HOYLAKE, ENGLAND | Stuart Grehan’s triumph in the 131st Amateur Championship was forged in Ireland, conceived in the Czech Republic, inspired in California and achieved in England.
If that unlikely cocktail suggests rampant complexity, at its heart is a straightforward – and rather old-fashioned – love of golf.
Grehan, a 33-year-old Irishman, honed his game on the fairways and greens of County Louth, and he turned professional in 2018. Over the next seven years he plugged away, mostly on Europe’s third-tier circuits and mostly, too, to little effect.
In October 2024 he completed the third round of the Czech Challenge on the second-tier HotelPlanner Tour near Prague when reality hit. He missed his wife, he missed his young son, Kai (born that June), and he missed playing golf for the joy of it.
That night he filled in the form to regain his amateur status, and the next morning he played the final round of both the tournament and his professional career.
“Did I think I was good enough? Absolutely. But when I looked at it all on a deeper level, it came down to me not being in love with the lifestyle and not wanting to be away from my wife and child for weeks at a time,” he said.
Eleven months later he made his Walker Cup debut for Great Britain and Ireland at Cypress Point. His team’s defeat on the California coast hurt, but the experience was addictive – as was the knowledge he did not want to miss the next match on home soil at Lahinch this September.
And so to Royal Liverpool last week where he made relatively serene progress through two rounds of stroke play and four stages of match play – including a first-round, 3-and-2 defeat of his Walker Cup teammate Eliot Baker – to the final.
“I don’t feel the pressure as much now that I’m not playing golf for a living. Well, I feel pressure but it’s competitive pressure.”
Stuart Grehan
When his semifinal victory was confirmed it launched a whirlwind of activity across the Irish Sea as County Louth members rushed to complete the purchase of flights from Dublin to Liverpool while the ladies captain hired a bus for the journeys to and from both airports.
As Grehan and his final opponent, 20-year-old American Matt Moloney, were introduced to the galleries, the red shirts, jumpers and jackets of County Louth members were emerging onto the course, their bleary-eyed wearers chuckling about 3 a.m. alarm calls as they ordered strong coffee from the tented village on the dogleg of the first fairway.
Under bright blue skies the morning round of the scheduled 36-hole final was scrappy. Grehan was unsettled and frustrated. Moloney was secure from tee to green but unable to capitalise with his putter. The American led, 1 up, at the lunch break but it should have been more.
Grehan welcomed the break, initially spending time alone and then hitting balls on the range with his coach, Dave Ruddy. He was an improved golfer in the afternoon and Moloney must have been cursing the break in momentum because he opened with a double bogey and bogey to concede the lead.
Moloney briefly recovered before a key sequence allowed Grehan to grab control of his destiny. He first drained a 40-foot par putt to halve the sixth (“I fancied it – I don’t know why, just one of those moments”) and then hit his approach at the par-5 eighth to 5 feet and holed it for a winning eagle.
From there he quickly built a 3-up advantage which he threatened to fritter away with losses on 16 and 17 before securing a 1-up victory on the final green.
As the fans in red celebrated in style, Grehan hugged his wife, Carla, and 2-year-old Kai, fully aware that the victory assured him of a place on GB&I’s side at Lahinch but also so much more: a start at this year’s Open at Royal Birkdale and next year’s U.S. Open at Pebble Beach. In-between he will receive an invitation to play in the Masters at Augusta National.
The conventional route to the world’s greatest championships on its finest courses had proved onerous. In taking one step backwards Grehan has been able to leap two steps forward – that decision two years ago in the Czech Republic has proved to be an astute one.
“I don’t feel the pressure as much now that I’m not playing golf for a living,” he said before adding: “Well, I feel pressure but it’s competitive pressure.”
The transition from amateur to professional is difficult for many reasons, but the quality of courses is an often underrated factor.
Elite amateur golf is played on the world’s best layouts and professional golf, especially on the second and third tiers, is categorically not. It might be no coincidence that Grehan’s best professional golf came on the rare occasions he got to play on decent tracks.
“I definitely prefer a tougher test,” he said. “I feel like the better ball strikers kind of come out the best in that regard.”
And how about the dynamic of being a full-time financial advisor and elite amateur golfer – how does that work? It turns out he’s a very modern worker.
“If I have a late tee time, I work in the morning. If I have an early tee time, I work in the evenings. I’m always on my emails and I rang a lot of people this week. I’ll be in the office next week, and I’m happy to do that because I need a bit of time off from golf.”
For Moloney it had been an exhausting week. After two practice rounds and the two stroke-play qualifying rounds, every single one of his head-to-head duels reached the final green – and his round of 16 match went to the 24th hole.
That amounted to 168 holes in six days for the rising University of Georgia junior.
“I’m tired and ready to go home, but it’s been an awesome experience,” he said.
“I hit a lot of good putts in the final, but none of them dropped. I wouldn’t have done anything differently.”
His consolation comes in the form of a spot in the R&A’s new Last-Chance Qualifier in which 12 golfers will compete for the final place in the 154th Open Championship on the Monday of championship week at Royal Birkdale.
Top: Stuart Grehan says he doesn’t miss the pressure of playing golf for a living.
Oisin Keniry, R&A via Getty Images