Stewart Hagestad Archives - Golf Digest Middle East

Stewart Hagestad, who assures you he’s ‘old’, can’t stop beating the young kids at US Amateur

Matt Smith — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 08:01:49 +0000

By Christopher Powers
At 31, Stewart Hagestad is at least 19 years away from actually being considered “old” (apologies to those who have hit or crossed the half-century mark). But here at the US Amateur, which is a who’s who of college studs and a 15-year-old stud who made the quarter-finals, Hagestad might as well be the old man yelling at everyone to get off his lawn.

Over the first four days at Ridgewood Country Club, however, Hagestad is playing like a teenager who doesn’t know what he doesn’t know, which couldn’t be further from the truth. He’s quickly become one of the more decorated amateurs in recent memory, winning the 2016 and 2021 US Mid-Amateurs, and playing in two Masters and four US Opens. He’s been here before. He knows the deal.

Of course, that doesn’t make it any easier. Experience only goes so far in this game. After tying for 21st in the stroke-play portion of the event on Tuesday, Hagestad drew 24-year-old Sam Bairstow in the Round of 64, who is only the No. 7-ranked amateur in the world and the highest-ranked amateur from England. All Hagestad did on Wednesday was beat Bairstow, 3&1, closing him out with back-to-back birdies at the 16th and 17th holes. On Thursday morning, Hagestad dusted Benjamin James, a top-ranked junior who just graduated from high school, 6&4.

Next up was Hayden Hopewell, a 20-year-old Australian who sits at 41st in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. He was Hagestad’s toughest test, refusing to go away with a late birdie that extended the match to the 17th hole. But after Hopewell found the rough off the tee and then failed to hack it out back into the fairway, Hagestad laced a long iron from 240 yards out in the fairway and found the par-5 green in two. It was curtains, Hagestad securing his second trip to the US Amateur quarter-finals in the last three years.

“Great. Really great,” said Hagestad when asked how he was feeling afterward. “I’m a little tired. But yeah, feels great. Excited to be playing golf tomorrow.”

His next opponent is Sam Bennett, the No. 3 ranked amateur on the planet who could have earned a Korn Ferry Tour card via the PGA Tour University rankings had he not decided to go back to Texas A&M this autumn. Like Hagestad, Bennett has had quite the run himself, beating three of the top 27 amateurs in the WAGR en route to the quarters. Hagestad was quick to point out his path has been just as unrelenting.

“I’ve had a tough draw. I played the No. 1 kid in Great Britain and Ireland, then I played the No. 1 junior in the country. I thought we were going to get Sargent. Hayden was great. Yeah, it’s all about Sam,” Hagestad said, tongue-in-cheek. “I don’t want to hear it. I’m 31. I’m old.

“None of them are [easy],” he said. “They’re all good. All the kids are good.”

Hagestad is pretty good, too, and one could argue that at 31, he’s actually in his golfing prime. Still, it’s impressive to see him run through the young guns in the fashion he has. When asked what it says about himself and his game that he’s been able to hang with the pups, he gave a fascinating answer.

“The dumb answer here is nothing,” he said. “But for the sake of answering the question in a more polite way, I feel very lucky and fortunate to have qualified for a handful of USGA events, then obviously to have been exempt and to have played a bunch of USGA events. I’m not saying I’m an expert by any stretch of the imagination. You’re certainly continually surprised by how good the college players, juniors, amateurs are. Look at Andrew [Von Lossow] from yesterday; he took down Mike [Thorbjornsen], and, until yesterday, until the playoff, outside of Spokane, Washington, his close friends, I hadn’t heard of him, but apparently he was an Old Hickory champion. The point is there’s great players everywhere.

“I think I know how to prepare a little bit better. I kind of know what to expect a little bit better. I know what it feels like to be in those pressure situations. But then I also think part of being older is obviously, if I play great this week, that would be amazing. That would be an incredible accomplishment. To even get to the quarters is a pretty impressive accomplishment.

