You’re reading NCGA Golf Magazine, so it’s assumed you have some level of connection linked to the golf scene here in good ol’ Northern California. But even by our proud Golden State standards, these next few months around here are set up to be, to use California surf terminology: Awesome, dude.
“Growing up in Northern California,” said Clovis native and U.S. Open golf champion Bryson DeChambeau, “what great golf courses…you name it, there’s just incredible golf courses around that area.”
We think so, too, Bryson. Thanks for agreeing. And the story is, they take center stage this summer and fall as three of the world’s greatest amateur golf events are slated for our fair turf in rapid fashion.
First up, Aug 11-17 is the 125th U.S. Amateur at San Francisco’s Olympic Club — the fourth time our nation’s amateur championship is at Olympic, joining 1958, 1981 and 2007, which was won by Texan Colt Knost.
Like the five men’s U.S. Opens held at Olympic, the U.S. Amateur at the Lake Course holds some weighty history. It will be tough to top the story of local boy Nathaniel Crosby’s emotional 37th hole win in 1981, as the Burlingame Country Club kid won the U.S. Am just four years after his Dad, legendary crooner and movie star Bing Crosby, passed away in 1977. Fun fact: Bing Crosby himself was good enough to qualify for the 1940 and ‘41 U.S. Amateurs, and Nathaniel wore Dad’s 1941 U.S. Am medallion around his neck that magical week in 1981, occasionally touching it to calm his nerves.
Also fun: the 1958 winner, Charlie Coe, was one of our country’s great amateurs. He won two U.S. Ams, played in 19 Masters and his ’58 triumph out by Skyline Blvd. came over future Masters champ Tommy Aaron. Oh, and an 18-year-old kid from Ohio named Jack Nicklaus played in that championship.
“At every level there are your majors, and these are our majors,” said Portola Valley-raised and Stanford product Maverick McNealy, a winner on the PGA Tour. “They feel different, you feel different and going to iconic golf courses you don’t normally get to play and definitely don’t get to play in tournament conditions…all those things are part of the cadence of being an elite amateur.”
Shortly after the 2025 U.S. Amateur champ is crowned, the center of the amateur golf world travels 117 miles south to one of the planet’s most jaw-dropping places: Cypress Point Club, Alister Mackenzie’s Mona Lisa. There, the 50th Walker Cup — the biennial amateur match pitting the United States against Great Britain and Ireland — will unfold on Sept. 6 and 7 amid the silence of the Del Monte Forest and cacophony of the crashing Pacific waves.
It’s the Ryder Cup for amateurs, with all attendant emotion.
“Walker Cup is something you play for as an amateur as hard as you play for a Ryder Cup or Presidents Cup as a professional,” said McNealy, who played on a winning U.S. team at L.A. Country Club in 2017 and felt the sting of defeat as a U.S. team member at the 2015 Walker Cup at Royal Lytham & St. Anne’s in England. “It means that much. It was pretty eye-opening to me to see the difference between American golf and golf overseas.”
The home cooking should aid the American cause, as the last time GB&I won Stateside was 2001. And the only other time the Walker Cup was held at Cypress Point, the 1981 U.S. squad won, 15 to 9, behind future major champions Hal Sutton and Corey Pavin, when they were puppies.
Not to be outdone, amateur women take their bow Oct. 4-9 just a few 5-irons away at Monterey Peninsula Country Club, when the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur Championship takes place. The match-play event, for women over 25 and with an index below 9.4, awards a U.S. Women’s Amateur invite to the winner. LPGA Tour player Mina Harigae Kreiter, a Monterey Peninsula product who played MPCC “more times than I can count” growing up, is excited the USGA is using such a grand stage.
“USGA events were the tournaments I looked forward to the most,” said Harigae Kreiter, who won the 2007 U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links. “They’re so prestigious and you always look forward to them the most…it’s really cool to see they’re starting to play such really high-profile golf courses.”
Harigae Kreiter noted that she has friends who are already looking forward to the U.S. Women’s Mid-Am at MPCC in October, but the current Arizona resident warns with a laugh about the Pacific air: “You’ll be shocked at how much shorter the ball goes…at least a club and a half!”
The beauty of Northern California golf.
So there it is: we’ve sorted out your August golf plans, your September golf plans and your October golf plans. We’d thank Northern California for providing such epic platforms, but humility goes a long way.