The post ‘I don’t pull the trigger until I’m ready’: U.S. Am champ Sam Bennett responds to slow-play critics appeared first on Golf.

The post ‘I don’t pull the trigger until I’m ready’: U.S. Am champ Sam Bennett responds to slow-play critics appeared first on Golf.

Sam Bennett needed every last hole to nab victory at the 2022 U.S. Amateur Championship at Ridgewood Country Club. The USGA’s oldest championship (naturally) came down to the very last hole, the 36th of the day in his duel with opponent Ben Carr.

When Bennett finally won 1 up, drama of a different sort was brewing on social media. The issue, according to tournament observers, was Bennett’s pre-shot routine, which frequently included multiple re-grippings and foot shuffles before he hit the ball — reminiscent of Sergio Garcia in the early 2000s.

In the aftermath of his big win, Bennett defended his method on Golf Digest’s The Loop podcast.

“I got a bunch of heat,” Bennett said. “I just want to tell those people: I already have anxiety. It’s pretty bad. Having anxiety and then getting over a golf ball with all these thoughts in your head, and then put me in that moment at the U.S. Am with the whole golf world watching. I mean, what can you expect?

“It’s always been like that,” he continued. “I don’t pull the trigger until I’m ready. I mean, it’s not a certain amount of looks, it’s just kinda whenever I’m ready.”

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Bennett then mentioned that he’s heard plenty of negative things about his game: that his golf swing won’t hold up, his re-gripping methods will cause him issues and his play is too slow.

“It doesn’t matter what it looks like. It matters what score you make on the hole, that’s it,” he said. “It’s called golf, not golf swing. There’s hate everywhere.”

Bennett did concede that the U.S. Amateur’s grand stage may have exacerbated some of his existing routines, though.

“Definitely this week, the re-gripping and the extra looks were a little more severe than they usually are,” he said.

With his victory, golf fans can look forward to watching Bennett in three of the four major championships next year, as long as he retains his amateur status. Bennett is currently a fifth-year senior at Texas A&M.

You can listen to Bennett’s entire interview here.

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Sam Bennett has a tattoo on his forearm with the last message he got from his late father.

“Don’t wait to do something,” reads the message from his father, Mark, who passed away last year.

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The fifth-year Texas A&M senior found himself looking back on the message during the final holes of the U.S. Amateur championship match on Sunday. “I’d take a glance at it and make me smile,” Bennett told NBC Sports’ Steve Burkowski after the match. “Just let me enjoy the moment, and I’m just happy to be here.” And Bennett had a moment to enjoy, holding off a second 18 charge from Georgia Southern’s Ben Carr to win the 2022 U.S. Amateur at Ridgewood Country Club 1-up.

It was probably a lot closer than he would have liked.

Bennett, the third-ranked amateur in the world, took a 3-up lead on the first 18 and extended it 5-up through 21 holes thanks to birdies on the second and third holes of the afternoon round.

Then Carr started to battle back, draining a long putt from off the green on the 24th for birdie, and then doing it again, this time with a chip-in on the 25th to climb back to three-down.

“He started dropping putts and chips from everywhere,” Bennett said of Carr. “It made me nervous.”

Carr could probably relate to what was going through Bennett’s head, playing with the memories of his late father, David, weighing on him. After their semifinal wins on Saturday, Carr said he hoped both of their fathers would be watching Sunday’s match together.

It was a good one to watch too, as both players birdied the 28th hole, the 503-yard par-4 9th, Bennett making a long curling down-hiller to put the pressure on Carr, who was within 10 feet for his second, to stay three down.

Carr did climb to 2 down on the 29th hole as Bennett made a double bogey from the left greenside bunker.

That was the spread when the pair came to the 35th hole, the long par-5 17th. Bennett laid up and hit his third onto the right side of the green and spun it down about 15 feet. Carr, needing to press, went for the green and put his second in left greenside bunker. Carr splashed out to about 20 feet and drained the putt to stay alive as Bennett missed his putt that would have won the match.

“He would not go away,” Bennett said of Carr.

On the 36th, Bennett pulled his second shot slightly on the long par-4, but it was just long and right enough to carry the bunker short of the green and leave him within 20 feet for his birdie try.