“But for lack of a better term, I don’t think my life changes that much. I’ve played in the Masters. I’ve played in the US Open. Of course I would like to play it again. It would be an amazing, amazing accomplishment, and I’d be blown away. But you’ve got to beat one kid tomorrow and we’ve got to beat a kid on Saturday if we get that far and so on. I think it’s an honour to have made it this far and to keep playing, but I don’t think we at this point in the game need to read much more into it than that. There’s a lot there to try to put something that my mom would be proud of for saying.”

Considering what he’s accomplished not only in golf but in life, not to mention his other impressive qualities, Hagestad’s mother has more than enough to be proud of.

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US Open 2022: 15 interesting facts about the 15 amateurs competing at The Country Club

Golf Digest Middle East — Thu, 16 Jun 2022 10:40:25 +0000

Stewart Hagestad

By Ryan Herrington
Francis Ouimet can give Bobby Jones a run for his money as the most notable amateur ever to win a US Open. The 20-year-old did so in grand fashion, winning the title in 1913 in a historic playoff upset of British greats Harry Vardon and Ted Ray. He did it on the course across the street from his house, The Country Club. Oh, and he put the sport on the map in the US.

Suffice it to say, asking an amateur to repeat Ouimet’s feat 109 years later is a bit much. (No amateur has won a US Open since Johnny Goodman in 1933.) But expecting one (or more) of the 15 guys playing for pride rather than pay this week to step up and show well is very realistic. Last year was the first time since 2007 that no amateur made the cut in the Open. And in the last 24 years, somebody has been around on Sunday to receive the low amateur medal 21 times.

So who is the most likely to succeed from the Class of 2022? Here is our breakdown of the amateurs competing in the USGA’s signature men’s event with their chances of making it to the weekend and vying for low-amateur honors. To sort and manage the group, we’ve created categories of confidence, 3 signifying being most confident to make the cut, down to 1.

Keita Nakajima. Andrew Redington

Confidence Level 3

Sam Bennett, 22, Madisonville, Texas
Keita Nakajima, 21, Japan
Michael Thorbjornsen, 20, Wellesley, Massachusetts
Travis Vick, 22, Hunters Creek Village, Texas
William Mouw, 21, Chino, California

Bennett comes in on a nine-month roll, having earned first-team All-American honours at Texas A&M with a 69.97 scoring average. He also had a top-10 at NCAAs earlier this month after a closing-round 64.

Just as he did at the Masters in April, Nakajima, the reigning Asia-Pacific Amateur champion (he won at Dubai Creek), arrives at the US Open as the No. 1-ranked amateur in the world by a large margin. But expectations are more tempered compared to at Augusta National. That should work to his benefit as he has more experience in professional events than any other amateur in the field, with another top-10 finish in May on the Japan Tour.

We don’t like Thorbjornsen, playing in his second US Open after making the cut at Pebble in 2019, talking about a wrist injury heading into this week at Brookline, with possible surgery awaiting later this year. That said, the Stanford junior-to-be has dealt with a version of this injury since high school and adrenaline should dull all the pain as he plays only 15 minutes from his family home in Wellseley.

Before Vick clinched the deciding point for Texas in its NCAA Championship win earlier this month, he played his way into the US Open in the Dallas final qualifier. If he gets airtime on TV this week, expect to hear a lot about how he was a multi-sport athlete in high school, having played quarterback on the football team and pitcher on the baseball team from a school that produced former MLB standouts Lance Berkman and Andy Pettitte. The experience is something Vick says has been a significant asset in him becoming a talent that reached the US Amateur semifinals last August.

Mouw, a junior at Pepperdine, had six top-10s in 14 starts this past season after playing on the victorious the US Walker Cup in 2021. And his game seems potentially suited to US Open venues; he was medalist in his final qualifier with a 12-under 130 showing at The Olympic Club.

Austin Greaser. David Cannon

Confidence Level 2

Fred Biondi, 21, Brazil
Adrian Dumont de Chassart, 22, Belgium
Austin Greaser, 21, Vandalia, Ohio
Stewart Hagestad, 31, Newport Beach, California
Ben Lorenz, 20, Peoria, Illinois

Biondi will be a fifth-year senior in the autumn at Florida and was runner-up at the 2022 Latin America Amateur. He’ll play for the International Team in college golf’s Palmer Cup later this summer.

