U.S. Amateur golf tournament returns to Hazeltine for another entry in a storied past

The golf tournament that changed a young Arnold Palmer’s life and made Tiger Woods a household name is in Minnesota next week.

The U.S. Amateur, 18 years after its last appearance in the state, returns to Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska.

A competition that starts Monday morning with 312 players competing in a massive field on two courses ends with just two players in a 36-hole match on Sunday. It’s a contest of elimination and attrition unlike any other, and since 1895, the oldest championship — once considered a major championship — in American golf, by only a day.

Legendary Bobby Jones has his name engraved on the Havemeyer Trophy, a gold-plated steeple cup. So does Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and three-time champion Woods.

By late Sunday afternoon, another name will join a list that includes such winners as Craig Stadler, Mark O’Meara, Hal Sutton, Phil Mickelson, Justin Leonard, Matt Kuchar, Matthew Fitzpatrick, Bryson DeChambeau, Viktor Hovland and Minnesota’s own John Harris.

“Looking at all the names on it, to put yourself on the same trophy with so many greats who have won it, I think it is the grand prize,” said Kuchar, the 1997 champion after Woods had won three consecutive.

To the last man standing goes the trophy, exemptions to the U.S. Open, the British Open, the next 10 U.S. Amateurs and most likely the next Masters.

“It doesn’t feel like any other tournament,” said 2006 champion Richie Ramsay, the winner the last time the Am came to Hazeltine. “It’s bigger than any other tournament. I remember there was a big blimp and then you go on TV. Stuff like that. And I’m talking this is nearly 20 years ago and everything has grown since then.”

It is played on some of America’s greatest championship courses — Oakmont, Pinehurst, Pebble Beach, Cherry Hills, Riviera, the Olympic Club. Now it’s back to Hazeltine, the site of nine USGA championships as well as two PGA Championships and the Ryder Cup, too.

All of them are toughened in length and gnarly rough to exacting standards. Fairways are the place to be, even for spectators who are allowed to walk behind players. Only tee boxes and greens are roped off.

“That’s what makes it so special — you can feel the fans’ excitement, their energy,” 2023 winner and 20-year-old PGA Tour sensation Nick Dunlap said at June’s U.S. Open. “You can draft off that a little bit. Those last two matches is what makes it really, really special.”

As the field shrinks all week, the galleries grow. A table of 15 people dining out the first night gets smaller until it’s just the player, his caddie and a couple other companions.

“It ends up fairly lonely, unlike any other week,” longtime amateur Trip Kuehne said in 2006. He was runner-up when Woods won his first U.S. Am in 1994.

Hazeltine will play as long as 7,552 yards at par 72, with the rough grown from 4 to 8 inches deep in an unusually wet summer. Chaska Town Course, which will be used the first two days of stroke play, will play at most 6,804 yards, par 70.

“I loved playing in the Am,” said 2023 3M Open champion Lee Hodges, a former Alabama golfer who played in two of them. “It’s so hard. It’s the closest thing amateurs get to playing professional golf, with the way they set the courses up. Monday through Sunday, they’re playing a lot of golf.”

Hodges didn’t get further than match play’s first day in 2016 after he finished fifth in stroke play’s two days. He lost out in the round of 64 at Riviera in Los Angeles in 2017.

A relatively unknown University of Florida freshman named Billy Horschel shot a USGA-championship record 11-under-par 60 in Monday stroke play at Chaska Town Course in 2006. He shot a 78 the next day at Hazeltine National.

“I remember pretty much every shot,” he said of that 60.

Horschel finished low medalist in stroke play and lost out in the match-play quarterfinals when his opponent, Ryan Yip, chipped in. Horschel was a modestly recruited junior golfer who had a breakthrough All-America freshman season followed by the headline-making performance at the Am, even if he didn’t play past Friday.

“That was a special week,” Horschel said. “I had my dad caddying for me, which was awesome. I had a great week and winning low medalist, it just built that confidence and assured me I can play at the highest level and I’ve got the game as long as I continue to get better.”

Horschel, 37, now is an eight-time PGA Tour winner, including a FedEx Cup champ, who tied for runner-up at last month’s British Open. There’s still a photo living on the internet of a 19-year-old Horschel holding up a ball with the number 60 written in marker on it.

