RI Am Champ Mike Calef Set for 4th U.S. Amateur Appearance
Rhode Island Amateur Champion Mike Calef will take his fourth U.S. Amateur appearance on Monday afternoon when he tees it up at Olympic Club in California.
“The U.S. Amateur, it’s the best golf in the world. For me, it’s literally just testing how good your golf game is against the best amateur players in the world on one of the most difficult golf courses in the world and see where you stack up,” Calef told GolfNewsRI following a practice round at Olympic Club Sunday evening.
Calef earned the U.S. Am bid by winning the Rhode Island Amateur earlier this summer at Rhode Island Country Club in a 36 hole battle against Jake Bauer.
This is the second year in which the RI Amateur Champ gets a ticket to the U.S. Am.
“I’m certainly going to take advantage of it this year and I’m going to enjoy myself. The level of play in New England, State Amateur play is as good as you get anywhere. And so if you win that, you’re doing something special and it’s really cool to get paid off by, playing in tor making it to the US amateur,” said Calef.
Calef’s first U.S. Amateur appearance was in 2000 at Baltustrol in New Jersey where he played with the number one amateur in the world at the time, Luke Donald.
“The first time you go to a USGA event it’s an eye opening experience. There’s USGA flags. There’s all the different countries that are represented and those flags. There’s people everywhere. You have over 300 players, plus caddies, plus coaches, plus parents, The range is packed, the putting green is packed, so it takes a couple of days just to kind of figure out what’s happening, figure out the clubhouse and dining and registration,” said Calef.
He then played in 2011 at Southern Hills and 2017 at Riviera, before arriving at Olympic this week.
“I know what to expect and I know the fun parts that I really look forward to and I know some of the things that you know, you kind of can breathe through a little bit, but you wanna just take the whole thing in for sure,” the Wanumetonomy member added.
The stroke play portion of the U.S. Amateur will be played on two different courses, the Lake Course and the Ocean Course.
Calef tees off at 4:07 p.m. eastern time off the ninth hole at the Olympic Club’s Lake Course.
He is playing alongside Noah Goldman and Malan Potgieter.
Lake Course Breakdown
Calef starts his U.S. Amateur at the Lake Course, which he says is the harder of the two venues.
This is the course that has hosted five U.S. Opens, and is where main tournament (match play) will be played this week.
The Lake Course will play at 7, 214 yards, with two par-5s and four par-3s.
“The course was completely renovated in 2023 by Gil Hans so you have new layouts on some of the holes, but mainly where it impacts us is a lot of the greens are new and so with new greens they’re just super firm and super fast, There’s not gonna be any golf balls that are backing up at all,” said Calef.
One factor that will impact play at the U.S. Amateur is the marine layer that is common out in California, particularly in the mornings.
“The Lake Course is incredibly long. It is 7200 and when there’s a marine layer, my caddie, Brian, and I are adding 10% to all of our numbers because we think that’s about how heavy the air is. You add 10% 7200 yards on your golf courses and we think it’s at least 7600,” noted Calef.
Calef also noted that as far as strategy goes on the Lake Course, he is going to be playing to front quarters of greens due to expectations that the ball will roll out a half a club length.
The Ocean Course
The Ocean Course is the alternate course for the stroke play portion of the tournament.
It will play at 6, 787 yards this week, with just two par-5s and four par-3s.
“The rough is really, really long. It’s 6700 or something like that, and it’s a lot more playable, there’s more elevation change. The lake course is kind of on the side of a hill, so every hole seems to just slope right to left or left to right, but the Ocean Course has much more ups and downs,” noted Calef.
He played the Ocean Course on Sunday prior to chatting with GolfNewsRI.
The elevation changes make for some cool holes and some cool views.
“There’s a par 3 (10th hole) where it plays like 170 yards tand it plays 33 yards downhill. So it plays like 140 yards. it’s a really cool hole cause it’s like straight downhill and then you have a couple holes that are straight uphill,” said Calef.
Calef notes that while the Ocean Course is more gettable, it is still hard, “but not impossible.”
“The Lake Course, I played and had like long irons into approach shots into the par 4s. I think I only had two wedges, and then the Ocean Course, it was a little more traditional where I probably had four or five wedges and mostly mid-irons and things like that, not as many 4 irons and hybrids Into greens,” said Calef.
He added, “except for the first hole, which I’m not quite sure that I’ll even be able to reach it in two, to be honest.”
The first hole at the Ocean Course is a 521 yard, par 4.
Calef says the plan is to “survive” the Lake Course in the first round on Monday and then perhaps have a chance to make some headway on Tuesday.
Keys to the Game
The low 64 players through two rounds of stroke play will advance to the match play portion of the tournament.
There will be a playoff to decided the final spots if necessary.
So, the key to the week for Calef – patience.
“It’s patience and for me, it’s driving the ball straight. If you’re in the rough, you’re lucky to advance it 100 yards. So, on a lot of these holes, you’re hitting driver, or trying to position yourself with a 3 wood, and then you might have 200 to 230 yards for your second,” said Calef.
As he previously noted, the rough is impossible on both courses.
“if you’re in the rough every time you’re playing a hole it just makes it that much more difficult. The patience piece of it is just gonna be you’re gonna hit bad shots. You’re gonna land balls in the middle of the greens that are gonna bounce over back into the rough and things like that. So you, you just can’t really beat yourself up. It’s easy to get down on your golf game on such a hard golf course, but you know, everybody’s gonna play it,” added Calef.
While patience will be a key for Calef this week, there will also be times to be aggressive and try to go for birdies.
“It’s case by case, right? If you have an uphill putt and you know it’s something where it continues to be uphill so you can be a little more aggressive with it. I’ve putt it this year better than I have putt it in, as long as I can remember. So I really have to rely on that to help me,” said Calef.
He tells GolfNewsRI that he thinks the greens were running at about a 13 on the stimp meter, but he charted some greens during the practice rounds where they could be opportunities.
“With the Ocean Course today (Sunday), as we’re kind of charting the greens out, we found there were a couple of greens that were maybe a little slower going one direction or another. So it’s really about if you have a club where you can be a little more precise with the yardage, you try to get yourself below the hole so you’re putting up at it,” said Calef.
Either way, the U.S. Amateur will present a heck of a test for Calef and all the competitors.
Other Notables in Field
Along with Calef there are several other notables in the field, both on a local scale and a national scale.
Some familiar names include former Northeast Amateur Champion Anthony Delisanti, Ian Poulter’s son Luke, Connecticut’s Ben James, Massachusetts’ Matt Parziale, mid-am superstar Stewart Hagestad, golf phenom Miles Russell, John Daly II, defending Northeast Amateur Champion Preston Stout, New Hampshire phenom Josiah Hakala.
Also in the field is Rhode Island Am runner-up Jake Bauer, who got in through qualifying, and more.