The Belgian pipeline to the University of Illinois continued with Dumont de Chassart, who followed in the footsteps of tour pros Thomas Dietry and Thomas Pieters. And he’s had similar success, winning Big Ten player of the year twice.

Greaser, the US Amateur runner-up a year ago at Oakmont, will benefit from having played in the Masters and go through the “oh my gosh, I’m playing a major” tension before.

No amateur might be more motivated to make the cut than US Mid-Amateur champion Hagestad, who had played in three previous US Opens but failed to make the weekend in any of them.

Lorenz just finished his sophomore season at Oklahoma and drove with his older brother/caddie Blake the 12 hours from Arizona to Oregon to compete in his Final Qualifier. He started playing golf at age three and used to watch VHS tapes of Bobby Jones and Jack Nicklaus.

Laird Shepherd. Luke Walker / R&A

Confidence Level 1

Nick Dunlap, 18, Huntsville, Alabama
Caleb Manuel, 20, Topsham, Maine
Maxwell Moldovan, 20, Uniontown, Ohio
Charles Reiter 22, Palm Desert, California
Laird Shepherd, 24, England

Dunlap won the US Junior title last summer, securing his exemption to Brookline. He’s heading to Tuscaloosa to play on the Alabama golf team in the autumn. In addition to his golf prowess, he is past age-division runner-up in the NFL’s Punt, Pass and Kick competition.

Manuel should get some New England love this week, as the reigning Big East player of the year out of UConn. After getting through Final Qualifying he woke up to 250-plus messages on his phone. He first qualified for the Maine Amateur at age 13.

A rising junior at Ohio State, Moldovan was a three-time winner this past season while posting a 70.79 stroke average, the best by a Buckeye since 1980. He and his father, John, a teaching pro who is caddieing for him, drove from Ohio to Boston and then they’ll head to Rhode Island next week to play in the Northeast Amateur.

Reiter, a junior at San Diego, has got three sponsor’s exemptions into The American Express, where he shot a 63 at PGA West during the third round in 2019.

This is the last of the majors that Shepherd is exempt into off his British Amateur victory a year ago, having missed the cut at the Open Championship and the Masters. The timing of the US Open, unfortunately, means he can’t defend that British Amateur title, as the championship is going on this week at Royal Lytham and St Annes.

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Stewart Hagestad joins exclusive company with second U.S. Mid-Amateur title

Golf Digest Middle East — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 22:49:21 +0000

Chris Keane/USGA
Stewart Hagestad smiles after winning the final match 2 and 1 at the 2021 U.S. Mid-Amateur at Sankaty Head Golf Club in Siasconset, Mass. on Friday, Oct. 1, 2021.

By John Strege
It was a steep hill to climb for Mark Costanza on Friday, so steep that had he scaled it he might have considered himself on the top of the world. Instead, it was Stewart Hagestad who was occupying rarified air in the end, becoming the sixth multiple winner of the U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship in its 40-year history.

Hagestad, who won the Mid-Amateur in 2016, defeated Costanza, 2 and 1, closing him out with a 35th-hole birdie at Sankaty Head Golf Club in Nantucket, Mass. It derailed an impressive comeback bid by Costanza, who was 7 down through 11 holes and 5 down after the first 18 holes of the 36-hole final played over two days because of weather issues earlier in the week.

“It’s amazing,” Hagestad said about joining the list of multiple winners. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t somewhat read up on the history and guys that have won two, and it’s an honour to have my name on that trophy twice.”

The victory earns Hagestad an exemption into the U.S. Open at the Country Club in Brookline, Mass., next summer, as well as a likely invitation to the 2022 Masters. In the 2017 Masters, Hagestad, 30, a Newport Beach, Calif., resident, became the first Mid-Amateur to make the cut at Augusta National and was low amateur.

A USC graduate who is in his second year of an MBA program there, Hagestad did not win a hole on Friday until the clincher on the 17th green.

It is all over! @s_hagestad is once again the #USMidAm champion!

The first and only hole he won the entire morning is the one that closed out the match and earned him the ?

