It’s been four years since Palmer Jackson became Franklin Regional’s first state golf champion, going on a breathtaking run of six birdies in seven holes to pull away from a strong field and capture the 2018 PIAA Class AAA individual title at the Heritage Hills Golf Resort in York County.
His first name is no accident. He was named after Western Pennsylvania’s greatest contribution to the game of golf and, while no Arnold Palmer, Jackson has done his namesake proud.
Jackson seemed to come out of nowhere to reach the quarterfinals of the 2019 U.S. Amateur at the Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina before falling to eventual runnerup John Augenstein of Vanderbilt.
Jackson then headed to South Bend, Ind. where he has been one of the cornerstones of a project to make Notre Dame a competitive program on the national golf scene. By any measure, that project has been a success.
The first thing the Fighting Irish had to do was try to establish themselves as a competitive team in the Atlantic Coast Conference, which has long been one of college golf’s most powerful leagues, even pre-dating the arrival of Arnold Palmer at Wake Forest.
Notre Dame’s fifth-place finish in last spring’s ACC Championship at the Shark’s Tooth Golf Course in Panama City, Fla. was its best ever. The Fighting Irish were led by Jackson, who finished in a tie for third place in the individual chase.
Notre Dame’s No. 3 seed in the NCAA’s Palm Beach Regional was its highest ever, although the Fighting Irish never fired at PGA National’s Champion Course, ending up in ninth place and failing to advance to the NCAA Championship.
In the offseason, Notre Dame head coach John Handrigan was promoted to director of golf and is overseeing both the men’s and women’s programs. It would not be a surprise to see the men’s team take that next step next spring and earn a trip to Scottsdale, Ariz. and the NCAA Championship at Grayhawk Golf Club. The Fighting Irish were ranked No. 37 by Golfstat at the end of the fall.
During the pause in the wraparound 2022-2023 season, Jackson will get to tee it up with 15 other top amateur players who have been invited by the USGA International Team Selection Committee for a practice session for the 49th Walker Cup Match, which will be played Sept. 2 and 3 next summer at the Old Course at St. Andrews.
The Walker Cup is special no matter the venue, but the Old Course at St. Andrews, that’s a little extra special.
The practice session will be conducted Dec. 15 to 18 at golf courses in and around Jupiter, Fla., where there is no shortage of great courses from which to choose.
Other than mid-amateur Evan Beck, the 32-year-old two-time reigning Eastern Amateur champion from Virginia Beach, Va., the USGA International Team Selection Committee pretty much went right down the list of Americans in the World Amateur Golf Ranking (WAGR) list in deciding who to invite to Jupiter.
Beck, a 2013 graduate of Wake Forest, is the top-ranked mid-am not named Stewart Hagestad at No. 66 in the WAGR.
The 21-year-old Jackson is No. 40 in the WAGR and is coming off a fall during which he was consistently finishing in the top 15 to 20 in Notre Dame’s tournament appearances, all of which came against top-notch fields.
Obviously, Jackson showed the kind of match-play grit that is a prerequisite for inclusion on a U.S. Walker Cup team with his run to the U.S. Amateur quarterfinals in Pinehurst in 2019.
Not sure how much more big-time match-play experience is on Jackson’s resume, but I do know he defeated Penn State senior Patrick Sheehan – he was in the final group along with Jackson in the state tournament at Heritage Hills in 2018 and finished in a tie for third place – in the final of the Pennsylvania Golf Association’s R. Jay Sigel Match Play Championship at Sewickley Heights Golf Club in the summer of 2021.
The 2021 Walker Cup Match sat in an unusual spot in the schedule in May, right in the middle of the college golf postseason. Nobody really complained, though, because it was staged at Seminole Golf Club in Juno Beach, Fla., the revered Donald Ross design.
The return to the more traditional September time frame always presents a bit of a quandary for college players who are anxious to get their professional careers started. Jackson is one of the few college players invited to Jupiter who is a senior, although I’m pretty sure he will have the option of taking a fifth year of college golf as a result of the spring of 2020 being cancelled due to the advent of the coronavirus.
In recent Walker Cup cycles, the top three U.S. players in the WAGR a month to six weeks out become automatic selections to the U.S. team. Also, the winner of the U.S. Amateur, if he is an American, is usually reserved a spot on the U.S. team, if not otherwise qualified. The 2023 U.S. Amateur will conclude Aug. 20 at Cherry Hills Country Club, the William Flynn classic in Cherry Hills Village, Colo.
One way or another, U.S. team captain Mike McCoy, winner of the U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship in 2013 at age 50, will likely have Hagestad on his side at the Old Course.
It’s been six years since Hagestad, a 2013 graduate of Southern California from Newport Beach, Calif., won the first of his two U.S. Mid-Am titles as a mid-am “rookie” at Stonewall’s Old Course. He said at the time that he was more than OK with being the face of the American mid-am golf and he has certainly done that.
At 31, Hagestad is No. 9 in the WAGR. He added a second U.S. Mid-Am crown in the summer of 2021 at Sankaty Head Golf Club on Nantucket Island. More importantly, Hagestad has been a veteran presence on winning U.S. Walker Cup teams at the course he grew up on, Los Angeles Country Club’s North Course, in 2017, at Royal Liverpool Golf Club in Hoylake, England in 2019 and at Seminole in the spring of 2021.
Hagestad is the only player returning from Seminole on the list of players invited to the practice session in Jupiter next month. Not sure how many Walker Cup match wins Hagestad has after being part of the U.S. team three times. The great Jay Sigel has the Walker Cup record with what always seemed to be an unassailable total of 18 wins.
