By Ryan Herrington
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif.—You’ll have to forgive the amateurs who’ll be competing at Pebble Beach if they’re feeling a little déjà vu this week. While only two have played in a U.S. Open previously (mid-amateurs Stewart Hagestad and Matt Parziale), all but one of the 15 who’ll tee it up with a little “a” next to their name on Thursday have played the historic links on the Monterey Peninsula under championship conditions.

And they did it only 10 months ago.

Pebble Beach is the rare course that is hosting a U.S. Open the summer immediately after holding the U.S. Amateur (the last time that happened was in 1999-2000, coincidentally also at Pebble Beach). Except for recent Wake Forest grad Cameron Young, every amateur in this week’s U.S. Open field will enjoy the benefit of that oddity, having played here just last August.

How big a deal is that really? Well, while the rough is thicker and pinched in more than at the Amateur, the firm fairways are much like what they encountered then and the greens might actually be a little softer, at least so far early this week. In other words, those who played last August have a pretty good idea for what lies ahead.

“Obviously the atmosphere and the tournament is different,” said Viktor Hovland, who was the last man standing at the U.S. Amateur, defeating Devon Bling, 6 and 5. “But it’s still the same course and you still have somewhat of the same lines off of the tees. The greens still break the same ways.”

That’s good news for much of this group when you consider six of the 14 from the U.S. Amateur advanced to match play. That suggests that many of the field found at least some success on Pebble’s idyllic but sometimes confounding course, a confidence booster for sure.

This is the seventh straight year at least 10 amateurs are competing in the U.S. Open and the 12th time in 13 years. Meanwhile, an amateur has made the cut in the Open every year since 2007. Given the calibre of this year’s group, there’s no reason to believe that streak comes to an end this week. The real question is how many will be playing all four rounds.

Here is our breakdown of the players and their chances of making it to the weekend and vying for low-amateur honours. To manage the large group, we’ve got them in categories of confidence, 5 being my best bets to make the cut, down to 1 being the least likely (players ranked in order of even more confidence inside the confidence categories.)

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Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images
Viktor Hovland and Rory McIlroy talk during a practice round prior to the 2019 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach.

Confidence Level 5
Viktor Hovland, 21, Norway
Stewart Hagestad, 28, Newport Beach, Calif.
Jovan Rebula, 21, South Africa

Hovland obviously has good memories from Pebble after winning the Havemeyer Trophy last August. He turns pro next week, making his debut at the Travelers Championship. That transition can be tricky at times, and might mean he’s not fully concentrating on his game given potential outside distractions. But Hovland, who finished T-32 at Augusta in April, has the chance to become the first player to win low-amateur honours in both the Masters and U.S. Open in a single year since Matt Kuchar in 1998. It’s an extra bit of incentive that might be the difference maker. “I’m thinking about the U.S. Open right now,” Hovland insists, “and when I get to Connecticut next week, I’ll be, OK, am I even in the U.S., and then we’ll figure that stuff out.” … Hagestad has an incentive, too. This is his third straight Open appearance, the first amateur to get in three years in a row since the 1980s. But he has yet to make a cut in his two previous attempts after famously ending a nearly 30-year streak of U.S. Mid-Amateur champs missing the cut at the Masters in 2017. … Rebula, the reigning British Amateur champion, also has major-championship experience, having played in last summer’s Open Championship at Carnoustie and the Masters in April, but missing the cut in both. Even so, Ernie Els’ nephew, who also won the SEC individual champion at Auburn in April, has the game get to the weekend.

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Confidence Level 4
Cameron Young, 22, Scarsborough, N.Y
Matt Parziale, 32, Brockton, Mass.
Chun-An (Kevin) Yu, 20, Taiwan

The most well-known name of this bunch is Parziale, who won the 2017 U.S. Mid-Amateur and took a leave of absence as a firefighter in Massachusetts to enjoy the spoils of victory. He played in the 2018 Masters and then shared low-amateur honours at the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills. After his dream summer ended—which including getting married before playing the U.S. Amateur at Pebble—so did his days as a firefighter as Parizale returned home to start a new career in the insurance business. It would appear the new job has given him time to sneak in a little more golf—he reached the quarterfinals of the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball in May before advancing through U.S. Open Sectional Qualifying. … Those who live in the New York Metropolitan area have likely heard of Young, who won the New York State Open as an amateur in 2017, while also claiming three college titles as a senior this past season at Wake. Young’s father, David, is the head professional at Sleepy Hollow Country Club. … The most talented of this threesome, however, might be Yu, who just earned first-team All-American honours at Arizona State after finishing third at the NCAA Championship.

