Vogt, O’Brien Reunite Partnershp, This Time as Four-Ball Competitors

When a couple competitors with Pittsburgh ties step on the first tee at Desert Mountain Club, in Scottsdale, Ariz., on May 16 to begin the 11th U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship, there will be very little fanfare.

Outside of a fiancé, a proud mom, perhaps a few curious members, a volunteer scorer and the USGA-assigned starter, the noise or the commotion won’t reach the levels of what these two individuals felt nine months earlier under far different circumstances.

On that beautiful, crisp mid-June western Pennsylvania morning – when the alarm clock jarred them awake at 3:15 a.m. for this highly anticipated moment – Matt Vogt, a then-34-year-old dentist with a successful Indianapolis-based practice, and his best friend/caddie Kevin O’Brien, whom he met four years earlier after each qualified for the 2021 U.S. Amateur, made the short 15-minute drive to Oakmont Country Club for the opening round of the 125th U.S. Open.

The USGA selected Vogt, a former caddie at the venerable venue hosting its record 10th U.S. Open – to hit the opening tee shot. For the 6-foot-6 Vogt, the fanfare had begun 10 days earlier when he managed to survive 36-hole final qualifying 2,400 miles to the west at Wine Valley Golf Club, in Walla Walla, Wash. The unknown mid-amateur now was suddenly thrust into the spotlight, and the fact he was a former Oakmont caddie whose college tuition at Butler University was partially paid for by benevolent club member Stan Drunkenmiller only added to this remarkable narrative.

O’Brien was one of the first to Facetime with his buddy, and Vogt knew exactly who he wanted on the bag for his biggest competition to date.

In the days leading into the championship, Vogt did multiple interviews, shook hands with luminaries such as Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and sat next to retired Oakmont professional Bob Ford at the Amateur Dinner. In fact, it would be Ford, a man Vogt had the pleasure of caddieing for on several occasions at the club, who introduced him to the crowd surrounding Oakmont’s first tee at 6:45 a.m.

“My hand was shaking so violently that I couldn’t even get my ball on the tee,” Vogt recalled. “I noticed it was teed up a little high and I tried to tee it a little lower. At that point, I was just like, ‘Let’s just get this over.’ Don’t hit it on the road, and I succeeded by hitting it 100 yards left.”

Vogt did find a fairway, just the wrong one. He still managed to make a par 4 from the 9th hole on a day he would shoot 82. He followed with an 81 on Friday to miss the cut. Unfortunately, his scorecard had too many black squares instead of red circles.

In three competitive USGA trips around Oakmont – which included one stroke-play round in the 2021 U.S. Amateur – the dentist has failed to break 80.

The two did enjoy one light-hearted moment on the 4th hole in Friday’s second round after Vogt found deep rough. Vogt pulled a sand wedge and barely advanced the ball 3 feet. Vogt turned to O’Brien and his caddie retorted, “I thought it was a lob wedge.” Both chuckled.

That ignominious moment aside, the week with O’Brien by his side and hundreds of doting supporters was so special that Vogt could have posted 100.

“Just a dream come true,” said Vogt, the father of two young children (Charlotte, 2, and James, 2 months). “Of course, with Kevin on the bag, too.

“Having Kev … was so great. It was just familiarity in a very unfamiliar and uncomfortable week. It’s a memory I will always have. It was an out-of-body experience. You can prep, you can visualize and you can work hard … [but] at the U.S. Open it takes a huge balancing act. There’s just no prepping for playing under those circumstances. And then playing at Oakmont, which is the hardest golf course in the world. It’s just the most difficult place. I don’t think I’ll ever figure it out.”

O’Brien, the director of investor relations for Diversified Energy Company, was in the process of changing jobs and had purposely pushed his start date until after the 2026 U.S. Open, where he had originally signed up as a volunteer marshal. A former four-year letterman at Seton Hall University, where his mom and uncle attended, O’Brien, who was born in New Jersey and moved to the Pittsburgh area when he was in the sixth grade, wound with a much better vantage point when Vogt surprised everyone by surviving both local and final qualifying.

