PINEHURST, NORTH CAROLINA | Neal Shipley joined some elite company here Sunday at the U.S. Open, and he intends to use it as motivation for the next chapter in his golf life.
Shipley, a 23-year-old from Pittsburgh, emerged from a tight duel with playing competitor Luke Clanton that came down to the last hole to win the low-amateur honor at Pinehurst’s No. 2 course. Shipley, a recent Ohio State graduate, shot 2-over 72 for a 6-over 286 total to tie for 26th and edge Clanton by two strokes.
“It's really an honor to win the low amateur here, and especially at Pinehurst,” said Shipley, who was surrounded by friends and family who followed his amateur finale. “It's a really special place.”
Shipley became the sixth player to be low amateur at the Masters and at the U.S. Open in the same year. The others – Ken Venturi (1956), Jack Nicklaus (1960), Phil Mickelson (1991), Matt Kuchar 1998) and Viktor Hovland (2019) – went on to become multiple winners on the PGA Tour.
The 25th two-ball of the day, with Shipley and Clanton teeing off together at 12:04 p.m., had the feel of being a tournament within a tournament: a match-play showdown in the middle of the national championship.
The contrast between the two couldn’t have been more physically disparate. Shipley, with his broad shoulders and husky build, long brown hair flowing from under his cap and onto his shoulders. Clanton, with his rail-thin build, high-and-tight haircut and bouncing along spryly in jogger pants.
The match appeared to be on the verge of ending all-square when Clanton stuck a wedge shot to 5 feet at the uphill 449-yard, par-4 closing hole. But with the chance to tie Shipley for the amateur medal, Clanton slid his birdie putt 4½ feet past the hole and then missed the comebacker. The 20-year-old Florida State junior from Hialeah, Florida, dejectedly tapped in for a 4-over 74 and 8-over 288 total, tying for 41st place.
“I played good,” Clanton said. “I'm very frustrated. It's the U.S. Open; it's always a pleasure being here no matter what. It's hard not to think about it, always constantly in your mind.”
“It was definitely on our minds. We wanted to win.”
Neal Shipley
In Friday’s second round, Clanton birdied his last two holes, Nos. 17 and 18, to make the 5-over cut on the number. He already had a rich history at Pinehurst, where he won the 2022 North & South Amateur and made his U.S. Amateur debut in 2019. He was coming off one of the greatest college seasons in FSU history, winning a school-record three consecutive tournaments in the spring and compiling a school-record 69.33 scoring average. He tried not to dwell on coming so close to adding another victory of sorts at Pinehurst.
“It's been a great week,” he said. “It's been fun.”
Shipley acknowledged that the low-amateur duel was omnipresent.
“It was definitely on our minds,” he said. “We wanted to win.”
Gunnar Broin, a fifth-year Kansas senior from Shorewood, Minnesota, was the other amateur among the 16 entrants to make the cut. He shot a final-round 72 and finished at 16-over 296, tied for 70th.
Now that he has two of amateur golf’s most prized possessions, Shipley will seek new conquests in the game. He has status on PGA Tour Americas and was planning to leave Pinehurst and travel Monday to Victoria, British Columbia, for this week’s Beachland Victoria Open. But he will enter professional golf with some vivid memories of two of the game’s honors on its biggest stages: Augusta National, where he played the final round with Tiger Woods, and now Pinehurst.
“I think it means I've got some big shoes to fill because the guys who have done it before have obviously gone on to have some great careers,” Shipley said. “It just really solidifies my amateur career as I turn pro next week, and I'm just really happy with the career that I've had as an amateur and the legacy hopefully that I'll leave.”
Steve Harmon