The ball is on display today at the USGA Golf House museum in Pinehurst, N.C., site of this year’s U.S. Open.

“I probably should have gone over there and looked at it,” Horschel said. “I remember the picture. I had an orange shirt on, the collar’s popped and I had pretty much a shaved head. Yeah, I was a completely different kid back then.”

That year was also notable for another reason: Ramsay was the first Brit to win the Amateur title in almost 100 years when he beat John Kelly 4-and-2. Ramsay, now 41, has won four times as a pro on the European Tour.

The U.S. Amateur is a place of transformation, just as it was when Arnie Palmer arrived at the 1954 Am in Detroit as a 24-year-old paint and tapping-compound salesman based in Cleveland. The man who would be king left with a performance that changed his life, the game, even sports itself. He met his future wife, got married and joined the PGA Tour that same summer. Palmer wrote a book later in life about that one game-changing week.

The title: “The Turning Point.”

“It set up my future, the rest of my life,” Palmer told the Star Tribune in 2006. “How important is that? Pretty damn important.”

In 2004, Palmer invited Kuchar to a 50th-anniversary “Turning Point” celebration in Detroit. Kuchar had been a “good junior player and collegiate player, nothing great,” who had finished his freshman year at Georgia Tech. Seven days at Cog Hill outside Chicago transformed his life, too.

“It was a turning point in my career, for sure,” Kuchar said. “The doors it opened for me and the things it exposed me to — playing the Masters, the U.S. Open, the British Open — meant everything.”

University of Kansas senior Gunnar Broin, who played at Minnetonka High School, will be in his third U.S. Amateur, all by the age of 22, at a Hazeltine National course where he caddied the last four years. Broin knows the terrain and trouble as well as anyone.

“It’s a lot of mental strength and resilience and just sheer willpower,” Broin said. “It’s a grind of a week and one of the biggest tests in all of golf. And it’s Hazeltine. Enough said.”

What: The 124th U.S. Amateur Championship

Format: A massive field of 312 players will play 18 holes of stroke play on both Monday and Tuesday, one round on each Hazeltine National Golf Club and Chaska Town Course. The field will be cut to 64 for 18-hole match play starting Wednesday. Sunday’s play will be one 36-hole match between the final two surviving players. Hazeltine National can play 7,599 yards at par 72 and Chaska at 6,804 yards at par 70.

TV: Coverage on Peacock 4-5 p.m. and Golf Channel 5-7 p.m. on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Saturday’s semifinals at 2-5 p.m. on Golf Channel and Sunday’s championship match is 1-4 p.m. on Golf Channel.

The courses: Hazeltine National was founded in 1962 to hold major national championships. This is the ninth USGA Championship held there. This will be the 37th USGA event played in Minnesota. Interlachen Country Club in Edina and the Minikahda Club in Minneapolis are the other two venues that have done so. City-owned Chaska Town Course held stroke play matches Monday and Tuesday when the U.S. Amateur came to Minnesota in 2006.

Tickets: Daily tickets at Hazeltine are $30. Chaska Town Course qualifying rounds are free to spectators.

2023 Championship: Alabama sophomore and 19-year-old Nick Dunlap beat Ohio State’s Neal Shipley 4-and-3 in the 36-hole final at Cherry Hills C.C. near Denver. Dunlap and Tiger Woods are the only players in USGA history to win a U.S. Junior Amateur and U.S. Amateur.

The 2006 U.S. Amateur: The last time the championship came to Hazeltine National Gold Club, Richie Ramsay became the first Scot to win since Findlay S. Douglas in 1898 by beating Missouri’s John Kelly 4-and-2 in the Sunday 36-hole final.

Winning Minnesota: Two state residents have won it all — St. Paul stockbroker Jimmy Johnston won in 1929 at Pebble Beach and Edina’s John Harris won in 1993 in Houston. His 14-year-old son caddied for him. “One of the great moments in my golf career,” he said. “To win the tournament was very humbling. That was a special bonding for the two of us. … I can tell you it changed my life.”

Did you know? Shorewood and Kansas University senior Gunnar Broin caddied at Hazeltine National the last four years. He also has played Chaska Town Course often. This is his third U.S. Amateur; he hasn’t yet advanced past Wednesday’s first-round of match play.