Irish interest came to an end after 36 holes of strokeplay at the US Amateur Championship after Matthew McClean and Max Kennedy both missed the cut.
Both players were perched inside the all important top-64 after round one but endured frustrating second rounds at Hazeltine to miss out on the knockout stages.
McClean (Malone) was ranked as high as eighth place after back to back birdies on holes three and four propelled him to four-under but his round unravelled with a double bogey on the sixth and bogeys on the ninth, 14th, 15th and 17th as he fell to a 76 to miss the cut by two on two-over.
Royal Dublin’s Kennedy missed the cut on three-over after falling to a second round of 77 in which he carded three double bogeys.
39-year-old oil and gas landman Jimmy Ellis, who half-jokingly said he’d have trouble winning his club championship at Atlantic Beach (Fla.) Country Club, came within a few inches of matching the all-time USGA 18-hole scoring record en route to claiming medalist honours against a 312-player field that includes 18 of the top 20 players in the World Amateur Golf Ranking®
Ellis, who claimed the 2024 Florida State Amateur to get a spot in this year’s field, carded a 9-under-par 61 at stroke-play co-host Chaska Town Course on Tuesday – and coupled with his 1-under 71 at Hazeltine National Golf Club – registered a 36-hole total of 10-under 132 to best Duke University rising sophomore Ethan Evans, of Mercer Island, Wash., by a stroke. Evans, 20, played his final nine holes (Chaska Town Course’s outward nine) in 29 strokes en route to a 7-under 63.
Ellis, a Ohio University graduate, became the first mid-amateur (25 years and older) to garner medalist/co-medalist honors since Neil Raymond, then a 27-year-old from England, was co-medalist with Brady Watt in 2013 at The Country Club in Brookline, Mass. The last solo mid-am medalist was Jeff Wilson in 2010 at Chambers Bay in University Place, Wash.
His 132 total was one off the championship mark set by Hayden Wood in 2017 at The Riviera Country Club and stroke-play co-host Bel Air Country Club, in Los Angeles. Five others have posted 132 in the championship, including 2013 USA Walker Cupper Bobby Wyatt at Cherry Hills Country Club/CommonGround Golf Course in suburban Denver.
“That’s pretty crazy,” said Ellis, competing in his second U.S. Amateur and sixth USGA championship. “It’s just a blind squirrel. I literally made everything today. I bet if we play this tournament 100 times, there is zero percent chance I would be the medalist.
“[My goal this week was] just try to sneak into match play and try to upset some big name. That would have been the cool thing to do. But this is just weird.”