“The golfing gods and [my dad] were working in my favor,” he said.

A lag just short of the cup was good enough for Carr to concede and give Bennett the 1-up win.

“It’s a dream come true. It doesn’t feel real looking,” he said gazing at the Havemeyer trophy, which comes with exemptions into three majors next year. “All these people on the 18th green at Ridgewood. What? I don’t know. I don’t even know what I’m saying right now.

“It means a lot to hold that trophy. I’m sure tonight I’ll take a peek at all the names, but I know Tiger Woods name’s on that three times. And to put my name beside his, I know it’s something pretty special.”

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The post He broke down after his semifinal win at the U.S. Amateur. The reason why will break your heart. appeared first on Golf.

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Ben Carr uses a special marker, to remember his father who passed away in 2019. But at the start of his U.S. Amateur semifinal match, he had no idea where it was.

“On the first tee… I couldn’t find it,” Carr told NBC Sports’ Smiley Kaufman after his match. “I emptied out my pockets, there was nothing. I emptied out my bag. I couldn’t find it in my bag.”

When he needed it most, he found it.

“I’m over my putt on 16, and it’s just in my left pocket,” Carr said before getting emotional. “I don’t know how. I swear to god, I checked. I checked my pocket, I swear to god.”

Carr made par on the 16th hole at Ridgewood Country Club and then watched as opponent Derek Hitchner missed his birdie try, giving Carr at 3 and 2 win and a spot in the finals on Sunday.

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The fifth-year senior at Georgia Southern will play Sam Bennett in the final match, but earns a likely invitation to the 2023 Masters by virtue of his finals appearance. The finals winner will earn exemptions into next year’s U.S. Open and Open Championship.

Carr’s brother and mother were on hand to watch his victory Saturday, and while emotions got the best of him at times during his interview, he reiterated how grateful he was for the support he had at the tournament.

“I just have so much support here, and we’re so far from home,” Carr said. “There’s just so many people that came to watch. …”

Then he did something we all can relate to: cursed on camera and immediately apologized for it. Kaufman then pointed out the rainbow behind Carr as he was overtaken with emotion again.

After the interview, Carr’s family and friends surrounded him before letting the excitement for what comes Sunday take over.

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Ben Carr is showing us what the power of social media can get you.

In need of a caddie for this week’s U.S. Amateur at Ridgewood Country Club, instead of hiring a local caddie from the club, the fifth-year senior at Georgia Southern sent out a tweet as a job posting for a potential looper.

In comes 36-year-old former PGA Tour pro Will Wilcox to answer the call.

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Now, a journeyman tour pro from Alabama and a college senior from Georgia may seem like an unlikely pairing, but the two have actually developed a history over the past few years. Wilcox moved to Columbus, Ga., and started playing golf often with Carr at the Country Club of Columbus during the pandemic, according to GolfChannel.com.

On the broadcast of the semifinals of the U.S. Amateur, Golf Channel’s Steve Burkowski said Wilcox responded to Carr to “take that down” when he saw the tweet. Wilcox was apparently already set to be in the area for a Rage Against The Machine concert the week before the tournament.

“Anything that goes with being a good caddie, he’s got it,” Carr said of Wilcox after his quarterfinal win Friday. “He keeps me grounded. He’s a great green reader, good with numbers, good decision maker, and we just had so much fun out there. Two guys from Alabama and Georgia, just up here in New Jersey, almost like a foreign country, just having a good time on the golf course.”

It may contrast to keeping him grounded, but you can probably add hype man to this list too, based on Wilcox’s Twitter feed this week.

Wilcox might be most famous for his celebration after dunking it on the 16th hole at TPC Sawgrass during the 2016 Players Championship. However, Carr’s play has him in the semifinals against Pepperdine’s Derek Hitchner.

Let’s hope two more wins for Carr would mean another fantastic celebration from Wilcox.

And of course we can’t forget to admire Carr’s confidence in his job posting, noting he’d need a caddy for all seven days of the event.

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PARAMUS, N.J. — Even by the U.S. Amateur’s topsy-turvy standards, things at Ridgewood have been wildly unpredictable.

