BIRKDALE, ENGLAND | A day is a long time in golf.
On the par-3 16th hole of his Amateur Championship semifinal at Hillside Golf Club on Friday, South Africa’s Christo Lamprecht stood 2 down to England’s Frank Kennedy when Lamprecht’s tee shot missed the green. His pitch finished 10 feet short of the pin, and his opponent had a putt from 25 feet, albeit from off the green, for a birdie to claim a 3-and-2 win.
Less than 24 hours later, however, Lamprecht was the one celebrating a 3-and-2 victory on that same 16th hole, this time in the championship final against Switzerland’s Ronan Kleu. It completed a dramatic turnaround, earning the 22-year-old Lamprecht entry to this year’s Open at Royal Liverpool and next year’s U.S. Open, plus an invitation to the 2024 Masters.
In the aftermath of his triumph, Lamprecht was quick to emphasise that, in a week involving 10 rounds of competitive golf, “a lot has to go your way.” When it did, he consistently was unafraid to take advantage.
In the first instance, the highest-ranked player in the field (sixth in the World Amateur Golf Ranking) squeezed into the 64-man match play by carding a birdie on his final hole of the stroke-play stage. In the second, Kennedy rushed that putt on 16 some 4 feet past the hole. Lamprecht drained his testing par putt, and Kennedy missed.
The South African team likes to joke that the 6-foot-8 Lamprecht was once as willowy as a giraffe, but that he is now a very different animal, and what happened next proved it. He thrashed his drive down the 563-yard, par-5 17th, flipped a short iron to a green high above the fairway among the dunes, holed for a winning eagle, and then also claimed the 18th to progress to the 36-hole final. He had smelt blood, and he had gone in for the kill: a giraffe no more.
Large galleries swept across the linksland along the Irish Sea on Saturday, intrigued by the contrasting styles: the South African sledgehammer versus Swiss timing. Conditions all week had been conducive to good scoring. The grass in the rough was wispy and dry, the fairways fast, the greens receptive, the wind never more than a breeze. Hillside was there for the taking, and Lamprecht took it.
His swing prompted astounded laughter, and sometimes gasps of potty-mouthed astonishment, from the galleries. It is a ferocious move that in one sense defies modern conformity (there is little connection of the limbs) but in another is very typical: he seeks to hit the ball as fast, as hard and as far as he can. His long levers, plus the hip turn and knee bend of a hammer thrower, produces explosive power, and he used it to overwhelm the par-4s. Eight of Hillside’s 10 of them measured from 393 to 421 yards, and Lamprecht took aim at their greens with his blunderbuss of a driver.
His South African teammates ran through the dunes, often assisting in the hunt for his ball, and they chuckled at his length and his boom-or-bust strategy. But they also recognised that his arsenal has more to it than strength. Lamprecht, the 2017 South African Amateur champion and winner of the 2018 East of Ireland Amateur at County Louth, proved he can putt, can chip, and he can do it by the British and Irish seasides.
Kleu fought hard. His opponent made birdie on each of the last four holes of the morning round, and Kleu matched two of them, but the 2-up advantage the South African took into lunch would never be breached. Even when Lamprecht smashed his driver out of bounds on the fifth, he found a way to halve the hole.
“I was resilient and I played match play the right way,” said Lamprecht, who will enter his senior collegiate year this fall at Georgia Tech. “I hung in there on every shot and on every hole. What happened on five made me as proud as the birdies.”
After sealing the win, he said: “I haven’t won something big in a long time, and it’s one to win, for sure. I’m ecstatic.”
Reminded that he is the third South African winner of the British Amateur in six years (following Jovan Rebula in 2018 and Aldrich Potgieter last year), he said: “I’ve learned what to do with links golf, and this is my fifth tour over here with the SA squad. I’m guessing South Africans like playing links golf. We kind of like being creative, so I guess that flows over. It’s always nice to be part of history and enrich it.”
Harking back to his win in Ireland five years ago, he added: “It’s scary because I’ve grown up a lot since then thanks to college. Going there is the best decision I’ve ever made, besides entering this event. I can’t thank Georgia Tech enough or my coaches, Devin Stanton and Bruce Heppler. I’m a better person, a better human, a better golfer thanks to them.”
He will return to South Africa to celebrate, but now also has a return to England planned next month for the 151st Open Championship at Royal Liverpool.
“It’s amazing to get into the Open,” he said. “It’s probably the biggest kind of milestone I put on myself this year, to get myself in a major and get that experience. To get into three is pretty amazing. But right now, I’m going to go and celebrate as much as I can.”
He also had a word for his caddie and South Africa teammate Christiaan Maas, who completed an unusual double after carrying the bag for Potgieter 12 months ago.
“He’s an amazing golfer in his own right,” Lamprecht said of Maas. “He’s going to do amazing things and he’s probably going to win this championship as well, in my opinion. Just having him on the bag and having a little bit of experience helped. We play golf very similarly and approach the game the same way.”
A disappointed Kleu said: “I’m pretty down, unfortunately, but it’s definitely been a good week. I can take a lot of positives from it. Golf is growing in Switzerland. I hope that I manage to help out.”
The international flavour of the week was notable. The quarterfinals featured golfers from Thailand, Sweden, Ireland, England and Estonia in addition to the Swiss and South African finalists. The championship also enhanced the player experience, responding to feedback to include an onsite chill-out area, gym and the services of a physio. The progression to the pro ranks is getting smoother by the year.
RESULTS
Matt Cooper