ARDMORE, Pa. — Match play is all about swing moments: a smashed drive on a short par-4 that bounds up onto the green. A stuffed approach. A putt that lips in, or out.
Ryder Cowan, the world’s 8th-ranked amateur and with a name made for head-to-head golf, experienced one of these moments — a decisive one — in his heavyweight, first-round bout with 4th-ranked Miles Russell at this 126th U.S. Amateur. As Cowan sized up his short-sided chip in juicy rough on the left side of the par-3 17th green, he had a 1-up lead on Russell — but also a horrid lie. Cowan chopped at it, advancing his ball all of about two inches.
A moment.
Advantage, Russell, who after his own chip, from the back of the green, had about 10 feet left for his par. Cowan stared down at his ball and tried again. Out the ball popped, onto the green and . . . into the hole. Yep, another moment. Suddenly, Russell needed to hole his par try merely to extend the match. He didn’t. Cowan def. Russell, 2 and 1.
Five holes earlier, on the short par-3 13th, there’d been another moment. A curious one. After Cowan ran his birdie putt about two feet past the hole, Russell declined to give the putt — a kick-in, really — to his opponent, but not out of gamesmanship or poor sportsmanship.
Russell thought Cowan’s ball mark could be of use to Russell on his own birdie try, a left-to-right bender from about 6 feet. The mark was dangerously close to Russell’s line but just inside it, Russell deduced, meaning Cowan’s mark wasn’t an impediment but an aim point.
“I needed to get around it,” Russell said after his round, “and just wasn’t able to do that.”
If you were watching the moment on the NBC telecast from home, you might have been scratching your head. The ball appeared to be on line — or to at least have a chance — when it rolled directly over Cowan’s mark, popped into the air and petered out as it missed the hole low. Russell said the mark was moot; it was just a bad putt. “If his mark wasn’t there, it was still missing,” he said. “It needed to hit the left side of the mark for it to go in, and it just went right over the middle.”
Still, it was jarring to see.
What did Russell’s opponent make of Russell’s decision?
“Not surprised at all,” Cowan told GOLF after the match. “He didn’t give [the putt] to me for a reason. He wanted that as kind of a visual in his head of where he had to get that ball. He just hit it too soft and it ended up going over my mark.”
Did Cowan think the mark impacted the putt’s track?
“It definitely killed speed a little bit,” he said, “but I think the putt was already pretty well [mishit]. Maybe it had a chance to hit the lip.”
Cowan said he’s seen some players use their playing partners’ ball markers as aiming aids, but he’s not partial to doing so. He understands the logic, though. “That can be to your advantage, right?” he said. “There is nothing that says he can’t.”
Russell said he didn’t have “his best stuff” Wednesday, and now his week is over. That’s match play, of course. Win or go home.
“I hung on there for a long time,” he said.
Just not quite long enough.
