Pebble beach, caliph. – If you followed the amateur golf for the last decade or more, you know the name Stewart HagestadLong and thin amateur player from southern California and Finance Executive. He was the oldest player, so far, playing in Pedestrian cuphere in Cypress. He is 34 years old.
And when Hagestad won his game for bachelors on Sunday on Eliot Baker of Great Britain and Ireland, 4 and 3, he provided point 13.5 for the US, which meant the Americans, the Walker 2023 Cup winners would at least provide the cup. The last meeting was US 17, GB & I 9.
This victory made Hagestad a winner five times. He has played in five Walker Cup teams – 2017, 2019, 2021, 2023 and this year – and Americans won all those events.
Fred Plesifts play a lot of Golf with Hagestad, and the couples were about cypress for part of the week, chatting players here and there, in his inimitable way. “But I’m leaving Stewart alone,” couples said. “He doesn’t need anything from me.”
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Hagestad has played in eight large championships, three masters and five opened the US. He looks like a polished player of the tournament. He is often asked why he has never tried to play as a professional. His standard response tells everyone.
“In the masters of 2017, my golf was almost as good as it could be, and I finished T-36,” Hagestad said the next day. He was a low amateur that year. Sergio Garcia won, on 279. HAGESTADE HOURS 294. “So where will I end up when I’m not playing my best?”
Matt Kuchar He was in Cypress with his son, Cameron, a beginner in the Christian Golf team in Texas. The old man was going to the tournament that was being played in Napa this week, the Procore Championship. He played a limited PGA Tour schedule in 2025 after the sudden death of his father, Peter, earlier this year. Looking at the show from outside the ropes, he was asked if it had a meaning, among the 20 Walker Cup players, who would have a chance to do it in professional golf – and who did not. Elsewhere in the course, Fred Ridley And his wife, Betsy, were also on Walker Cup. Ridley won the American amateur in 1975 and is the last winner who never returned in favor. Kuchar won the American amateur in 1997.
“You can’t say to watch a kick here or a kick there,” Kuchar said. “If you see them in the range, you may make more sense. But if you can play with a boy over 36 or 72 holes, then you really know.”
And what is the difference? Some boys have it. Some boys have the ability to grind it, play every type of shot from 60 yards at the end of the hole, have enough obsessive to want to do it, ready to sacrifice other things in their effort to get there. Among the elite amateurs of Lifer and Joel Dahmes of the World lies a noise.
Roger MaltbieVeteran narrator NBC Sports Golf, who played PGA Tour for years, considered what Hagestad said about his master’s experience for 2017 and said, “This sums up everything.”
In his seven diplomas after the 2017 masters, where he was a low amateur, Hagestad lost six cuts and made one. But he will most likely be a captain of the Walker Cup one day. He will most likely play on next year’s Walker Cup team (Walker Cup will go to Lahinch in Ireland as well. He is doing well.
Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments in Michael.bamberger@golf.com.