Final Scores: https://t.co/7qHjyXE3Zr pic.twitter.com/KmIKRGjk3n

— USGA (@USGA) October 1, 2021

“He gave me nothing the whole day,” he said. “I thought that at some point I would maybe get a break or he would give me a hole, which I wouldn’t say would stop the bleeding but would at least create some kind of a buffer. When I hit a great putt at the first hole, I had like an eight-footer and it went high, I think that the feeling of that match maybe pivots a little, or it changes just a little.”

Costanza, 32, a Morristown, N.J., investment banker on the first stage of his honeymoon (he and wife Meredith were married on Sept. 18 and were headed to Italy later on Friday), methodically chipped away at the deficit, finally reducing it to a single hole with a birdie on the 31st hole, No. 13 at Sankaty Head. But his comeback stalled there, and when he missed a 10-foot birdie attempt at 17, Hagestad followed by holing a four-footer for birdie to win.

“I said if I could get it to 3 [down] at the end of the day yesterday, that would have been great,” Costanza said. “But to get it to 5 was satisfactory and gave me a chance. I knew I needed to get off to a good start. The birdie I made on three [on Friday] was huge. That was a tough shot, and I hit a great 4-iron in there, and I think that kind of just set the tone and relaxed me almost for the day. Just started playing well from there.”

But Hagestad, a veteran of 24 United States Golf Association championships and playing in his fifth Mid-Amateur, was not rattled by Costanza’s charge.

“I knew that he would come out swinging,” Hagestad said. “He’s a really good player. He gave me a couple holes yesterday. I knew I wouldn’t get that from him today. But I tried to go out and I tried to basically make him beat me, and he damn near did that. He’s a tremendous competitor. He’s a great player. He’s a super guy. I had a feeling that I was going to get his best today, and he sure earned my respect for sure.”

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By going deep in U.S. Amateur, mid-am beast Stewart Hagestad is making a huge personal sacrifice

Golf Digest Middle East — Fri, 14 Aug 2020 22:03:42 +0000

David Cannon
Stewart Hagestad, shown playing in the 2019 Walker Cup, reached the quarterfinals of the 2020 U.S. Amateur on Thursday at Bandon Dunes.

By Tod Leonard
BANDON, Ore. — Stewart Hagestad pushed his cell phone across the conference table in the Bandon Dunes Golf Course clubhouse. On his screen was the text he had received at 5 a.m. on Thursday, a couple of hours before his Round of 32 match in the U.S. Amateur Championship.

“Unbeliveable,” Hagestad said with quiet exasperation. “You’ve got to be kidding, right?”

The message was from an administrator in the MBA program at the University of Southern California. It basically contained an ultimatum: Hagestad needed to be on Zoom calls on Thursday and Friday to continue his orientation for the program. If he missed them, he’d be eliminated as a candidate. In a pre-emptive bid, he had composed a thoughtful email explaining his situation—that he’d reached matchplay in the U.S. Amateur and could he please postpone the calls? The answer: a flat “no.”

“We talk about the discussions I have with the kids out here,” Hagestad said. “That’s a real-life decision off the golf course that you have to deal with. You wake up for a 36-hole day with that on your mind.”

There are 16 players remaining in the tournament after two rounds of match play were completed on Thursday. They are all accomplished in their own right. But only one of them is working toward an MBA while holding down a real-world job. Only one of them is 29 years old.

Hagestad is this year’s aged outlier in the U.S. Am, the only player left who started playing when anybody who regularly hit 300-yard drives was a legend and college was as much about the next party as it was preparing to turn pro as soon as possible.

A career amateur who is talented enough to have won the 2016 Mid-Amateur, to have made the cut in the 2017 Masters, to have played on two winning U.S. Walker Cup squads, Hagestad continues to find new ways to push himself. The Newport Beach, Calif., native didn’t make the cut in the first eight times he played the U.S. Am, but has subsequently reached match play four straight years. And now he’s gone farther than ever before in this championship by reaching the quarterfinals. [His best previous effort was getting to the Round of 16 at Pebble Beach in 2018.]

Hagestad is treading increasingly rare ground. The last mid-amateur to reach the U.S. Am’s quarterfinals was Nathan Smith in 2014. Austin Eaton, in 2005, was the last to advance to the semis, and Tom McKnight the last to make the finals in 1998. The last to seize the title was 41-year-old John Harris in 1993—before any of this year’s other seven quarterfinalists were born.

