PEBBLE BEACH, CALIFORNIA | It is entirely possible that Stewart Hagestad’s fifth Walker Cup appearance last weekend at the magnificent Cypress Point Club will be the last by a mid-amateur on the American side for the foreseeable future.
Such is the state of the elite mid-amateur game in America.
Mid-amateurs have been an important part of American Walker Cup teams since the very beginning. Chick Evans was 32 when he played in the first Walker Cup Match in 1922, and his teammate that year, Francis Ouimet, was 29. In subsequent years, career amateurs such as Charlie Coe, Bill Campbell, Billy Joe Patton, Vinny Giles and Bill Hyndman III were frequent team members.
Fast forward to the 1980s: In the five matches played in that decade, each American team carried at least three mid-amateurs. The names du jour were Bill Hoffer, Danny Yates, Bob Lewis, David Eger, Jim Holtgrieve, and of course Jay Sigel, who played in nine consecutive Walker Cups.
In the ’90s, four of the five teams played four mid-amateurs. Buddy Marucci, Allen Doyle, John Harris, Tim Jackson and John “Spider” Miller were among the mid-amateurs who populated these teams.
The 2001 team had three mid-amateurs, and then the tide began to turn. Only two mid-ams played on the 2003 squad, none played in 2005, and only one played in 2007 and 2009.
Hagestad, along with Evan Beck, were the only two viable mid-amateur candidates for this year’s U.S. team. For various reasons, other elite mid-amateurs – and there are lots of them – are not willing to invest the time and treasure required to attempt to make the team.
Nathan Smith was the sole mid-amateur on the 2011 team, and he played again in 2013 with Todd White after the USGA instituted a policy of mandating two mid-amateurs on the team at a minimum. The two mid-amateur policy quietly went away when its champion, Tom O’Toole, concluded his service to the USGA as president after the 2015 match. Hagestad has been the only mid-amateur to play in all five of the subsequent matches.
The surprising and disappointing reality is there are plenty of mid-amateurs who have left the professional game and could contend for a Walker Cup berth. This list includes former college standout players like Jeff Quinney, John Petersen, Bobby Wyatt, Blayne Barber, Cory Whitsett, Charles Warren and Chris Williams. There appears to be an indifference toward the Walker Cup among this cohort of players. The only reinstated amateur of late that I am aware of who has Walker Cup aspirations is Michael Weaver, who played at the University of California 11 years ago.
The Walker Cup will be contested again next year in Ireland as the USGA and R&A move it away from being played in the same year as the World Amateur Team Championships. It remains to be seen if Hagestad and Beck give it another try. Neither are getting younger, and as Hagestad said to me at the Western Amateur this summer, “I am getting shorter, and the college kids are getting longer.”
Beck is ranked No. 28 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, but a big driver of that ranking is his 2024 U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship victory. Unless he successfully defends that title next week, his ranking will plummet. His 2026 Walker Cup candidacy won’t have the same momentum as it did in 2025.
Hagestad is ranked No. 44 in the WAGR. After him and Beck, the next highest-ranked mid-amateur is Sean O’Donnell at No. 188. That ranking is not going to draw the attention of Walker Cup selectors.
There have long been two different points of view about the goal of the Walker Cup within the USGA. There are those who believe it is a competition to be won, while others believe it is a competition that promotes international goodwill and tradition, which includes mid-amateur participation. The latter point of view begs the question: what if there are no mid-amateurs who can qualify for a team berth on the merits?
It would be a shame if the 50th playing of this grand amateur competition was the last one with an American mid-amateur on the team.
E-MAIL JIM
Top: Mid-amateur Stewart Hagestad played in his fifth consecutive Walker Cup at Cypress Point.
CHRIS KEANE, USGA