JUNO BEACH, FLORIDA | Mere minutes after Jeronimo Esteve rolled in a 3-foot bogey putt to clinch a one-stroke victory in the Coleman Invitational on Saturday afternoon, the applause of thunder swelled as lightning crept progressively closer to Seminole Golf Club’s iconic pink stucco clubhouse. An ominous storm that had long been tracking toward the property mercifully allowed the final threesome to conclude the 18th hole before conditions rapidly deteriorated.
It was a bit of poetic justice that Mother Nature waited just long enough so that Esteve could have his well-earned moment of glory. Esteve, a 41-year-old Puerto Rico native who resides in Windermere, Florida, has weathered staunch adversity – in last week’s tournament and in his life at large – to capture one of mid-am golf’s most coveted titles.
“It’s a little bit of disbelief,” Esteve said. “I can’t believe that my name is up on that board in the locker room, and I can’t believe a Puerto Rican is up there.”
Esteve didn’t have his fastball early in the week during practice rounds, but he grinded his way through some ultimately successful range sessions that put him in a better place mentally. Jero (pronounced like Hair-O) opened with a 2-under 70 and, after a 1-over 73 on day two, was only one stroke back of 36-hole leader Evan Beck. It was the second consecutive year that Beck led heading into the final round. Stewart Hagestad, who rallied to beat Beck in the 2022 Coleman, sat tied with Esteve at 1-under.
“To play with two of the mid-ams being considered for the Walker Cup and to come out on top, for me was really special.”
Jeronimo Esteve
The tournament figured to come down to Beck or Hagestad, two Walker Cup candidates who have been in outstanding form. Esteve was the shortest hitter of the group and by far the oldest, and when he sloppily bogeyed the par-5 third to fall three strokes behind Beck, it seemed as though Esteve might bow out of contention.
Just the opposite happened. Esteve extracted himself from a fairway bunker on No. 4 and scrambled to make a wonderful par, chipping from left of the green to within a few feet. Then he made a preposterously terrific birdie on the daunting par-3 fifth, a punishing hole that played more than a shot over par at times during the week. Beck had gone bogey-bogey over those two holes to quickly lose the lead, while Hagestad also faltered and would never regain his footing.
The tournament was defined by what happened on No. 6. Esteve hit a poor approach shot right of the green and left himself with a treacherous pitch from a scraggly lie to an elevated green. He masterfully saved par after bumping a clever shot into the slope and leaving himself a short putt. Meanwhile, Beck went left of the green and plugged his pitch into a greenside bunker, leading to a double bogey.
Playing competitors are used to seeing Esteve escape from difficult situations, a habit that has earned him a nickname involving a golf legend.
“That up and down on No. 6 was ridiculous,” Esteve said. “The lie I had was atrocious, and I just saw the shot in my head and hit a 54 (degree). The guys back at my club (Isleworth Golf and Country Club) call me ‘Heavy Seve.’ My (caddie Gunnar) didn’t know that, and he says, ‘I’m going to start calling you Seve now.’ ”
From that point forward, Esteve felt in command. He found the water off the tee on the par-5 ninth but hit a phenomenal third shot with a long iron into the heart of the green en route to saving par. That was a microcosm of Esteve’s recovery ability throughout the day.
Esteve then made a 15-foot birdie putt on No. 11, accentuated with a fist pump. Despite a bogey on No. 13, he bounced back with a straightforward two-putt birdie on No. 14 and a 7-foot birdie conversion on No. 16.
After missing a short par bid on the par-3 17th, Esteve thought he held only a one-stroke lead over Beck, who had hung tough despite a string of costly errors on the front nine. The margin was two strokes, however, and Esteve ended up just needing a bogey to close it out. He hit his approach shot into the right greenside bunker and splashed out to inside 10 feet, but the two-putt for bogey was slightly more adventurous than he bargained for as he ran the initial try a few feet past the hole. Had Esteve missed the comebacker, the ensuing playoff probably wouldn’t have occurred for at least a couple hours, if that.
No matter, Esteve was safely in as the champion at even-par 216. No amount of lightning could stop that.
“To play with two of the mid-ams being considered for the Walker Cup and to come out on top, for me was really special,” Esteve said.
The Esteve story is one of the best narratives in mid-am golf over the past decade. Born in Puerto Rico, he moved to the mainland at age 9 with his family. His dad, Jeronimo Esteve III, was a Cuban who sought exile first in Puerto Rico and then in Miami where he bought a Toyota dealership. All these years later, his son now owns three car dealerships in Orlando and one in Miami.