Understand, though, that Hagestad isn’t your usual mid-amateur either. He has a job in the financial world that affords him plenty of work flexibility and practice time. From March to October, he says he practices five to seven days a week and works out nearly that much.

“Dude, these kids are good,” Hagestad said. “You have to take it seriously. You can’t take it for granted. These kids are baby tour pros.”

In three rounds of match play on a demanding Bandon Dunes track made more ornery by heavy winds that blew the flags violently on Thursday afternoon, Hagestad has beaten an 18-year-old (Abel Gallegos in the Round of 64) and two 21-year-olds (Spencer Tibbits in the Round of 32 and Harrison Ott in the Round of 16). Since overcoming a 2-down deficit through 11 holes against Gallegos, Hagestad hasn’t trailed, and he scored his most sizeable win on Thursday by defeating Ott, 4 and 3.

Asked what his advantages are in this circumstance, Hagestad said, “It’s a good question, because I’ve kind of been asking myself the same thing. I consider myself a pretty darned good wedge player. My short irons and wedges, I feel like I’m just as good as any of them. If I putt well, I feel like I’m a tough out. … I just feel like even if I don’t have my best stuff, I can at least bring enough firepower to make it interesting.”

On Friday afternoon, Hagestad is set to take on 22-year-old Georgia Tech senior Tyler Strafaci, who advanced out of the Round of 16 in bizarre fashion, when the caddie of his opponent, Segundo Oliva Pinto, committed a rules violation that decided the match on the 18th hole.

Strafaci said on Thursday that he and Hagestad became friends when they were paired together in the stroke-play rounds in the U.S. Amateur at Pebble Beach. They grew closer getting practice squad reps in advance of the 2019 Walker Cup.

“Stew is unbelievable,” said Strafaci, who won the North & South Amateur title earlier this summer. “Every mid-am in this field is great. But Stew … he could play on tour right now. [Friday’s] match is going to be gritty. I know I’m going to have to play the best I’ve played to beat him.”

Hagestad has always said that he didn’t want to bang heads with the world’s best pro players, that he’s been happy to mix it up with friends and be motivated to play at the top amateur level. This week, he’s certainly defined that desire again, considering the high personal stakes he chose in competing.

“I do know if you play well in big events like these, people, care, they pay attention,” Hagestad said. “I would argue to say that if you make a Walker Cup team, that’s an impressive feat. And I wasn’t willing to give that up.”

An MBA can wait. A U.S. Amateur title would be priceless.

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U.S. Amateur champion Doc Redman, runner-up Doug Ghim selected to U.S. Walker Cup team

Golf Digest Middle East — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 05:59:49 +0000

Doug Ghim and Doc Redman, teammates on the U.S. Walker Cup team. (Copyright USGA/Chris Keane)

By John Strege
U.S. Amateur champion Doc Redman and runner-up Doug Ghim both were named to the 10-man U.S. Walker Cup team that will face a Great Britain & Ireland team at Los Angeles Country Club’s North Course, Sept. 9-10.

USGA president Diana Murphy made the announcement in the immediate aftermath of Redman’s victory over Ghim on the 37th hole of the Amateur at Riviera Country Club.

Joining Redman and Ghim are Maverick McNealy, Stewart Hagestad, Braden Thornberry, Norman Xiong, Cameron Champ, Collin Morikawa, Scottie Scheffler and Will Zalatoris.

McNealy is No. 2 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking and the only player on the U.S. roster with previous Walker Cup experience. Thornberry is No. 3 in the world after winning the NCAA individual title and the Sunnehanna Amateur this summer. Hagestad is the reigning U.S. Mid-Amateur champion who in April became the first Mid-Amateur champion to make the cut in the Masters.

The captain is Spider Miller.

“It’s a committee decision,” he said, “but the committee has always held a spot for our current U.S. Amateur champion. But Doc went out and earned that spot, and I’m very proud of him. I’m looking forward to a great competition. I have a wonderful team and I’m very excited.”

