Winning a U.S. Amateur is no easy feat.
Like the U.S. Open, hopefuls must first qualify to gain entry into the tournament, either by their WAGR ranking or by going through local and final qualifying. Once there, 36 holes of stroke play determine which 64 of the 312 players in the field will move on to the match-play portion of the championship. This year, 16 players battled for the 11 remaining match-play spots at the end of the stroke-play portion of the championship.
Among those 11 players who got through was Jack Whaley, who became the newly-minted U.S. Amateur champion shortly thereafter. After punching his ticket to the Round of 64, Whaley had to defeat six consecutive opponents in order to claim the title.
Given the 156 holes Whaley played to ultimately lift the trophy, you might think that picking a memorably crucial shot would be a difficult ask. But on this week’s episode of Subpar, when co-host Drew Stoltz asked Whaley to name the shot he was most proud of, Whaley had a ready answer.
“I was pretty proud of the chip that I played off the green on 9, over the corner of the bunker,” he said. “A couple of weeks prior, during the summer, I had one similar at Hallamshire where, funnily enough, Alex and Matt [Fitzpatrick] are members, and I holed one. I’m sure that video will surface at some point. But, yeah, I felt pretty confident over that one. And my dad was like, ‘You know what’s gonna happen here: when I hit the green, you’re gonna have to chip it off the green.’
“So I think that one was a spectacular one. I kind of almost knew I was gonna play a good one,” he continued. “Apart from that, it’s gotta be probably the playoff hole, the 13th, when I nearly holed it. That was probably the shot of the week, I think.”
During the above-mentioned playoff, Whaley’s tap-in birdie on the first playoff hole got him into the top 64 and saved him some additional stress. From there, he won his matches in 22 holes, 2 and 1, 4 and 3, 5 and 4, 1 up, and 4 and 3 in the 36-hole final against Jay Leng Jr.
For more details from Whaley’s historic week, check out the full episode of Subpar below.
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