Esteve went to Dartmouth and enjoyed competitive amateur golf, but he almost had it taken away from him in 2011 when he was diagnosed with stage 1 Hodgkin’s lymphoma after he discovered a lump in his neck during a suit fitting for his sister’s wedding. He traveled to Houston to start six months of chemotherapy and radiation.
In that scary time, his relationship with golf grew stronger.
“Golf is what got me through it all,” Esteve said. “My doctor was a big fan of me playing through my treatment. He thought that would keep me strong, and it really did help me. That was my escape. I stopped thinking about the cancer and focused on golf.”
When he got on the other side of cancer, the affable Esteve started to perform well on the course. The past couple of years, that work has come to fruition. He won the Carlton Woods Invitational and Devil’s Elbow Invitational in 2021 before a top-five finish in the George C. Thomas Invitational last year. Earlier this year, he finished tied for eighth in the Latin America Amateur Championship and tied for fifth in the Gasparilla Invitational.
But nothing is quite as big as this.
Beck, a former Wake Forest golfer who has overcome back issues to become one of the top mid-ams in the world, claimed solo second for the second straight year. Although disappointing not to close out the Coleman yet again, the result could boost his Walker Cup candidacy. Zach Atkinson of Texas and Mark Costanza of New Jersey shared third. Hagestad fell to a final-round 77 and solo fifth.
A few interesting faces earned top-15 finishes to guarantee spots in next year’s Coleman: a reinvigorated Trip Kuehne, Jonathan Bale of Wales and the recently reinstated Bobby Wyatt.
The senior division of the Coleman was won by Roger Newsom, a 59-year-old ophthalmologist from Virginia Beach, Virginia. He shot 1-under 215 – including a 2-under 70 on the last day – to beat Mike McCoy by two strokes.
Newsom, the runner-up in the 2019 U.S. Senior Amateur, was challenged when McCoy made birdies at Nos. 11, 13 and 14. However, a double bogey on the par-5 15th sank McCoy’s chances.
Here are a few other news and notes from Seminole:
Seminole is famous for not tolerating slow play, which made the final mid-am threesome during Saturday’s final round stand out for all the wrong reasons.
Final-round tee times were moved up to account for the impending storm, so the trio of Esteve, Beck and Hagestad started their round at 11:30 a.m. They fell out of position almost immediately, leaving more than a hole between them and the penultimate group.
Starting on the third hole, the group received routine shuttle service between shots to make up ground and hopefully beat the weather. It didn’t speed things up much. As the final group stood on the ninth green, the penultimate group was seen walking off the 11th green. The final threesome was briefly put on the clock at that point, although nothing much came of it. They didn’t get back into position until the 17th hole and ultimately took 4 hours and 40 minutes to complete the round – despite considerable assistance with cart rides – which is a glacial pace by Seminole standards. The club notes to tournament participants that no round should take more than four hours.
A record 13 international players competed in the Coleman. No non-American has won the mid-am title since Irishman Eoghan O’Connell, in 2005 and 2006.
There are few golf courses that feel more wide open than Seminole, but a recent change added to that experience. A thick section of mangroves that bordered Nos. 3 and 7 was removed, further exposing that part of the Donald Ross masterpiece.
There also was some interesting bunker work that stood out on Nos. 16 and 17. Some of the greenside bunkers are now “walk-in bunkers” better connected to the vast sandy areas. It makes for an even more minimalist, rustic feel that fits so well at Seminole.
Because the field for this year’s tournament clocked in at 109 players – up considerably from last year – there was a 36-hole cut instituted for the mid-am and senior divisions. Players who missed the cut were, of course, still welcome to use the practice facilities and attend the Saturday night suit-and-tie dinner held each year after the tournament.
This was the second year that live scoring was provided, a notable development for a club that traditionally has steered away from allowing cellphones on the course. Rather than having players fill out scores on their phones, volunteers were helping with that process.
How is this for a fascinating mix of playing partners? On day one, four-time U.S. Mid-Am champion Nathan Smith played with four-time Japan Mid-Am winner Yutaka Toyoshima.
Toyoshima got the best of Smith, the 2025 U.S. Walker Cup captain. The Japanese mid-am shot 72 on the opening day (to Smith’s 78) and wound up in an admirable tie for 20th. Smith made the 36-hole cut but settled for a T40 finish.
RESULTS
Sean Fairholm