Missing from the U.S. team was a second mid-amateur representative, with Scott Harvey believed to be on the short list for the team. Also on the outside looking in was LSU’s Sam Burns, college golf’s Jack Nicklaus Player of the Year honoree in June who announced he would turn pro in September in hopes of still having a chance to play on the U.S. team; Oklahoma’s Brad Dalke, the 2016 U.S. Amateur runner-up, Illinois’ Dylan Meyer, who won the 2016 Western Amateur, was a semifinalist at 2016 U.S. Amateur and is currently ranked No. 4 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking.

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Oklahoma State’s Hayden Wood is medalist, sets 36-hole scoring record

Golf Digest Middle East — Wed, 16 Aug 2017 05:31:38 +0000

Hayden Wood, son of former PGA Tour player Willie Wood, set a U.S. Amateur scoring record in taking medalist honors at Bel-Air Country Club in Los Angeles on Tuesday.

Wood, whose father is a former U.S. Junior Amateur champion, completed 36 holes at nine-under par 131, a 36-hole qualifying record, eclipsing the record of 132, set by Hank Kim at the TPC Sawgrass in 1994. Wood followed an opening-round 64 at Riviera Country Club on Monday with a three-under 67 at Bel-Air on Tuesday. He finished three strokes ahead of runner-up, Norman Xiong, the recent Western Amateur winner.

Wood is a junior at Oklahoma State, the university his father also attended.

Xiong, who like Wood opened with a six-under 64 at Riviera on Monday, shot an even-par 70 at Bel-Air.

Among those advancing to match play that begins Wednesday at Riviera Country Club was Joaquin Niemann of Chile, who is No. 1 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking. Niemann, who reached the round of 16 in the Amateur a year ago and tied for 29th in the PGA Tour’s Greenbrier Classic earlier this summer, shot a 69 at Bel-Air and tied for sixth in medal play.

Maverick McNealy, No. 2 in the World Amateur Ranking, had a three-under 67 at Bel-Air, tied for 16th, and advanced to match play.

Among those who did not advance was Stewart Hagestad, the reigning U.S. Mid-Amateur champion who in April became the first Mid-Am champion to make the cut in the Masters. Hagestad, who had his clubs stolen 10 days earlier, shot 74 at Bel-Air and missed advancing by two strokes.

Thirteen players tied for the final eight spots for the 64-player match play field, including Braden Thornberry, and will play off Wednesday morning at 7:30 (PDT). Thornberry is No. 3 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking and tied for fourth in the PGA Tour’s FedEx St. Jude Classic in June.

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Masters hero Stewart Hagestad throws out first pitch at Dodgers game — wearing golf shoes

Golf Digest Middle East — Mon, 14 Aug 2017 08:09:55 +0000

By Alex Myers
Masters hero Stewart Hagestad is still reaping the rewards from being the first Mid-Amateur to champ to make the cut at Augusta National in April. The 26-year-old USC product is having a homecoming of sorts for this week’s U.S. Amateur at Riviera Country Club, and on Saturday night, Hagestad had the honuor of throwing out the first pitch at the Los Angeles Dodgers game. The lanky right responded by throwing a strike — while wearing golf shoes:

Thx @s_hagestad for representing #USAmateur! First pitch @Dodgers last night! #strike #nicejeans pic.twitter.com/jV6c5QN6L3

— Robbie Zalzneck (@ZmanWF) August 13, 2017

And those aren’t your typical hybrid golf shoes that people wear around after leaving the course these days. Those are some pretty serious golf shoes.

What can you say, the guy is really locked in on trying to become the first mid-am to win the U.S. Amateur in 24 years. And maybe Hagestad needs to break in a new pair of golf shoes. After all, he had his golf bag stolen out of his car last week.

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Stewart Hagestad replaces stolen clubs, resumes Walker Cup quest at U.S. Amateur

Golf Digest Middle East — Sun, 13 Aug 2017 08:05:44 +0000

Presumably, a guard-gated community, given the inherent obstacles presented by a gate and a guard, in a Newport Beach, Calif., neighborhood of multimillion-dollar homes featuring their own elaborate security systems, would seem an unlikely place for a thief to attempt to conduct his business.

Or not.

Stewart Hagestad, 26, is a prominent amateur golfer on the threshold of perhaps the most important few weeks of his summer, who left his golf clubs in his car parked in the driveway of his father’s home in the tony Big Canyon Country Club neighborhood in Newport Beach when he returned from the Western Amateur on Aug. 4.