Streeter Lecka/Getty Images
Matt Parziale celebrates winning a share of low-amateur honours at the 2018 U.S. Open.

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Confidence Level 3
Devon Bling, 19, Ridgecrest, Calif.
Austin Eckroat, 20, Edmond, Okla.
Daniel Hillier, 20, New Zealand
Kevin O’Connell, 30, Jacksonville, Fla.

Bling, a rising junior at UCLA, made the cut in the Masters, finishing 55th. That and memories of his run to the finals at the U.S. Amateur at Pebble last August have to make him optimistic about his chances this week. … Eckroat, who just finished his sophomore year at Oklahoma State, is playing in his first pro tournament. He might not get the headlines that teammate Hovland or NCAA player of the year Matthew Wolff, but he did have a win and six top-10 finishes in college this past season. … If you’re looking for a sneaky pick among the amateurs, Hillier might be your man. He birdied four of his final six holes during sectional qualifying in England to earn his way to Pebble. And at the U.S. Amateur last year, shared medalist honours. … O’Connell is the reigning U.S. Mid-Amateur champion who has a chance at playing on the U.S. Walker Cup team this September with a good showing this week.

Kai Schwoerer/Getty Images
Daniel Hillier looks on during day one of the 2019 New Zealand Open.

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Confidence Level 2
Chandler Eaton, 21, Alpharetta, Ga.
Michael Thorbjornsen, 17, Wellesley, Mass.
Brandon Wu, 22, Danville, Calif.

Eaton will be a senior at Duke in the fall and was an All-ACC selection this past season after having six top-10 finishes along with a T-15 at NCAAs. Both of his parents played college golf. Our only reservation here is that this is his first start in a pro event, so nerves might come into play. … Same for Thorbjornsen, won the U.S. Junior title at Baltusrol last summer when he defeated good friend and junior phenom Akshay Bhatia in the final. He’ll be a senior in high school this fall and has made a verbal commitment to play at Stanford in college. … Given this, he might want to connect with Wu, who just wrapped up his college career with the Cardinal last month by helping the team claim the NCAA title.

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Confidence Level 1
Noah Norton, 20, Chico, Calif.
Spencer Tibbits, 20, Vancouver, Wash.

Norton has been a starter at Georgia Tech for all but one event during his first two seasons with the Yellow Jackets, and had a 70.73 stroke average in 2018-’19. He lives a few hundred miles away from Pebble, and says that he and his family came to watch the U.S. Open when it was played here in 2010. Not long after he made it a goal to try to qualify for the Open the next time it came to Pebble. … Tibbits also is two years into his college career, having been an honourable mention All-Pac 12 selection at Oregon State this past season.

The post U.S. Open 2019: Everything you need to know about the 15 amateurs playing at Pebble Beach appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By Ryan Herrington
There was really just one thing lacking about the inaugural Celebration of Champions: the golf itself. The winning two-player teams of Taylor Totland/Frankie Capan and Judith Kyrinis/Matt Parziale tied with a two-over 17 score. Blame it on Shinnecock Hills, where the wind began to howl on Tuesday afternoon and the course showed its brutish side.

Then again, for USGA officials it was never really about the competition. It was about giving the association’s winners from the previous calendar year a unique event to honour their accomplishments.

And from that standpoint, the first edition of the four-hole alternate-shot team event was a genuine success.

“It surpassed my wildest dreams,” said Kyrinis, the reigning U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur champion. “Getting to practice on the range and being around the players [in the U.S. Open]. It was one of a lifetime experience.”

“It was a blast,” Parziale said. “To have an event like this, it’s pretty special.”

Joining the winning teams were the pairings of Alice Chen (Women’s Amateur Four-Ball) and Kenny Perry (Senior Open), Noah Goodwin (Junior Amateur) and Sean Knapp (Senior Amateur), Sophia Schubert (Women’s Amateur) and Ben Wong (Men’s Amateur Four-Ball), and Kelsey Chugg (Women’s Mid-Amateur) and Doc Redman (men’s Amateur).

