California Teens Eyer, Stone Medalists at Breezy Desert Mountain

Taking advantage of the benign, early-morning conditions, 18-year-old graduating high school seniors Kailer Stone and Liam Eyer managed to post 9-under-par 63 Sunday on Desert Mountain Club’s Outlaw Course, the stroke-play co-host venue for the 11th U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship, to earn medalist honors.

Stone, a U.S. National Development Program Grant athlete from Alameda, Calif., who is headed to Pepperdine University this fall, and San Jose, Calif., resident Eyer, a University of the Pacific signee, backed up their Saturday, 7-under 64 on the Cochise Course for a 36-hole total of 16-under 127. That was one stroke off the championship record held by four other sides.

The conditions on Sunday were similar to what the players faced on Saturday, although the gusts (upper 20s to low 30s) were slightly higher for the second and final round of stroke play. Temperatures, however, did not reach 90. Those in the afternoon wave both days, especially at the more-exposed Outlaw Course, dealt with the wind, and coupled with the altitude and elevation changes, made club decisions a bit more challenging.

“It was super windy, so just hit it low and pray,” said Eyer.

The Northern Californians were one stroke better than two-time runners-up and Scottsdale residents Drew Kittleson, 37, and Drew Stoltz, 41, who followed a first-round 63 at Outlaw with a 5-under 66 at Cochise, and University of Georgia alums/30-year-old Atlanta, Ga., residents Jack Larkin Jr. and Zach Healy, who flirted with the 18-hole championship record before settling for an 8-under 63 at Cochise on Sunday.

Another stroke back at 13-under 130 were 2024 semifinalists and first-round co-leaders Will Davenport, 33, of Boynton Beach, Fla., and Mike Smith, 35, of Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., Southern Californians Jared Abercrombie, 20, of Simi Valley, and University of Oklahoma signee Max Emberson, 18, of Thousand Oaks, and former UC San Diego teammates Kyle Dougherty, 24, of Irvine, Calif., and Justin Gill, 20, of San Marcos, Calif.

Davenport and Smith were in the hunt to possibly medal until they suffered a double-bogey 6 on their closing hole at Cochise, settling for a 67. Abercrombie and Emberson, a member of the USNDP’s Team Southern California, also shot a second-round 67.

Defending champion Tyler Mawhinney, 18, of Fleming Island, Fla., and fellow U.S. National Junior Team member Luke Colton, 18, of Dallas, Texas, finished seven strokes back at 9-under 134 following a 66 on Outlaw. Mawhinney partnered with Will Hartman a year ago at Plainfield Country Club, in New Jersy, but Hartman, a Vanderbilt freshman, was unable to play this year due to NCAA postseason regionals. Mawhinney and Colton, a left-hander, are joining Hartman at the Nashville, Tenn., campus this fall.

Last year’s runners-up, Evan Beck, 34, of Virginia Beach, Va., and Dan Walters, 40, of Winston-Salem, N.C., also advanced at 11-under 132, following a second-round 65 at Outlaw.

The cut for match play came at 6-under 137 with an 8-for-3 playoff for the final match-play spots set for Monday morning at 7.

Stone, a member of  Team Northern California who advanced to the Round of 32 in last year’s U.S. Junior Amateur, carried the side over the closing nine holes, registering five birdies, including three in a row to conclude the round. He two-putted for a 4 on the par-5 16th, hit a wedge to 4 feet on the 382-yard, par-4 17th hole and closed by stuffing a 9-iron from 143 yards into a stiff wind on the severely downhill 477-yard 18th to 5 feet. Eyer, playing in his first USGA event, contributed birdies on Nos. 4, 6 and 8.

But for all the great play, the duo now must refocus for the start of match play, and despite being the top seeds, every advancing side starts at  square one

“Just stick to our game plan, just focus on ourselves,” said Stone, who is 2½ weeks away from graduating and is missing school this week, as is his partner. “I wasn’t looking at the leaderboard at all today, so if we’re medalists, cool. If we’re not, it doesn’t really matter. Making the cut is all that matters.” 

Getting a later tee time for Round 2 after going off first at 6:45 a.m. on Saturday at Outlaw, Kittleson and Stoltz faced the brunt of the wind. Conditions were rather benign for the Whisper Rock members on Saturday, but Sunday brought a stiffer challenge. Nevertheless, they were 7 under after both birdied the par-5 12th. But they gave two shots back with bogeys on 14 and 18.