After two rounds of stroke play and four rounds of match play, the underdogs are overwhelming not only their better-ranked competition but also the whole the tournament. Just one single-digit seed remains from the field of 64, and the cast of characters who have unseated three of the top five amateurs in the world and all but one of the tournament’s presumptive favorites includes the 707th-ranked amateur, the 1,212th-ranked am and a 34-year-old lead tape enthusiast.

Gone are names like Travis Vick, Gordon Sargent and Michael Thorbjornsen — a group widely considered to be “the future” of professional golf — replaced by a group of players who don’t even have a profile headshot available on the on the World Amateur Golf Ranking website.

Yes, the U.S. Amateur is a match-play event, and yes, match play is when golf’s great wheel of meritocracy spins at its fastest. But if this week truly is a meritocracy, why are so many of the so-called better players spending the weekend at home? If the format isn’t the cause, then what is?

There will be no arguing the fact that Ridgewood is a championship test from anyone in the field this week. At a hilly 7,400 yards long and what feels like 20 yards wide, the course is as big and bad as it is nimble and toothy. For this week’s U.S. Amateur, the greens staff narrowed fairways and grew the rough — as high as five inches in some spots — while a drought in the area helped to firm up the already-slick putting surfaces to what at least three players estimated was “a 13 or 14” on the Stimpmeter Thursday.

These would be considered U.S. Open-like conditions, were the conditions at the actual U.S. Open in June not slightly easier, at least on paper. (The Country Club played to just 7,200 yards, and its greens rolled at a 12.5.) All of which raises an important question: In a format already built for chaos, could the course conditions at the U.S. Amateur be benefitting the underdogs?

“I think in some, in some ways, courses like this can play easier than just a super soft course,” offered Alex Price, who made it into the quarterfinal round at the U.S. Am despite ranking 1,212th in the world. “I always like embracing the challenge. I’ve always felt like I played better at the harder courses. I like it not just being a birdie fest out there — having to hit golf shots, put your ball in the right spot. If you know how to use the slopes and know how to play the conditions, I think you’re gonna do just fine.”

Price had no illusions of overpowering Ridgewood. A member of the golf team at Division III Christopher Newport University in Virginia, the ballspeed gap between Price and his 6-foot-8 round of 32 opponent Christo Lamprecht is like the one between the cul de sac outside the Ridgewood clubhouse and the left lane of the Jersey Turnpike. And yet it was Price who moved to 2 up in the pair’s match on the 573-yard 3rd hole, a mammoth par-5 that on many other courses would have played directly to his opponent’s advantage.

On that hole, Lamprecht ignored the primary fairway and aimed his drive for the adjacent one, hoping to chop down the angle and reach the green in two. Instead, he split the two fairways, his ball coming to rest deep in the right rough. Rather than take his medicine, Lamprecht compounded his error, blasting his second shot off one of the large limbs of an oak tree and directly back down into the rough. He would go on to make 6 on the hole, while Price played the par-5 as a three-shotter and made a tidy par.

“I think the way you have to approach that hole, especially in matchplay, you can never put yourself out of the hole — never do something that’s going to just hand the hole your opponent,” Price told me later. “So whatever course of action you can take to ensure that you’re at least going to have a good look at par and probably even a good look at birdie, you have to do it.”

In fact, Price and Lamprecht were the third of three consecutive groups to learn that lesson on Thursday morning. In that stretch, none of the three winning players on the third hole made better than par, and notably, none of the winners played a shot from the rough.

Clean golf is a common theme among those who’ve found success at the U.S. Am, but if there’s one consensus, it’s luck. With conditions as they are, there are many ways to decide one’s own destiny at Ridgewood, but no way to control it.

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“Obviously here, if you’re precise all day hitting fairways, it’d be pretty easy,” Australia’s Hayden Hopewell said. “But you do need a little bit of luck when you miss a fairway, because everyone’s gonna miss a fairway. If you can keep it out of that thick stuff, it makes it a bit easier.”

“You’re gonna have to draw some luck and lies in the rough and missing fairways,” Andrew Von Lossow agreed. “There were a number of times where I couldn’t see my ball in the rough or around the greens. You just have to hit it and pray.”