Perry, Goodwin and Parziale are all playing in the Open. The others jumped at the chance to come to the event.

“It was so much fun,” Chen said. “A few nerves out there, but just to play in front of folks like this was a treat.”

Perry, the U.S. Senior Open champion, and Chen, a Women’s Four-Ball winner, got into the team spirit. (Copyright USGA/Darren Carroll)

Redman could have been a U.S. Open participant this week as well, thanks to his U.S. Amateur triumph, but he decided to forgo the exemption to get a jump on his professional career. While no longer having a Thursday tee time, he didn’t want to give up his Tuesday one.

Capan, who along with Wong won the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball, had been excited to get a look at Shinnecock Hills ever since he found out about the event in early April. The 18-year-old who’ll play at Alabama in the fall got into town on Monday and hung out with Wong and Goodwin the previous evening before getting to the course on Tuesday.

“It was cool seeing the test out here,” Capan said. “It’s really just a neat honour. And I’m excited to watch a little of the Open, too. It’s such an incredible environment.”

Adding to the pomp and circumstance of the event was the presence of Jack Nicklaus, an eight-time USGA champion, greeting players off the tee, along with reigning U.S. Open winner Brooks Koepka. And when play ended, the participants gathered once more for a reception in the Shinnecock Hills clubhouse.

“I’ve never played in a pro event my whole life,” said Kyrinis, who’ll officially play in her first at next month’s inaugural U.S. Senior Women’s Open at Chicago Golf Club. “So I wasn’t really sure what to expect. This has been a really good experience to try and manage how I’m going to feel playing in that event.”

Said Parziale: “It’s something that I think future USGA champions are going to look forward to.”

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By Joel Beall
To the untrained eye, Matt Parziale looks lost. He is standing outside the player’s locker room at Shinnecock Hills, nestled between the driving range and practice green, taking his hat off to wipe his brow as he gazes around for seemingly no one in particular. He’s wearing nice attire, but—compared to the tailored ensembles flaunted by most in professional golf—he bares closer resemblance to a guy you play with Saturday morning rather than a guy you see at events like this.

Which makes sense. Parziale is the guy you play with on Saturday morning.

Parziale’s story—a former mini-tour player turned firefighter—appeared on the radar following his victory at the Mid-Amateur last fall. His tale stood out in a sport filled with sameness, transforming the 31-year-old into a folk hero by the time he reached Augusta National. And—because the USGA awarded the Mid-Am champ a spot in the U.S. Open field for the first time in its history—Parziale gets another cup of coffee in the bigs this week.

But after Shinnecock, Parziale likely will disappear from the spotlight. His Mid-Am win bestows an invitation to the U.S. Amateur in August, yet—save for diehards—it’s not a tournament that resonates with the general public. Parziale knows his 15 minutes of golf fame is probably coming to a close, a return to Ladder Company 1 in Brockton, Mass. imminent.

However, Parziale is not treating this Southampton foray like Cinderella at the ball, the clock about to strike midnight. He understands why people might think that, especially after a disappointing showing at the Masters. But he’s not here as some ceremonial, “Rudy”-like figure. There’s work to be done.

“I’m always ready to play competitive golf,” Parziale said. “I love doing this. I really look forward to getting ready for events. I played some events, local events at home in the New England area, and I played Fishers Island Invitational over this past weekend.

“Going into this week, I know it will be golf from the start. I don’t have to worry about the first tee shot or when it’s going to turn into—you get over all the nerves.”

To be fair, it’s not that Parziale is done competing, but he knows this is a unique platform. Stewart Hagestad, last year’s Mid-Am champ, was a media sensation for shunning professional aspirations despite becoming the first Mid-Am to make the cut at the Masters. A year later, he’s at Shinnecock, earning his spot via sectional qualifying. Yet the camera crews and crowd curiosity are non-existent, at least compared to last summer at Erin Hills. Hagestad is a non-entity to the Long Island crowd. The amateur focus is a fleeting attention.

Parziale also acknowledged the reality that awaits. He’s been on leave from his department since November, a sabbatical that not only allowed him to prepare for these events but saved his health. The latter that’s a very harsh truth for his profession.

