Throughout this past week, the US Amateur golf championship was held at Merion Golf Club just outside Philadelphia. Once upon a time, the US Amateur was considering one of the “majors” in the golf world, but as you can probably guess from the name, it is only for amateur players. Considering that all the big-name players are professional, that makes them ineligible for the US Am. However, the event still features plenty of stars of the golf world — it’s just they’re usually future ones who are currently still playing at the college level.
This year’s tournament included several current North Carolina Tar Heels golfers. While none of them ended up making it all the way to the championship rounds of this year’s US Am, let’s take a look at how they did.
Five UNC golfers qualified for this year’s championship, which begins with two rounds of stroke play. Carson Bertangole and Niall Shiels Donegan led the way for the Tar Heel contingent, both finishing tied for 33rd at +1 over par. The other three Carolina golfers ended up missing the post-second run cut. Respectively, Coltrane Mittag finished at +4, Sihan Sandhu at +8, and Grant Roscich at +11, with +2 being the line needed to advance on.
A playoff then whittled down the field to 64 for a bracket of match play matches, to which Bertangole and Shiels Donegan both advanced. Both Heels handled business in that round, with Shiels Donegan defeating his opponent 4&3 and Bertangole winning 3&2.
Unfortunately, that is where both Tar Heels’ runs ended. In the Round of 32, Bertangole fell to Max Herendeen, while Shiels Donegan was defeated by Jack Turner. Turner ended up making it all the way to the quarterfinals, so no big shame in falling to him. Shiels Donegan in particular was probably hoping for a little deeper run, as he had made it all the way to the semifinals in the 2025 event. However, the US Am format is always a difficult test.
Congrats to all five Tar Heels who got to compete at this year’s US Amateur.