Von Lossow is perhaps the Amateur’s biggest Cinderella story in 2022. The 34-year-old mid-am and owner of a popular Instagram feed dedicated to lead tape (@leadtapechronicles) flew in for the week from Spokane, Wash., with the long-shot goal of making it into the field’s top 64 players. On Wednesday, he one-upped himself, upsetting Thornbjornsen to earn a bid into the round of 32 before losing on the final hole of Thursday morning’s match to Ben Carr.

Maybe Von Lossow was fortunate to advance as far as he did, but he sure didn’t feel that way walking off the 18th green on Thursday.

“Playing this kind of course, it’s such a grind. Any little shot here it can hit a ridge and roll off the green or something like that,” Von Lossow said. “The lines are so fine. You can’t press but you know you kind of need to. You just have to accept what’s gonna happen.”

Perhaps that’s the true impact of course conditions like the ones at the U.S. Am — not in providing an advantage to any one player, but in making an already-random event way more random. Maybe that means an advantage for the underdogs, or maybe it’s something much simpler.

“It’s just match play,” Price said, sporting a smile as wide as his quarterfinal odds were just five days ago. “Once we’re here, we’re all equal. Once you make the top 64, anything can happen.”

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The post Gil Hanse Q&A: Renowned course architect talks the U.S. Amateur, his favorite hole at Ridgewood and more appeared first on Golf.

PARAMUS, N.J. — Gil Hanse is a busy man.

The 59-year-old is one of the foremost golf-course architects in the world, and his fingerprints are everywhere in the game. From Olympic Club to Southern Hills to The Country Club (among many others), Hanse has left his mark.

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This week’s U.S. Amateur host, Ridgewood Country Club, is no exception. Hanse led a restoration of the classic A.W. Tillinghast design back in the 90s, and three decades later, the course is as good as ever.

And despite the U.S. Amateur being one of the most hectic weeks in golf, Hanse made sure to carve out some time in his schedule to pop over to Ridgewood this week to take in a little of the action. On Wednesday, we found him following along early in the evening as Gordon Sargent and Ford Clegg battled into extra holes.

Hanse might be the busiest man in golf, but he was gracious enough to take a few minutes to chat about his favorite hole on property, the challenges of restoring classic courses and more.

Zephyr Melton: How do you feel the course is holding up so far this week?

Gil Hanse: It’s great so far. I think it’s presenting a really great challenge for these guys — the rough is thick and you’ve got to hit it straight. And I think for a U.S. Amateur that’s a great test. I think the thing that’s been interesting is that these greens have so much slope in them, that not only from a putting standpoint, but also from an approach standpoint, you’ve got to hit the ball to certain spots to get it to feed to where you want it to go. That’s been interesting to watch. The subtleties of the greens have been a challenge I’m sure.

ZM: Do you ever get nervous watching players compete on courses that you’ve had a hand in shaping?

GH: Not in this format, because it’s match play. No one is focused on what they shot — it’s just whoever wins, wins and you’ve got to get the ball in the hole. That’s a lot easier on the architect, because when you put score into the equation, then not only do you have your own expectations, but also the expectations of the members and if they think it’s playing too easy or too hard.

ZM: What’s your favorite hole out here on this championship routing?

GH: Well I always get the composite numbers wrong, but I’d say it’s No. 13, the par-5. I love that hole. Every once in a while, you’ll get a magazine or a book ask you, “If there was a hole that you didn’t design that you wish you had, which would it be?” I’ve picked that hole a couple times. Just because of the beauty of it, the way the cross hazard comes into play. The mounds and the way they diagonally set. And with your second shot, if you play it close to the boundary, you open up the angle into the green, but if you play away from the trouble, you’ve got to come into the green with trouble. And the green in that little bowl I think is a beautiful setting. I’d definitely say that’s my favorite.

ZM: What are the challenges with restorations in keeping the essence of a course while also challenging the modern player?

GH: I think a lot of what challenges these guys is baked into the original design. It’s greens and contours of slopes and rough, of course. But I think where we have to reposition fairway bunkers, we would tend to do that if the topography allows us to shift them downrange to challenge the modern player. And with tees, we’ll extend them too, but not in a way that we would perceive as disconnecting holes — like if you had to walk 90 yards back and then walk the same 90 yards back to the fairway. That takes away the essence of these great old golf courses.

