O.T. Three cheers for the USGA, R&A and The Masters!

[Randy Thompson]

  For working together and creating the Latin America Amateur Championship. An excellent and growing tournament for Latin America attracting world-class, amateur players from around the world. The tournament was held recently in Chile and Chilean world ranked number one amateur, 19 year old, Jaoquin Niemann won with an incredible closing round of 63, which included minus seven in a seven hole stretch of holes eight through 15! He has held the world ranking number one position for almost a year now. This kid has it all except a level of English sufficient for Universities in the USA, so he will probably announce turning professional in the upcoming months. Three cheers also for Chile and the Chilean Golf Federation for producing three champions in the last four years! I am a little disappointed, that next year`s site was announced this week and will return to, Teeth of the Dog, one of my favorite courses. I was hoping they would use the fairly new Olympic course in Brazil!

[Matt_Cohn]

He's the best amateur in the world and there's no point to him coming to college here. He speaks a lot more English than Jon Rahm did on his first day at ASU!

[Tom_Doak]

Randy:


Where did they play the event this year?  Los Leones?

[Cal Seifert]

Watched him play in this years US Amateur at Riv.  Fantastic player and excited to see him play in the Masters.  One of my favorite parts of Majors is seeing the amateurs play and sometimes compete.  Nothing like seeing the amateurs playing with college stand bags and their dad as a caddy.

[Randy Thompson]

Randy:


Where did they play the event this year?  Los Leones?

Prince of Wales, the logistics are superior and they recentlly had the web.com for three years, so in my opinión a good choice. The Master`s chairman and the woman thats running the USGA these days, played Los Leones on Sunday!

[Jeff Schley]

For as many criticisms as the media has for Augusta National membership and whoever is in charge, they have done some very worthwhile things to champion golf for the youth and international players.  From opening up automatic spots in the Masters for amateur champions to putting their name behind the Drive, Chip, and Putt contest.  They are trying to be forward thinking and realize they have significant power to affect the future of the game by picking under served populations to increase participation and grow the game.  Kudos to them I say, despite the jealousy many have for them. The members are rich and powerful, and have attained the pinnacle of status some would say by being members; however I want to give credit to them for their efforts which Billy Paine started and now Fred Ridley is up.

Next target : Masters spec golf ball to be used exclusively for the Masters tournament by all players.  You can do it!

[Joe Hellrung]

Next step - a Ladies Masters tournament at Augusta.  Make it happen.