“Guys always have back injuries,” Parziale said. “My dad just had a rotator cuff, he tore that. Pretty much anything can happen. You walk into a house, it’s pitch black. So just anything goes, really.” An existence Parziale knows all too well, suffering a torn meniscus during a training drill. He was sidelined for four months and missed the start of his job.

It explains why, though competition is paramount this week, Parziale is appreciative of the experience. And not just for the individual bounties, like the Fishers Island invite or playing with Tiger Woods at Augusta. Parziale has come to realize his drive has become bigger than him.

“The people from back home that went to the Masters that said they would never have gone if they weren’t coming to watch me,” Parziale revealed. “And when I got home and heard the stories how it was the best week of their life, that’s really cool to hear.”

John Tlumacki/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

Parziale said he’s expecting the Brockton faithful to be out en mass this week. (Rowdy Boston fans in New York, what could go wrong?) And the party doesn’t end after Shinnecock. Mentioned above, there’s still the Amateur at Pebble Beach, and his wedding will soon follow. The two originally conflicted until Matt’s fiancee agreed to move the nuptials.

“I wouldn’t say she agreed,” Parziale laughed. “It was more of—no.”

Speaking of decisions, this year has forced Parziale to confront one of his own. Once upon a time, he had given up this dream, trading in his sticks for a helmet. Had this year’s success, invitations to the Masters and now his country’s Open, the increased attention, made him rethink his call?

“Every decision I make, I don’t have any regrets,” Parziale said. “I just do what I think is right. I could be wrong. No, I’m still able to play golf and compete, and I enjoy that, and I have a career that I’m able to do, family. I didn’t want to miss out on life. I could be 35 years old and never make it happen. Then where do you start?”

Back at the locker room, Parziale put his cap back on and begins to start knocking 30 yard-chips to tap-in range. When he takes some full hacks at the range, his swing is as solid as anybody’s.

“I’m glad about the decisions I made and fortunate enough to be able to play and be able to have this be my second major,” Parziale said. “I still have a lot to play for.”

Matt Parziale isn’t lost. He knows exactly where he is.

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Augusta National is urbane, refined, haughty. Brockton is hardy, its chin sturdy, a town capable of taking a punch, but also of throwing one. Augusta is Bobby Jones, gentleman lawyer. Brockton is Rocky Marciano, its favourite son, 43 KOs on a perfect 49-bout boxing ledger.

So what does Augusta National have to do with Brockton? Nothing, if the club had its druthers, the cynic might say. Cynicism aside, it is a tribute to both Augusta National and the USGA that a Masters invitation landed in a Brockton mailbox on Christmas Eve.

“USPS=Santa Clause [sic],” Matt Parziale tweeted, along with a photo of the Masters invitation. “The best Christmas present ever.”

USPS = Santa Clause. The Best Christmas Present. #TheMasters #christmas #christmaseve #teddy pic.twitter.com/kromXhOCpt

— Matt Parziale (@Matt_Parziale) December 24, 2017

Parziale, 31, is a bona fide blue-collar worker, a firefighter with Ladder Company 1 of the Brockton Fire Department, the seventh busiest ladder in the country. His Masters invitation was extended by virtue of his having won the U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship on the Capital City Club’s Crabapple Course in Atlanta last October.

“It is an amazing story,” his instructor, Shawn Hester, said. “It’s great to see that in this day and age a regular working person can have an opportunity through what the USGA has created with the Mid-Amateur to play in the Masters and U.S. Open [Parziale qualified for that, as well]. It really gives you a sense that these tournaments, they’re still accessible to a regular person. That’s a great thing about our game.”

This assumes degrees of regular, we submit. As an unidentified wise man once said, “all men are created equal, then a few become firemen.”

“Great firefighter,” Brockton Deputy Fire Chief Charles Davis said of Parziale. “First in and last out, as we call it here in the fire department. He’s a young, hard-working, aggressive firefighter.”

This does not make him unique among firefighters, a heroic band by definition. But he will stand out at Augusta National, maybe the most compelling U.S. Mid-Amateur champion ever to compete in the Masters. For one who is trained to run toward and often into burning buildings, the tee shot at Augusta’s par-3 12th hole and its swirling winds won’t be the most daunting task he’ll face all year.

