After the 36-hole Strokeplay stage of the 2023 U.S. Amateur Championship, 16-year-old middle-schooler Blades Brown has earned himself the Medallist/Co-Medallist title. With rounds of 72 and 64 at Cherry Hills Country Club and Colorado Golf Club respectively, he is the youngest stroke-play leader of the event since Bobby Jones in 1920. Jones was 18 at the time.

Whilst not quite the youngest player in the field, this Nashville teenager has caught the attention of golf fans around the world. With a name that will make the GolfWRX forums go wild, it would be great to see him kick on this week.

The quality of youth has been on full show over the first two days, with Bowen Mauss and Preston Stout as two other 16-year-olds to also make it to the knockout stages from a staggeringly large field of 312. Both players carded 7-under rounds of 65 at Colorado. The youngest player in the field, Sohan Patel, at just 14 and 47 years shy of fellow competitor Gene Elliott, did not make the cut.

To win the Havemeyer Trophy, young Blades will have to get through six rounds of matchplay at Cherry Hills, with the final to take place on Sunday over 36-holes. It’s a marathon of golf with the winner having to get through nine rounds of golf in six days. It’s no pleasant stroll, with Cherry Hills playing at 7,405 yards. Colorado stretched to 7,560 yards, too.

With all of the men’s and women’s majors complete for the year, golf fans around the world now look ahead to the Walker Cup at St Andrews in September. The US Amateur is a titan event in its own right; however, we will learn plenty about what to expect from the two sides in a couple of weeks.

From the GB&I perspective, the team’s two highest ranked WAGR competitors John Gough and Barclay Brown both missed the cut with scores of +11 and +4 for the two rounds respectively. They qualified automatically for St Andrews today. Ireland’s Alex Maguire, who played in the 151st Open at Hoylake is not competing this week; however, his compatriot Matthew McClean has cemented his place in the knockouts with rounds of 69 and 74. The 30-year-old Ulsterman, has a 2022 Mid-Amateur title to his name which earned him starts at The Masters and the US Open this year. We recorded a pod with Matt in September last year; have a listen here for all things matchplay:

34th in the WAGR rankings and expected to play in the Walker Cup, Calum Scott has also had a good week thus far. The Nairn native, who plays his golf for Texas Tech played two solid rounds of 71 and 68 to earn his place in the top 64. Before he almost certainly heads home to Scotland, it will be very interesting to see how he performs in matchplay format. He has an impressive college record on top of a 3rd place finish in the St Andrews Links Trophy this year.

As expected, the top 64 is dominated by the Americans. The world’s number one amateur, Gordon Sargent, is safely through alongside David Ford, Dylan Menante, Caleb Surratt, Austin Greaser, Nick Dunlap and Nick Gabrelcik who are all in the WAGR top-10.

Sargent and Ford have already secured their places for St Andrews, with Michael Thorbjornsen, the other with a nailed-on spot not playing this week.

The only member of the 2021 US Walker Cup team at Seminole playing this week is two-time Mid-Amateur Champion Stewart Hagestad. He only won 1/3 possible points in 2021 and was famously on the receiving end of Angus Flanagan and Jake Bolton’s epic Foursomes turnaround, however, has been on three winning US sides.

It’s going to be a feast of matchplay over the next few days and really interesting to see how the GB&I representatives fare against such a strong US-dominated field. Coverage is being shared between Peacock, The Golf Channel and NBC, so it will hopefully be on the Sky Red Button throughout the week. Either way, I’ll be keeping a close eye on Twitter and the @USGA feed.

Round of 64 Matches to Watch:

9:00 AM: Blades Brown (1) v Benton Weinberg (64)

9:40 AM: Nicholas Gross (8) v Bowen Mauss (57)

10:10 AM: Gordon Sargent (24) v Nick Dunlap (41) – absolutely box office.

10:30 AM: Nick Gabrelcik (29) v Jackson van Paris (36)

11:10 AM: David Ford (28) v William Walsh (37)

12:00 PM: Calum Scott (15) v Bastien Amat (50)

12:20 PM: Andi Xu (7) v Matthew McClean (58)

1:40 PM: Caleb Surratt (6) v Dylan Menante (59)

Access the full draw here:

https://championships.usga.org/usamateur/2023/scoring.html