It is somewhat forgotten, but the Walker Cup at Seminole was a little over a year from the lockdowns of the spring of 2020. The widespread availability of vaccines in this country didn’t happen until the spring of 2021. To add insult on top of the pandemic, a stomach virus wreaked havoc on players from both sides at Seminole.
U.S. captain Nathaniel Crosby put Hagestad in the next-to-last spot in his singles lineup on the second day of a tight match and his victory helped the U.S. pull out a hard-fought 14-12 victory.
Reigning NCAA individual champion Gordon Sargent, a sophomore from Birmingham, Ala. and No. 3 in the WAGR, and his Vanderbilt teammate Cole Sherwood, a junior from Austin, Texas and No. 11 in the WAGR, head a glittering lineup of college talent that will be trying to impress McCoy in Jupiter.
Vanderbilt entered the pause in the 2022-’23 college season at No. 2 in the Golfstat rankings after claiming a 3-2 victory over Arizona State in the final of the East Lake Cup to cap an outstanding fall campaign.
Expect Sargent and Sherwood to play in some high-stakes matches as the Commodores try to improve on last spring’s march to the NCAA semifinals at Grayhawk, where they fell to eventual national champion Texas.
Vanderbilt isn’t the only Tennessee college with two players invited to the practice session at Jupiter as Southeastern Conference rival Tennessee will be represented by Bryce Lewis, a junior from Hendersonville, Texas and No. 31 in the WAGR, and Caleb Surratt, the Volunteers’ freshman phenom from Indian Trail, N.C. and No. 13 in the WAGR.
Surratt showed some match-play chops with a run to the final of last summer’s U.S. Junior Amateur at Bandon Dunes, where he fell to Wenyi Ding of China in the title match.
Surratt and Lewis have Tennessee ranked No. 8 after a strong fall campaign that included a 3-2 victory over Vandy in the final of the SEC Fall Match Play at the Old Overton Club in Vestavia Hills, Ala. Surratt found himself matched up with Sargent and while he lost the battle, 6 and 5, the Volunteers won the war.
Another junior standout of recent vintage, North Carolina’s David Ford, a sophomore from Peachtree Corners, Ga. and No. 7 in the WAGR, will be joined in Jupiter by fellow Tar Heel Dylan Menante, a senior from Carlsbad, Calif. and No. 6 in the WAGR. The Tar Heels, another ACC entry, took a No. 5 ranking into the midseason pause.
It was Menante who put a halt to the improbable run to the U.S. Amateur quarterfinals by Downingtown West junior Nick Gross with a 4 and 3 victory at Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, N.J. Menante suffered a tough 1-up loss to eventual champion Sam Bennett in the semifinals at Ridgewood.
It will be a reunion at Jupiter for Menante and his former Pepperdine teammate Derek Hitchner, a graduate student from Minneapolis, Minn. with the Waves and No. 37 in the WAGR. Menante and Hitchner were both in the starting lineup for Pepperdine in its 4-1 loss to Arizona State in the semifinals of the NCAA Championship last spring.
Menante, who decided to come east and take his COVID year at North Carolina, was in the starting lineup when Pepperdine captured the NCAA crown in 2021 with a victory over Oklahoma in the Final Match at Grayhawk. Hitchner was solid that season, but was left off the first five for the postseason.
Like Menante, Hitchner made a run to the semifinals of the U.S. Amateur at Ridgewood in August, falling to Ben Carr, 3 and 2. Hitchner and the Waves are ranked 14th at the midseason break.
North Carolina’s Ford finished in a tie for fifth place in the NCAA Championship’s individual chase as a freshman last spring at Grayhawk.
Reigning ACC champion Wake Forest will be represented by Michael Brennan, a junior from Leesburg, Va. and No. 18 in the WAGR. The Demon Deacons are probably a tad underrated at No. 34 in the rankings at the midseason pause.
Another ACC standout, Georgia Tech’s Ross Steelman, a junior from Atlanta and No. 23 in the WAGR, was invited to the Walker Cup practice session. Steelman reached the quarterfinals of the 2021 U.S. Amateur at iconic Oakmont Country Club in suburban Pittsburgh before falling to eventual runnereup Austin Greaser.
Virginia’s freshman phenom, Ben James of Milford, Conn. and No. 22 in the WAGR, was also invited to join the practice session at Jupiter. Coming off an outstanding junior career on the American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) circuit, came roaring out of the gate this fall with impressive wins at the Streamsong Invitational and at the Hamptons Intercollegiate.
James has helped the Cavaliers rise to No. 12 in the Golfstat rankings at the midseason break.
North Florida’s Nicholas Gabrelcik, a junior from Trinity, Fla. and No. 10 in the WAGR, will also join college golf’s top players at Jupiter for the U.S. Walker Cup practice session. Gabrelcik reached the semifinals of the 2021 U.S. Amateur at Oakmont before falling to eventual champion James Piot.
The perennially underrated Ospreys are No. 42 in the latest Golfstat rankings.
The second-highest ranked American player in the WAGR headed for Jupiter for the Walker Cup practice session is Stanford’s Michael Thorbjornsen, a junior from Wellesley, Mass. who is No. 4 in the world.
Thorbjornsen gutted out a 1-up victory over Akshay Bhatia in the U.S. Junior Amateur final in 2018 at Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield, N.J. The Cardinal, a perennial Pac-12 power, are No. 6 in the latest Golfstat rankings.
Rounding out the group that will tee it up in the U.S. Walker Cup practice session is Big Ten representative Maxwell Moldovan, a junior at Ohio State from Uniontown, Ohio and No. 25 in the WAGR. The Buckeyes finished the fall just inside the Golfstat top 25 at No. 24.
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