People, this is where people start to get good. The 2025 American amateurs dropped to eight o’clock, with the four games set to be held at the Olympic Club in San Francisco on Friday afternoon.
And the rest of the participants? This is a solid group. First, here is the showdown (always ET):
4:30 pm – Niall Shiels Donegan (Scotland) and Jacob Modleski (Indiana)
4:45 pm – Jimmy Abdo (Minnesota) vs. Jackson Herrington (Tennessee)
5 pm – Mason Howell (Georgia) and John Daly II (Arkanas)
5:15 pm – Miles Russell (Florida) vs. Eric Lee (California)
Where to start? Probably along with Abdo, the world’s No. 4292-ranked amateur Abdo, rose at a small Level III school in Minnesota (Gustavus Adolphus Academy).
Or maybe with Daly, son of two-time major champion John Daly. Or maybe Russell, who was 15 years old last year, became the youngest player to advance in the Korn Ferry Tour Championship. Then there was Shiels Donegan, whose family moved to the Bay Area when he was 3 years old. It was essentially his home game, it showed in a wild and last interview Thursday.
But first, let’s go back to Abdo of the losers this week.
He didn’t compete until he went to school and admitted that he didn’t have “any special” in high school. As he slowly began to improve, he participated in some bigger events. This is his first attempt to qualify for an American amateur. Now he is in the dormitory.
“I never felt like I was ready. I was never really recruited from high school,” he said. “This kind of story that added to this failure, and no one really believed that I was able to play golf like this. I knew I had that confidence, even when I was in high school. I didn’t play in the state championship roster until the first year of high school, and I didn’t have a hard time proving that.
While it might be surprising that Abdo will make it happen, the same thing can’t be said for some others, including Modleski (the 15th amateur), Russell (16th) and Lee (29th).
Russell is only 16 years old and is the world’s highest-ranked junior amateur. His list of achievements and honors is longer than most in the field, including surpassing Tiger Woods to become the youngest award at the AJGA Rolex Boy Player of the Year award, which he won in 2023.
On Friday afternoon, Russell will face Lee, a 20-year-old junior at Oklahoma State, who won the Cowboys’ victory in the 2025 NCAA National Championship.
