For the first time in a decade, the Western Amateur returns to the Exmoor Country Club in Highland Park, Illinois.
The historic amateur competition, now in its 120th edition, kicks off Tuesday with the first round of stroke play. A cut will be made after 36 holes at the bottom of 44 players and ties. Thursday will feature a 36-hole stroke play day, and after 72 holes, the top 16 players will advance to the match, which takes place on Friday and Saturday. On Saturday the semifinals and the 18-hole final will be played.
The portion of the match will be broadcast live on GolfChannel.com. Here is the viewing schedule:
FRIDAY
11 a.m.-2 p.m. ET: Round of 16
4 p.m.-7 p.m. ET: Quarterfinals
SATURDAY
10:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. ET: Semifinals
2 p.m. ET: End
Also, for live scoring, Click here.
Here’s everything you need to know before the 120th Western Amateur starts outside of Chicago:
thor defends
Defending Western Amateur titles used to be more common. Chick Evans once won four in a row, from 1920 to 1923, as part of his record eight Western wins. But since Justin Leonard in 1993, no player has captured consecutive titles in this prestigious championship.
Michael Thorbjornsen hopes to end the recent drought of repeat winners.
The Stanford junior beat Gordon Sargent, 4 and 3, in last year’s West final at Glen View Club, capping a week that included medal honors, a field record 62 and a thrilling semi-final victory over Austin Greaser. from North Carolina, who would go on to finish runner-up in the US Amateur at Oakmont.
Thorbjornsen has been quiet on the amateur circuit this summer, as it marks his first individual amateur appearance since the NCAA Championship. However, he has not been without success, as he qualified for the US Open at The Country Club and then finished fourth solo in the PGA Tour’s Travelers Championship.
He enters this week ranked fifth in the world amateur golf rankings, and will be paired the first two days with Sargent, the Vanderbilt sophomore who last spring won the NCAA singles title as a freshman, and greaser.
Surratt red hot
While Thorbjornsen is the reigning West champion, an 18-year-old who hasn’t yet hit a golf shot in college can be considered the favorite.
Caleb Surratt, the incoming freshman at the University of Tennessee, is enjoying possibly the hottest summer of any amateur golfer, regardless of age. Surratt has shot up to No. 19 in the latest WAGR and also took the lead in the inaugural Cup Elite Amateur Golf Series, a seven-event competition consisting of the best amateur tournaments of the summer and culminating in the Western.
Top finishers at the end of the series will receive numerous waivers, including invitations to the PGA Tour and the Korn Ferry Tour. Surratt’s future varsity teammate Bryce Lewis is Surratt’s closest challenger in this week’s field, ranking third in EAGS points.
Surratt boasts top 4 finishes in four of the six EAGS events to date, including a T-2 in the Pac Coast Amateur. He also reached the round of 16 in the North and South Amateurs and last week reached the finals in the US Junior Amateur, never losing until the 10th hole of his championship fight against Wenyi Ding, who ended up beating Surratt, 3 and two. .
“I’m learning that my game can travel,” Surratt said last Saturday. “I’m trying to make progress every week and I feel like I am. I’ve learned lessons that will make me a better player over time.”
The only question for Surratt is whether or not his legs can handle all this golf. The Western is considered the most grueling amateur competition in the world, with, at least for the finalists, 72 holes of stroke play and four matches in five days, and Surratt is coming off not only a long week at Bandon Dunes, but also a busy summer.
Other potential contenders
In total, there are 14 of the top 25 players in the WAGR playing on Exmoor.
That includes Sargent and Thorbjornsen, the two highest-ranked players in the field, at World Nos. 4 and 5, respectively. They are followed by No. 6 Dylan Menante, who won the Northeast Amateur for the second straight year this summer and also transferred from Pepperdine to North Carolina, and Menante’s new teammate Greaser, who is No. 8.
Another Tar Heel, No. 14 David Ford, won the Southern Amateur this summer, while No. 15 Travis Vick was a low amateur at the US Open at The Country Club.
Twelve of last year’s Sweet Sixteen return, including Florida’s Ricky Castillo, who is looking to make match play for the fourth year in a row.
JR debuts
Though considered one of the biggest in amateur golf, the Western has also earned a reputation for occasionally hosting notable athletes from other sports. Previous camps have included NBA legend Michael Jordan, former MLB slugger Mark McGwire and retired NFL quarterback turned broadcaster Tony Romo.
This year, the tournament committee extended an invitation to North Carolina A&T sophomore JR Smith. Yes, that JR Smith, who won two NBA titles in 16 seasons.
Smith, 35, will be participating in his first official WAGR event. He tees off on Tuesday at 3 p.m. in Exmor.
It’s hardly the standout grouping that Jordan got in 1991, when he played eventual champion Phil Mickelson. who beat Jordan by 32 strokes in the first round.
history lesson
This will be the fourth time that Exmoor will host the Western Amateur after also hosting the championship in 1904, 1952 and 2012.
In 1904, H. Chandler Egan, who had his clubs destroyed a week earlier when the entire south wing of the Exmoor clubhouse burned down, won a medal before defeating Ned Sawyer, 6 and 5, in the final. The win was one of four in Egan’s career, but it was after it that Egan was nicknamed “Wizard of the Links”.
In 1952, Frank Stranahan, five years after tied for second at the Masters, won his fourth and last Western title with a 3-2 victory over E. Harvie Ward. He exhausted a 40-foot eagle putt on the first hole of the 36-hole match before beating Ward, who remains the only player to win the US Amateur, British Amateur, Canadian Amateur and NCAA singles title.
Chris Williams won the most recent Western on Exmoor. Williams, the world’s highest-ranked amateur at the time, took medal honors and then defeated 1-ranked Jordan Russell in the final. Williams’ toughest match, however, was his semi-final, which was 19 holes before Williams eliminated Abraham Ancer. Eventual PGA Tour players Justin Thomas, Mac Hughes, CT Pan, Zac Blair and Brandon Stone made the Sweet Sixteen that year.