But one of the things that Jim Wagner and I have learned, is that if we trust Tillinghast and Donald Ross and George Thomas, 99 percent of the time, they got it right, and it’s still relevant to today’s player. So we try to keep as much of that as we can.

ZM: What makes a great golf hole?

GH: It’s having options. What makes a great golf hole in strategy is that the level of precision required to just go play is fairly low, with wide fairways and generous landing areas. But the level of precision required to score — meaning accessing hole locations and getting close and making birdies — means that you’re relying on angles and hazards and there’s a thought process to that. And that’s not easy to do, but it’s what we try to accomplish.

ZM: Last question — what’s harder: playing golf, or designing golf courses?

GH: Playing golf. (laughs) I seldom get frustrated designing golf courses, but I definitely get frustrated when playing.

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PARAMUS, N.J. — Stewart Hagestad is somewhat of an elder statesman this week at The Ridgewood Country Club.

No, he’s not the oldest player in the field (that honor that goes to 59-year-old Jerry Gunthorpe), but he does have the most experience in this championship, the 122nd U.S. Amateur. When Hagestad pegged it up Monday, it began the 13th start for him in this storied championship.

“Do I feel like the old guy? Of course,” Hagestad said. “But I’d like to think physically I’m okay and I’ve got enough reps under my belt that I’m at least competitive with them.”

Driving

Thus far, he’s been more than just competitive.

After rounds of 69 and 74 in stroke play, Hagestad comfortably advanced to bracket play. And in his first match of the single-elimination tournament, he dispatched seventh-ranked amateur Sam Bairstow 3 and 1 to advance to the Round of 32.

Just two months ago at the U.S. Open — where Hagestad made the cut and finished 64th — Hagestad said he believed his game would stay at en elite level much longer. And while we’re not far removed from that week at Brookline, the 31-year-old’s game still appears to be plenty sharp.

He’s made 11 birdies over 55 holes of some of the most difficult conditions in amateur golf, and despite his advancing age, he doesn’t give up much ball speed compared to his younger peers.

So, what’s the secret to Hagestad’s success (and longevity) on the amateur circuit? He shared some of his secrets with GOLF.com at Ridgewood.

1. Keep it old school

Hagestad is one of the most successful amateur golfers of the modern generation, but his approach is refreshingly old school. He rocks a vintage stand bag, sports classic wing-tip shoes on occasion, and keeps things simple when working on his swing.

“It’s important to have the tools of today, because that’s a super helpful thing,” Hagestad said. “But the original Trackman was to look at the divot and your ball flight.”

If Hagestad feels like he is losing his swing, he starts by assessing his ball flight and then examining his divot. These two data points inform what his clubface is doing at impact and the direction of his swing path. From there, he knows what he needs to change.

2. Work out the right way

Hagestad was quick to admit that he does not enjoy working out, but that doesn’t mean he neglects the gym.

“Going to the gym sucks, we all know it,” Hagestad said. “So like, if you’re gonna go, let’s get it. Let’s do it the right way. I’m already there, so I might as well do it the right way.”

These gym sessions have a variety of benefits, Hagestad explained. For one, it helps his swing and allows him to maintain a high swing speed. Additionally, there are mental-health benefits to the workouts.

“I just become a really bitter person if I don’t work out,” he said. “And also, it just fosters good habits.”

3. It’s all in the legs

At 6-foot-5, Hagestad is owns a tall, lanky build. But even though he doesn’t have as much mass behind his ball as some players, he’s still able to generate plenty of speed — and his secret is simple.

“Squats,” he said. “For tall guys like us, I’ve always felt that our legs dictate how much the rest of our body fills out. So I really focus on my legs when working out.”

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PARAMUS, N.J. — If on a Tuesday in August you were seeking refuge from the endless chatter in golf circles about defections and dissension and dumbfounding signing bonuses, you could do worse than hop off Exit 163 on the Garden State Parkway and find your way to Ridgewood Country Club, or, to be more precise, The Ridgewood Country Club, as this old-timey (b. 1890) golf citadel is officially known.

As a group of world-class golfers were convening in Delaware to address the pressing threat that the deeply funded, Saudi-backed LIV Series represents to the PGA Tour, another group of world-class golfers — 312 of them! — were grinding away in the stroke-play portion of the U.S. Amateur here in leafy northern New Jersey.