The wind was substantially [higher] today,” said Stoltz, who co-hosts “Gravy and The Sleaze” on Sirius/XM Radio and the “Subpar Podcast” with two-time USGA champion Colt Knost. “It was in and out too, so it was a steady 10-plus [mph] and then it would gust to 20. It was tricky. Also, I think these greens were a little firmer out here today too, so getting the ball close on some holes was trickier than yesterday. We also got off super early yesterday so we got it as soft as you could get it. We put a few bogeys on the card today and you try to not make too many of those.”

Healy and Larkin did a good job sharing the wealth in Round 2; Larkin converted six birdies and Healy had five. They also covered nicely for each other. When Larkin made a triple-bogey 8 on No. 5, Healy answered with a birdie. That type of teamwork should bode well when the format switches to match play on Monday.

“Classic four-ball, just ham-and-egged it,” said Healy. “I think we were both hitting it really good today, and the predominant part of the day we both had really good [birdie] looks. I think that was the key. Just keep giving ourselves chances and today they fell in for the first half of the round. We didn’t end it the way we wanted to, but mission accomplished for [qualifying for match play].”

Davenport, a former Ivy League Rookie of the Year at Yale University who also owns an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, wasn’t quite as sizzling on the greens on Sunday. Five of his nine birdies in Saturday’s round were 30 feet or longer – he said he made approximately 250 feet worth of putts – but at Cochise, he only converted one long birdie attempt.

Nevertheless, switching to a “broomstick” model putter four years ago has given the Floridian newfound confidence.

 “It’s starting on my line, which is really the reason I went with the broomstick after the 2022 Four-Ball [at the Country Club of Birmingham],” said Davenport, a semifinalist with Smith in 2024 at Philadelphia Cricket Club. “I had around a 6-footer to make match play and had a terrible stroke with a short putter, and I was like, ‘I don’t want to feel like that under pressure again.’

“It’s revolutionized my golf game.”

Elder statesmen Jeremy Defalco, 53, of Tucson, Ariz., and Bryan Hoops, 57, of Scottsdale, Ariz., who finished at 12-under 131 (63-68) and have played a ton of golf in the state, said the back nine of Outlaw was playing as difficult as they have ever seen. Their Sunday round included a pair of heroic up-and-down pars by Hoops as it became more of a survival test.

“Every time I would hit a shot, a gust would come and the ball would pick up speed,” said Hoops, a reinstated amateur who is one of the world’s top senior golfers. “We had a Scotsman in the group and he was saying [the wind] was worse than [some links courses in the United Kingdom].”

What’s Next

For those sides who advanced to the match-play portion of the competition, the Round of 32 at Cochise will begin at 9 a.m. MST off the first tee. The 8-for-3 playoff for the final spots in the draw will commence at 7 a.m. off the 10th tee of Cochise. Match play continues with the Round of 16 and quarterfinals on Tuesday, followed by the semifinals and 18-hole final on Wednesday. Admission is free and the public is encouraged to attend.

Notable

• Of the 16 Arizonans in this year’s championship, nine survived the cut, including seven from Scottsdale. That list includes Drew Kittleson/Drew Stoltz (both Scottsdale); Jeremy Defalco/Bryan Hoops (Tucson, Scottsdale); Cody Massa/Bobby Massa (Cody from Cave Creek); 2024 champions Brian Blanchard/Sam Engel (both Scottsdale); and Desert Mountain member Charlie Allen/Mikey Russello (both Scottsdale).
  
  
• Other notables to advance into the draw included 2022 champions Chad Wilfong and Davis Womble, and 2024 semifinalists Trey Diehl and Mac Scott.
   
• Could this be the final Four-Ball for inaugural champions Nathan Smith and Todd White? The decorated duo with a combined seven USGA titles – Smith, 47, has claimed four U.S. Mid-Amateurs and a Four-Ball, and White, 58, owns titles in the Four-Ball and U.S. Senior Amateur – missed the cut by a stroke. Their 10-year exemption for winning in 2015 concluded this year. The former Walker Cuppers – Smith is captaining the USA Team for a second consecutive year in September – would either need to qualify in the fall, get inside the top 400 of the World Amateur Golf Ranking® or receive a special exemption from the USGA. They are the only side to have competed in all 11 iterations of the championship.
  
