongs to Jack Whaley. No matter what the future holds, no matter if golf breaks his heart or not, Jack Whaley and Merion will forever be linked. Nothing can steal the joy the week has brought.
“Whenever anything is happening at Merion, I’m sure that clip will pop up,” Andy Whaley said of his son’s winning putt, the giant smile of a proud parent still stretched across his face. “That’s incredible. Just the opportunity to come and play here is magical. That will do for starters. And then to come and compete against the best in the world and be successful is just the icing on the cake. This is a seriously iconic place, and to go out there and test yourself against the best in the world is just epic.”
