The Northeast Amateur and George C. Thomas Invitational have long gone up against each other on the calendar, which isn’t a perfect setup for Stewart Hagestad.
Hagestad, the No. 6 amateur in the world coming into last week and the undisputed top mid-am in the game for most of the past six years, is a Southern Californian with a meaningful history at Los Angeles Country Club where the Thomas is played amongst the best mid-ams in the country. He’s a member at the club, is on the Thomas tournament committee, played in a Walker Cup there and is one more U.S. Mid-Amateur victory away from playing in a U.S. Open on the venerable North Course next June.
At the same time, he calls the Northeast Amateur, played a few thousand miles away at Wannamoisett Country Club in Rumford, Rhode Island, his “favorite event of the year on the amateur calendar.” That’s led to a mix of where he’s played in recent years.
In 2016, Hagestad played his first official mid-am event at the Thomas and finished runner-up. From 2017 to '19, when he was campaigning for Walker Cup spots, he played the Northeast, with the highlight being a runner-up finish in 2019. Neither event occurred in 2020. A year ago, with the Walker Cup having already passed because it temporarily was moved up to May, he went back to the Thomas and won by nine shots.
“It’s an amazing field, and the membership really cares. I think the world of the venue, and the way that it’s run is the right way.”
Stewart Hagestad
This past week, he decided not to defend his title, instead playing the Northeast where he finished at 4-over 280, tied for 40th against a deep set of college stars.
“It’s an amazing field, and the membership really cares,” Hagestad told Global Golf Post. “I think the world of the venue, and the way that it's run is the right way.”
Was his decision influenced by making the cut in the U.S. Open one week earlier at The Country Club, which is not even an hour’s drive down I-95 to Wannamoisett? No, that had zero impact, Hagestad said.
Was it a difficult decision? Hagestad returns with a quick and resounding “nope.” The reasoning is clear: He’s about to take a full-time job in the finance world with BDT Capital Partners, and he needs as many World Amateur Golf Ranking points as he can manage this year, because his competitive calendar is likely to shrink next year and beyond. The 31-year-old wants to make a fourth and potentially final run at playing on a U.S. Walker Cup team.
As was the case in the past, teeing it up in the Northeast was simply the best route to take for that goal.
“I would have loved to have stayed at home and played a golf course I’m obviously very familiar with and played a bunch,” Hagestad said. “There’s a lot of history there. And obviously it’s another great golf course, a great field. But I don't really make the rules of the game. And that’s – unfortunately, for the sake of the Thomas – kind of an easy decision for me.”
Hagestad made this call a long time ago because he knows that his competitive golf career won’t always look like it has. For years he has taken advantage of flexibility in his work life as an investment analyst, lacking some of the more demanding responsibilities with which a typical mid-am must cope. That’s not to say he hasn’t had to balance off-course challenges. Hagestad recently graduated from the MBA program at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business, where he made the dean’s list twice, interned for a private-equity investment firm during the summers and passed the Security Industry Essentials exam after graduation. Even before these last two years of school, Hagestad typically has kept the vast majority of his competitive golf inside the April-September window to give time to his intermittent finance career.
Yet still, Hagestad has enjoyed a certain competitive golf freedom that typical 9-to-5 workers don’t have. It’s far from the sole reason he has played in six major championships, earned low-amateur honors in the Masters, won two U.S. Mid-Ams and competed on three consecutive U.S. Walker Cup teams, but it’s a significant factor.
And though some may roll their eyes at this notion, there are drawbacks that come with giving far more of himself to competitive golf than most are willing or able. Turning down promotions. Being unable to attend certain events that have coincided with his competitive schedule. Knowing that making a Walker Cup team requires a healthy schedule of events, and not all of them can be in the friendlier mid-am confines of the “cocktail tour.”
With his full-time work career about to commence, it’s a near certainty that he will not be able to play as much golf in 2023 as he will be able to play this year. Competitive golf will still be in his future, but it won’t look the same. He’s unlikely to play the Western Amateur this summer, which would potentially leave him with only three starts the rest of the year: the U.S. Amateur, U.S. Mid-Am and the Crump Cup.
Next year figures to be an even lighter schedule.
“The honest answer is, I just don't know,” Hagestad said. “But my sense is I don't think I will be playing as much. I likely won’t be able to.”
For the past couple of years, Hagestad has publicly alluded to his unique mid-am path as something that can’t continue forever in its current form. At last week’s U.S. Open, he told media he would like to ride off into “the metaphorical sunset” after, he hopes, making next year’s Walker Cup team.
It felt similar to remarks made in March of 2021 when GGP asked Hagestad about his desire to continue playing in Walker Cups and establish a legacy among other amateur greats.
“It’s something I've thought about before, for sure,” Hagestad said at the time. “I'd be lying if I said otherwise. But there's a lot of sacrifices that are made, there's a lot of things you kind of give up on – kids, family, money, responsibilities. … I'm almost at a point where it’s a grass-is-always-greener situation where I look at friends that are beginning to get equity in funds and taking on more responsibility and doing more with their careers from that standpoint and, as much fun as it is for me working right now and getting my MBA for eight months and playing for four months, what I’m doing is just not a sustainable practice.
“I don't think that desire is as much there as it was after I had (my first Walker Cup). That's not to say I don't respect it as much or if I were to chase it again, I wouldn't put too much work in. But you've accomplished your goals; you need to reassess what you want to do.”
Last week when Hagestad spoke before the Northeast, GGP asked whether his relationship with golf has changed over the past six years. The answer was yes, but it’s hard to articulate why. One day it will probably come a little easier.
“My list of goals that I'd really like to accomplish has been pared down pretty significantly,” Hagestad said. “I'm very lucky to have had the chance to shoot for those goals and to have accomplished them in and of itself. So I certainly think my relationship to the game has changed.
“I think when I have some more time to reflect as I get older, I'll be able to really nail down how.”
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