  
• Other notables to miss the cut were 2025 quarterfinalists and 2018 runners-up Chip Brooke and Marc Dull; 2016 champions Benjamin Baxter and Andrew Buchanan; 2025 semifinalists Hunter Powell and Carson Looney; Arnold Palmer’s grandson Will Wears and Christopher Baloga; the father-son tandem of Jeff and Ryan Mallette; and 2025 U.S. Open qualifier Matt Vogt and his best friend/caddie at Oakmont Kevin O’Brien. Dull made history last May when he became the first person to win a match as a solo side, earning the duo an exemption for reaching the quarterfinals.
  
  
• The youngest and oldest side in the championship both advanced to match play. William Lisle and Darren Zhou, a pair of 16-year-olds from Hong Kong, China, posted 7-under 136, while Arizonans Bryan Hoops, 57, and Jeremy Defalco, 53, who shared the first-round lead with a 63 at Cochise, finished at 12-under 131. Defalco played tennis at the University of New Mexico before discovering golf, and Hoops was a hockey player in his native Minnesota.
  
  
• There are a few USGA champions competing this week. There is also one on a bag. Jack Larkin Sr. won the 1979 U.S. Junior Amateur, defeating future two-time U.S. Amateur Public Links champion Billy Tuten in the title match. He is caddying for his son, Jack Larkin Jr.
  
  
• A chip-in birdie on Cochise's 18th hole on Sunday helped propel University of Wisconsin teammates  Jacob Beckman and Charlie Erlandson into the 8-for-3 playoff on Monday morning. Beckman, who was just right of the green, holed out for a critical 3.

Quotable

“It definitely helps because I mean traveling to these tournaments and playing all year round costs a lot. Definitely having some help from the USGA is amazing. The support too. Definitely from Team [Northern] California. Getting all those Zoom calls and all those resources, the more resources the better.” – Kailer Stone on how he has benefitted from the U.S. National Development Program Grant the past two years

“The only way we get old is when [the younger players] fly it past us by 30 or 40 [yards]. Because we’re hitting first, we’ll just hit in there tight and let [our opponents] do what they have to do.” – Jeremy Defalco on being the oldest side in the field with partner Bryan Hoops

“It’s cool. We’ve played in five of these. It’s never been at home. I’ve played golf my whole life and rarely do you play at home. My mom and dad are out here. That’s a cool thing. They want to watch as much golf as they can [because] they just don’t get the chance to do it. This is really one of the only things I play in all year. We’ve got our close buddies caddieing for us, we’ve got friends and family in the gallery. If we can piece a few wins together in match play, we might even have a few more. That’s the goal.” – Drew Stoltz

“He’s an awesome caddie. Between me, Zach, my dad, and [Zach’s caddie] Eric, we just keep the vibes high. He’s good in a sense of when you’re a little bit out of a hole and it may not be the time to be super aggressive, he understands well, ‘Hey let’s be a little smart here,’ but he also understands when we want to be really aggressive. He gets it.” – Jack Larkin Jr., on having his father, Jack Sr. (1979 U.S. Junior Amateur champion) on his bag this week.

“This is a team game. We have to be there for each other. Strategy. Knowing how to play four-ball properly, no matter the situation, no matter what your emotions are is so important. You’re always in it.” – Mike Smith on his side’s philosophy going into match play

“I don’t think anything changes. We both play our own games, and the score will follow for the most part. In certain cases, you need to be a little more aggressive than others, but for the most part we should be able to stick to our game plans, and I think the results will come.” – Jared Abercrombie on the side’s mindset for match play

“We’re just going to get the swing dialed in and we’ll be ready to go. Match play is fun; I enjoy the competitiveness of it and just getting after it.” – Bobby Massa on the next phase of the championship

 “It’s not easy out there. Thankfully the greens were softer playing earlier in the day, made a big difference. Yesterday afternoon, it was spicy out there with the wind.” – Cody Massa on the conditions

David Shefter is a senior staff writer at the USGA. Email him at dshefter@usga.org.