To say the U.S. Amateur contestants — 64 of whom advanced to match play, from which a winner will be crowned Sunday afternoon — were playing for nothing would, of course, be misleading. Plenty was on the line: the esteemed Havemeyer Trophy, a gold medal and invitations to three of the four majors in 2023.

To the victor, other spoils also go. Ask James Piot, who won this championship just a year ago and now has a LIV deal that has given him entrée to $25 million purses that he surely never could have dreamed of when he was leading Detroit Catholic Central to three straight Division 1 Michigan High School Championships from 2015-17.  

And yet in another sense — the monetary kind — the guys this week are playing for nothing. No purse. No checks. Not even a Calcutta. (Well, none that we know of, anyway.)

Isn’t it refreshing?

Don’t answer that. Rhetorical question!

As LIV has begun plucking players from the PGA Tour like pears off a tree, it has become almost impossible to discuss high-level golf without mentioning money. Did you hear what they offered Tiger? How much do you think DJ got? What about Bryson? And then there’s the stuff we actually know: LIV’s $4 million first-place prizes. The $750,000-per-player bonuses for team wins. The PGA Tour’s rebuttal, in the form of an additional $54 million it has injected into eight of its biggest events beginning next season. The $2 billion LIV has reportedly doled out in contracts. That’s more than the GDP of Belize.

It’s dizzying, right? So, for a day or two, let us breathe! Golf for golf’s sake!

And what a glorious day for golf Tuesday was: warm, yes, but also breezy, with the field split between Ridgewood and its underrated neighbor, Arcola Country Club (b. 1909).

Shuttle busses transported spectators between the two properties, though most onlookers seemed to stick to one course or the other, largely because in the early rounds of the Amateur, fans tend to stick to one group or the other. And by fans, we mean parents, siblings, friends and coaches. There aren’t too many others out there, which means if you want to watch elite golfing talent up close — like, you-can-peer-in-their-bags close — this tournament is tough to beat. The next Scottie Scheffler, Rahmbo and Will Z.? There’s a decent chance they’re in this field.

Same goes for the next Brandt Snedeker. If not, would you settle for his big brother? Haymes Snedeker opened with a rocky 83 but managed six better on Tuesday.

Your eclectic pack of co-medalists, at three under, after two challenging days of racecar-fast greens and five-inch rough: Fred Biondi (by way of Brazil); Hugo Towsend (an Irish-born resident of Sweden); Luke Gutschewski (whose father, Scott, is a Korn Ferry Tour winner); and Michael Thorbjornsen (Stanford star and 2018 U.S. Junior Am champ).

Thorbjornsen, who’s playing in his fifth Amateur and earlier this year finished fourth at the PGA Tour’s Travelers Championship, looked primed to be the solo medalist until he fatted a fairway bunker shot on Arcola’s par-4 18th.

Did the resulting double-bogey gnaw at him?

“Kind of just more disappointed in myself for just doubling the last hole, whether it’s for nothing or for the whole tournament to win the U.S. Amateur or win medalist or whatever,” he said. “I just don’t like playing bad golf.”

Bad golf, LOL. Over two rounds off U.S. Open-grade conditions, Thorbjornsen made eight birdies — and that was with what he described as “unacceptable” driving.

It was a head-splitting slog, and the field played like it. Late in the afternoon, an exasperated rules official parked by Ridgewood’s 18th fairway announced that the group coming up the hole was 18 minutes off pace. “And they’re not even on the green yet,” he sniffed.

“What time does it get it dark these days?” he added, clearly worried that the field wouldn’t finish.

They did — well, the regulation holes, anyway. At 7:30 Wednesday morning, the 15 players who are tied at five over will compete in a playoff for 11 available match-play spots. Chaos! The best kind!

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If all parts of your game need to be clicking in stroke play, that’s not always the case in match play, where the only score that matters is yours against your opponent’s. Pars beat bogeys. Bogeys best doubles. And so on.  