Competitive golf and firefighting don’t neatly align and can be a greater challenge than club selection at the 12th. Last summer, Parziale shot a 66 at The Country Club in Brookline in the second round of the 50th Francis Ouimet Memorial Tournament. He then reported for an overnight shift with the fire department, got home around 8 a.m. and was ready for his 11:10 a.m. tee time. He shot 71 and won by one.

“Matt’s a better person than he is a golfer, and he is the best mid-am golfer in the country.” — Greg Chalas

“I wouldn’t say that I’m used to it, but you can’t really think about it because you are competing and in the moment,” Parziale told the Massachusetts Golf Association. “It’s part of my life, so if I complain about that I have bigger issues.”

Nearly three months later, Parziale won the U.S. Mid-Amateur in Atlanta, flew home, arriving at 2 a.m., and reported to work the following morning at 7 with no hope that the fire alarm would acquiesce to his weariness and go un-rung for a couple of hours.

“I wish that was the case,” Parziale said. “We’re never that lucky.”

Brockton’s Ladder 1 had 4,880 runs in 2016, according to Firehouse Magazine’s annual survey (its 2017 survey is not yet complete), an average of nearly 13½ runs a day. Parziale was aware of the challenges, at any rate; his father, Vic, spent 32 years with the Brockton FD before his retirement last year.

Firefighter was not Parziale’s first career choice, incidentally, and there was no second choice. Professional golf was it. Having a Plan B suggested a negative connotation. “It doesn’t seem like you’re all in,” he said. “I was all in.”

Blame it on Tiger, who set the hook, as he had done for so many kids, and the game reeled him in after that. Parziale was 10 when his father and grandfather took him and a shag bag of balls to the Brockton Fairgrounds and allowed him to flail away. Parziale did so relentlessly and became good enough to play college golf, though at the NAIA level. He competed from 2006-2009 at Southeastern University in Lakeland, Fla., a school that might be accused of a subliminal nudge toward the firehouse. Southeastern’s nickname is Fire.

The years between college and career, 2009 through 2012, were spent on mini-tours and in Monday qualifiers. “I had a blast,” he said. “It was great. I love to compete at the highest level possible. It just wasn’t fitting the lifestyle I was hoping for. You have no money.”

So he returned to Brockton and reclaimed his amateur standing, while deciding to follow his father’s lead. He joined the fire department in 2014. “I watched him my whole life love his career,” Parziale told the USGA. “I knew a bunch of the guys even before I got on. I always enjoyed being around them. The fact that I was able to be one of those guys is a dream come true.”

Boston Globe
Parziale has learned to juggle golf with working for Ladder 1, sneaking in tournaments between 24-hour shifts.

The job allows him to contribute to society and his hometown while still providing ample time to keep his golf game honed and to compete at the elite amateur level. Typically, he works a 24-hour shift, has two days off, followed by another 24-hour shift and four days off.

“Sitting in a cubicle five days a week, Matt made it a point to not do that,” Greg Chalas, Parziale’s best friend and best man for his impending wedding, said. “He wanted to do something great for the community. But part of it was that he has set his life up to be able to play tournaments.”

Last summer alone, Parziale won the Massachusetts Amateur, the Ouimet Tournament (for the third time) and the Massachusetts Four-Ball. He also is a past champion of the New England Amateur.

As for the wedding, it was scheduled for Aug. 18, 2018, the day the semifinal matches of the U.S. Amateur Championship at Pebble Beach will be played. Parziale’s Mid-Amateur victory also gives him an exemption into the U.S. Amateur.

“Try telling a woman to change her wedding date,” Parziale told the Boston Globe a few days after his Mid-Amateur win.

Fortunately, he has an understanding fiancé, Alison Hubbard, a dentist in Brockton, who agreed to move the date up a couple of weeks. “We found a date that is going to work for everyone,” Parziale said. “It’s going to be an exciting August.”

The wedding will be the capstone to a year that already resembles a golfer’s winning lottery ticket: The Masters at Augusta National, the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills and the Amateur at Pebble Beach.

“I’m looking forward to being able to compete,” he said. “I’ve always wanted to play golf at the highest level possible, and now I have a chance to do it a few times, which is awesome.”

It will be a family affair, too. His father caddied for him at the Mid-Amateur and will caddie for him at Augusta, Shinnecock and Pebble Beach. “He went down for a practice round [at Augusta National late last year],” Vic said, “and I told him, ‘If you want to get a club caddie who knows greens and stuff …’ and he said no.”