The following morning he discovered his clubs had been stolen.

“I filed a police report, but there’s no cameras or anything,” he said. “What are you going to do?”

Hagestad’s concern has less to do with the fact that the clubs were stolen than the timing of the heist, two weeks before the U.S. Amateur Championship that begins at the Riviera Country Club on Monday. The Amateur for Hagestad represents the gateway to the Walker Cup that will be played next month at Los Angeles Country Club, where he is a junior member.

On the basis of his victory a year ago in the U.S. Mid-Amateur and his having become the first Mid-Amateur champion to make the cut in the Masters in April, he is among those under consideration to make the U.S. Walker Cup team.

But elite golfers — professional or amateur — tend to have intimate relationships with their clubs and the ability to detect minute differences even with similar sets. A week before an important event is no time to try to dial in a new set.

Hagestad spent last Monday at TaylorMade Golf’s facility in Carlsbad, Calif., working at getting a replacement set as close to identical to the one that he was hoping would turn up on eBay or Craigslist. He also went about getting a replacement for the two Scotty Cameron by Titleist Kombi Long putters that are likely worthless to any golfer shorter than the 6-foot-5 Hagestad.

“I’m pretty particular about my equipment,” Hagestad said. “You try to get an exact replica, and on paper they’re exactly the same, but until you get out on the course, you don’t know.”

His equipment issues have intruded on his preparation for a week and a month that set up perfectly for Hagestad. He played college golf for USC, and Riviera was one of the Trojans’ home courses. It also gave him the opportunity to acquaint himself with Bel-Air Country Club, which will host one of the two medal play rounds in the Amateur.

“I’ve probably played Riviera 40 times,” he said. “I’ve probably played Bel-Air 15 or 20 times. I’m pretty familiar with both.”

Hagestad, meanwhile, was one of 16 amateurs invited to a U.S. Walker Cup team practice session at Los Angeles CC last December. His challenge in the Amateur is to keep at bay thoughts of making the Walker Cup team.

“It would be a pretty cool opportunity to represent myself, my dad, who’s a member [of Los Angeles C.C.], too, to represent the club and everyone who has put so much work into the event,” Hagestad said. “We’re really trying to make an effort to host bigger events to show off the club. Also the club and the Southern California Golf Association, to represent them and to help the team in the process by virtue of my course knowledge.

“Of course, [the Walker Cup’s] going to be the elephant in the living room. You’re always thinking about it. But I’ll try to do the exact same thing I did for the Masters — try to get as analytically and process-oriented as can be. Theoretically I can make the Walker Cup and can end the discussion pretty quick if I have a nice long week.”

Hagestad, incidentally, experienced food poisoning before the Trans-Miss Amateur in July and pulled a muscle in his back at the Western Amateur. Throw in a thief in the driveway and an elephant in the living room and it adds to a mission more complicated than it should have been.

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The golf gods deal Stewart Hagestad a tough blow on the eve of the U.S. Amateur

Golf Digest Middle East — Sun, 06 Aug 2017 05:57:41 +0000

By Ryan Herrington
Not since 43-year-old John Harris in 1993 has a mid-amateur golfer won the U.S. Amateur title, by far the longest stretch in the 122-year history of the championship.

Reigning U.S. Mid-Amateur champion Stewart Hagestad, a native of Newport Beach, Calif., who went to college at USC, is hoping to break that streak and grab hold of the Havemeyer Trophy in two weeks when the event is held at Riviera Country Club outside of Los Angeles. Riviera is a course where the 26-year-old played regularly in his college days. Hagestad also has some momentum on his side, having been the low amateur at the Masters (the first Mid-Amateur champ ever to do so) and having qualified for the U.S. Open this summer.

However, Hagestad’s dream just took an unfortunate twist, according to his Twitter account:

Golf clubs stolen out of my car a week before the US Am. #NotCool

— Stewart Hagestad (@s_hagestad) August 5, 2017

The post The golf gods deal Stewart Hagestad a tough blow on the eve of the U.S. Amateur appeared first on Golf Digest Middle East.