San Francisco – Mason Howell bow his head when his perfim started begging on Wednesday morning. Inval-shouldered he shuffled off the green, where his father, Robert, greeted him with a grin.
“You are inside!” Said his father.
“I’m inside?” Howell replied and looked up in disbelief.
A bogey 5 was not his best. But the wax Good enough to move him in the American amateur in the American amateur at the Olympic club.
“I didn’t think a 5 would do it for me,” said Howell. “But I think everything can happen in a play -off.”
In this case it often does. In the past 25 years, all American amateurs need a sudden death to fill the last slots in the round of 64. This week Deja Vu, although the logjam on the rankings was larger than normal, with 20 players who early in a damp morning, under a coastal fog blanket.
The promotion would start at 7:30 am on the 1st hole of the ocean track, a monstrous 520-yard par 4. But foggy conditions forced a switch to the 9th hole of the Lake race, a shorter par 4 where the sky was brighter, but the stress was just as thick.
“I used to have her,” Torsten Wiedemeyer said, tapping his hand on his shiny Pate while he walked the terrain. His son, Tim Weidemeyer, was part of the skirmish and the only thing a nervous father could do was watch. “I suppose I should be used to it. He has been doing this since he was 12. But I think you never really get used to it.”
The swear of one man is the excitement of another man and a healthy crowd had gathered around the 9th T -shirt to see the boys leave in five groups of four. Among them were some remarkable names. Filip Jakubcik from the Czech Republic was there, the 2025 American junior amateur medal winner. So Walker Cup was hopeful – and Notre Dame Star – Jacob Modleski. Plus the American junior amateur second Joshua Bai from New Zealand.
All were forced in this stressful extra session because they were completed for three in two days after a stroke. Now they just tried to survive.
“Absolutely not something I had experienced before,” said Zachary Miller, an emerging second -year student in Oregon State.
In the first group he just played a itchy up and down from behind the Green at 9 and waited to see what his colleagues would do.
Most made par. The exception was Ryan Downes. The Massachusetts is amateur champion in two of the past three years, Down’s approached his approach to 9 and donated in a Birdie, fist pumps when his ball fell. He had beaten his ticket in match game and erased a sour memory from the day before, when he slid his last hole in the play-off.
“I was pretty angry with myself last night,” Downes said. “I couldn’t really eat. And I didn’t have much appetite. But I think everything happens for a reason because I just made Birdie and now I’m inside.”
Without lingers, he back the hill to the clubhouse for breakfast.
By the time all 20 players had reached the 9th, two – Marek Fleming from Texas and Jack Bigham from England – had bent with Bogeys. The rest continued to the Par-4 10th, among them Mason Howell. At the age of 18, Howell just graduated from high school, but he is on his way to play collegial golf at the University of Georgia and has been around the competitive block, with starts in several USGA championships, including the US Open 2025.
But the golf gods don’t care. Just after he had adjusted to 10, Howell Crestfallen stood on the Green, certainly that his missed putt had cost him a crack in competition game. Little did he know that his 5 was a better than the score posted by Emil Riegger from Florida, who, who played a group in front of him, had hit his ride in a lie so much that several spectators had taken pictures of it.
“Sudden death is really a different mentality,” said Howell. “I never want to root against anyone else, so I don’t look at what is going on for me. If you have so many guys, you think a par will probably be good enough to continue. So that’s what you are trying to make. When I made Bogey, I was preparing to go to another play -off hole.”
Instead, he was on his way to take a bite and a breathing break. At the moment his stress had disappeared. If everything went well in his afternoon match against Tommy Morrison, he would get up early on Thursday, ready to feel the nerves again.
Josh Sens
Golf.com -edor
Josh Sens, a golf, food and travel writer, has been a golf magazine employee since 2004 and now contributes to all Golf platforms. His work is anthologized in the best American Sportswriting. He is also the co-author, with Sammy Hagar, we still have fun so far: the cooking and party manual.
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