Matt also will have the firehouse providing moral support, belatedly. “There are probably 210 firefighters in Brockton,” Vic said, “and maybe 15 that play golf, and only 10 that are serious about it. They didn’t really see what was happening to start.”

Copyright USGA/Chris Keane
Parziale’s U.S. Mid-Am win earned him spots in the Masters, U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills and U.S. Amateur at Pebble Beach.

They do now, and given Parziale’s popularity among them, they’ll be a formidable rooting section. “Phenomenal young man,” Davis said. “Salt of the earth guy. He’s worked hard to get where he is. The biggest thing is all the guys support what he’s doing.”

Chalas, who lives in Indiana now and works for Easton Vance, an investment management firm, has played golf with Parziale since they were teens, and went with him to Augusta for a practice round in November and another this month. He has first-hand knowledge of Parziale’s skill on a golf course. Yet he rates it secondary to his character.

“Matt’s a better person than he is a golfer, and he is the best mid-am golfer in the country,” Chalas said. “The story for me is that he’s a blue-collar, rock-solid guy. Ask anybody about his personality and it’s never that he’s a great golfer. It’s that he’s a great dude. His personality attracts him to people. He just happens to be a great golfer, too.”

Good enough to own a USGA championship trophy. But amateur golf is a niche within a niche sport, so he won’t likely turn a twosome, Marciano and another Brockton boxing champion, Marvin Hagler, into a threesome that gave Brockton its identity, the City of Champions. But he ought to.

He isn’t a world champion, but he is a national champion with a Masters invitation and a tough blue-collar job more dangerous than trading blows with Joe Louis or Thomas Hearns. More important, too.

The post Meet Matt Parziale, the firefighter who will play in the Masters appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.

By John Strege

The hardscrabble Massachusetts town of Brockton is called the City of Champions in homage to favorite sons Rocky Marciano and Marvin Hagler. Now it has another champion, Matt Parziale, who delivered his own kind of knockout.

Parziale, 30, a firefighter with the Brockton Fire Department, won the U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship on Friday, beating Josh Nichols, 8 and 6, in the 36-hole final on the Capital City Club’s Crabapple Course in Atlanta. The victory earned him an invitation to play in the Masters next April and an exemption into the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills next June.

“Yeah, it’s a lot to think about right now,” he said. “Just really trying to enjoy the moment. Very excited for the upcoming year.”

Parziale, who plays to a handicap index of plus-3.8 out of Thorny Lea Golf Club in Brockton, began his dominating performance on the fifth hole of the morning 18. He made the first of three straight birdies there en route to opening a 6-up lead through 18 holes. He birdied eight of the first 18 holes.

“I had some good numbers, was able to stay aggressive and had the putter going and made some nice putts, and was fortunate to have a pretty decent lead going into the afternoon,” he said. “I was locked in with the numbers. I knew exactly how far I was hitting them. I had the speed of the greens down. It was a special day.”

He won two of the first three holes on the second 18 to go 8 up before Nichols halted his momentum, too late in the match to alter the outcome. Nichols, 26, a wedding caterer from Kernersville, N.C., had gone 14 straight holes without winning won until he won the 24th hole of the match.

“Yeah, not much I could have done,” Nichols said. “All I can play is my own game. Just trying to make something happen. I didn’t have anything compared to what he did. I didn’t play that bad, but in his light, it was just—looked like I played terrible. He played amazing. He made so any putts. He hit so many shots close.”

The Masters and U.S. Open starts are rewards that he likely could not have envisioned when he failed in three attempts at PGA Tour qualifying. Parziale was re-instated as an amateur in 2013.

Stewart Hagestad, the 2017 champion who bowed out in the first round, was among those congratulating Parziale, with this Tweet:

Couldn't be happier for Matt Parziale winning the @USGA Mid-Am! A great player, but an even better guy! Enjoy the moment Matt.. You will be fantastic champion. You're in for a fun year ahead! #GreatMoments

— Stewart Hagestad (@s_hagestad) October 13, 2017

Nichols, who plays to a plus-4.6 handicap index at High Point (N.C.) Country Club, earned an exemption into the U.S. Amateur next year, as well as an exemption into sectional qualifying for the U.S. Open.

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