Gutschewski is making his Amateur debut but has picked up plenty of match-play wisdom from his father, Scott, who is playing this season on the PGA Tour. In particular, Luke called out his old man’s patience and “even-keeledness,” adding, “You never know if he’s seven under or seven over when he plays. He keeps the same patience and manner all the time. I think in match play that would be really important. No reason to get too up or too down, just kind of stay the course.”

Indeed, with seven matches standing between the winner and the trophy, the course will be almost literally the only place to stay this week.

And the players know it.

As dusk approached Tuesday evening by the Ridgewood clubhouse, the practice green was still buzzing. Circling the putting surface was a small army of stand bags emblazoned with college names from all over the country: Oregon, Baylor, Indiana, Drexel, plus one homer: Seton Hall, which is a just half-hour drive south of Ridgewood.

Just off the green a local caddie counseled a player who had not survived stroke play. Still, the kid had much to look forward to: He was on his way to play at the University of Texas.

“Don’t do anything stupid in Austin,” the looper said. “I’m sure they’ll keep the reins on you.”

The golfer walked away. His future awaited.

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The post This ‘Seinfeld’-themed U.S. Amateur group is real, and it’s spectacular appeared first on Golf.

Seinfeld is widely regarded as a GOAT sitcom, with a nine-season run that produced hundreds of memorable lines and indelible moments that remain beloved by millions.

Among the show’s legion of fans: the USGA.

Look no further than a trio of golfers who the USGA grouped together in the stroke-play portion of the U.S. Amateur at Ridgewood Country Club, in Paramus, N.J., this week: Mark Costanza, Hazen Newman and Campbell Kremer.

Costanza, Newman and Kremer — sound familiar? For the uninitiated, three of the lead characters in Seinfeld were named George Costanza, Newman (no known last name) and Cosmo Kramer.

“If I only had a dollar for every time in my life that somebody asked me if I was related to George,” Costanza, 33, told NorthJersey.com’s Greg Mattura on Monday. “Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

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Costanza — Mark, that is — is a New Jersey native. He finished runner-up at last year’s Mid-Amateur Championship, but on Monday, posted the high score in his group, a three-over 74 that left him in a tie for 111th. (The top 64 players after Tuesday’s second round will advance to match play.)

But Newman and Kremer? They shined.

The pair, both of whom are 21, shot three-under 68s to share the top spot on the leaderboard with three others. Medalist honors are very much in reach. “Giddy-up!” as Kramer — not Kremer — might say.

For those wondering: Yes, this notable grouping was intentional.

“We were sitting there the other day, and it just kind of came together,” U.S. Amateur manager Chris Mills told Mattura. “We like to have a little bit of fun every once in a while with our pairings. A lot of our pairings are based on some performance ties, and stuff like that. But occasionally we like to throw a fun one out there.”

Not everyone appreciates the USGA’s attempt at cheek when it comes to clever groupings. In 2014, Shane Lowry objected to a U.S. Open group in which he played alongside two other, um, large-framed players, Kevin Stadler and Brendan de Jonge.

“Someone’s bright idea!! Put the three big guys together!!” Lowry wrote in the Irish Times. “I think it is unfair on the three of us. It is definitely not drawn out of the hat, that’s for sure. And I just hope we don’t get stick from the galleries. What they did is making a mockery of the three of us.”

The Seinfeld grouping hasn’t faced any such controversy. On the contrary, it’s been well received on social media, and the players themselves seem to be enjoying the attention.

“It was fun having cameras out there, especially that the Golf Channel cameras were out,” Kremer told Mattura on Monday. “And it kind of just gets your blood flowing when the cameras come out, and it worked well for me.”

Costanza, Kremer and Newman will tee it up together once more for the second stroke-play round at 12:15 p.m. ET. at nearby Arcola Country Club.

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The post This pivotal 4-hole stretch at the U.S. Amateur at Ridgewood CC could decide matches appeared first on Golf.

The post This pivotal 4-hole stretch at the U.S. Amateur at Ridgewood CC could decide matches appeared first on Golf.

At this week’s U.S. Amateur, the field will compete on a composite course of Ridgewood CC’s 18 best holes. Here’s a closer look at a four-hole stretch where matches could be won or lost.

The post This pivotal 4-hole stretch at the U.S. Amateur at Ridgewood CC could decide matches appeared first on Golf.