Photo courtesy of USGA/Chris Keane
Union’s Andy Ogletree made history on Sunday as he became the first Mississippian to ever win the U.S. Amateur Championship.
Ogletree, a rising senior at Georgia Tech, overcame an early four-hole deficit to win the 119th Amateur Championship, beating Vanderbilt senior John Augenstein at the famed Pinehurst Resort in North Carolina.
Ogletree puts his name on the famed Havemeyer Trophy with the likes of golf legends, Bobby Jones, Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus just to name a few.
Earlier this summer, Ogletree won the prestigious Monroe Open but said he didn’t know how he was going to play or what to expect.
“Going into the week, I wasn’t feeling that good about it,” Ogletree said in a phone interview on Sunday night while drive back to Atlanta in preparation for a 9 a.m. Monday morning class. “I took the week off and went to the Fair and didn’t play that much. I worked on a game a little after the Fair. I came to Pinehurst not knowing where I was at. My swing wasn’t where I wanted and I played a terrible practice round on Saturday. But I work on my swing and figured some things out and made eight birdies on Sunday.”
Ogletree shot 70-72 in the stroke-play portion of the tournament to qualify for match play. After a close call in the round of 32 in which he needed an extra hole to win, Ogletree won 5 and 4 in the round of 16 and 6 and 5 in the quarterfinals.
“I thought that I could win from the beginning,” Ogletree said. “When I got to the quarterfinals, it started to become real. The crowds kept getting bigger. The crowd really loved Cohen Trolio and that was a fun match. It was a really cool week.”
Saturday’s semifinals were televised live on Fox and Ogletree beat another Mississippi native in Cohen Trolio from West Point. Trolio is a high school junior at Oak Hill Academy in West Point.
Then on Sunday, Ogletree had to play a 36-hole match against Augenstein where he fell behind by four holes early in the match. He trailed by two holes after the first 18 holes of play.
“To be honest, I wasn’t playing that bad,” Ogletree said. “John came out really strong and made some birdies. I was 3-under after the first 18 holes so I wasn’t playing that bad.”
Ogletree didn’t pull even until the 31st hole and then took the lead o the 32nd hole and never game it up. He won 2 and 1 on the 35th hole when Augenstein rolled two putts by the hole.
The win qualifies Ogletree for a number of major events, including the Walker Cup which begins Sept. 7 at Royal Liverpool in England. He also earns a spot in the 2020 U.S. Open Championship at Winged Foot, the 2020 Masters and the 2020 British Open championship.