The two met shortly after both competed in the 2021 U.S. Amateur at Oakmont. O’Brien, four years younger, had often seen Vogt’s name through playing in common amateur events, but had never formally met. They connected the following year when Vogt was seeking a partner for the Champions Cup, a mid-am four-ball competition held at Champions Golf Club, in Houston. Vogt’s partner had a work issue, so he contacted O’Brien. It turned out that Vogt’s sister knew O’Brien’s sister as well as many other folks in their inner circles. Ever since, O’Brien’s wife, Hilary, and O’Brien’s fiancé, Gigi, have grown close. The two are getting married on June 13, exactly 366 days from last year’s U.S. Open opening round.

Success soon followed as they finished second three consecutive years and won the 2024 Picard Cup, another four-ball event held at historic Canterbury Golf Club outside of Cleveland.

The next step was the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball, an event Vogt played in 2022 at the Country Club of Birmingham (Ala.) with another partner. Vogt, set to compete in his seventh USGA championship and fourth in the last 12 months, and Kevin Koerbel were the odd side out of a 10-for-9 playoff for the final match-play spots.

Armed with a new partner and outlook from his U.S. Open experience as well as playing in the 2026 U.S. Amateur and U.S. Mid-Amateur (lost to eventual champion Brandon Holtz in the Round of 64), Vogt and O’Brien continued their success as a team by qualifying for the 11th iteration of the championship.

Although their path to Desert Mountain has an interesting twist. Because of O’Brien’s new job, the two couldn’t sign up for any of the late-summer/early-fall sites in the Northeast or Midwest. However, there were available spots at Castlewood Country Club, in Pleasanton, Calif., just three days before Thanksgiving. Just five months earlier, Vogt, who had a few relatives in the Bay Area, had discovered the Pacific Time Zone was a good-luck charm, having advanced to the U.S. Open from the Walla Walla, Wash., site.

Maybe he’ll try to qualify for every USGA event on the West Coast. The duo carded a 10-under par 62 to earn medalist honors.

“It’s nice to have a partner who wants it more for you than for himself,” said O’Brien, who will compete in just his second USGA championship. “I told Matt I really wanted to make this and play well. From not knowing each other five years ago to becoming such great friends [and now Four-Ball qualifiers].”

Said Vogt, who failed to advance from his U.S. Open local qualifier last month: “We’re going out to Phoenix and giving it the full treatment. We obviously want to play our best. We’re going to enjoy each other’s company when we are playing and that’s pretty special.”

Turns out Vogt, who played three semesters at Butler before focusing solely on academics and eventually dental school, and O’Brien had much more in common than good swings.

Both lost their dads to cancer prior to their biggest achievement in golf; O’Brien six months before he qualified for the 2021 U.S. Amateur and Vogt two months before last year’s U.S. Open. Each were big Pittsburgh sports fans, but not huge golfers.

O’Brien had moved to Ohio for work when his dad, Patrick, lost his four-year battle with cancer. Only 26 at the time, O’Brien had just returned to playing competitive golf after what he called a pedestrian college career at Seton Hall. That day at Moraine Country Club outside of Dayton, Ohio, O’Brien could feel his father’s presence and when he dropped a 15-footer on his 36th and final hole, he was headed back to Oakmont, where he had qualified for the Pennsylvania Amateur seven years earlier.

“Coming down the back nine just telling myself to play in a way that would make him proud,” said O’Brien, who is a member at Pittsburgh Field Club, just a short drive from Oakmont. “It was a different mindset. Having him there on my shoulder.

“I walked to the driving range and cried for a while.”

Similar emotions were evoked by Vogt last June. That spring, he received a call just before the final round of the Champions Cup that Jim Vogt, now living in Nashville, Tenn., was about to pass from his bout with colon cancer. The family had made the decision to chat with Jim in his final hours.

“That entire spring and throughout all of last year, there was just an immense sense of peace,” said Vogt. “I was bummed that he wasn’t able to actually see the U.S. Open. I know he was with me through all that.

“He wasn’t a big golfer,” said Vogt, “…but I could be playing in the silliest Indiana event and he’d text me, ‘Why did you make a bogey [on that hole].’ I thought about that during the U.S. Open. He would have said, ‘Why didn’t you make a birdie today.’”

Those losses have only brought Vogt and O’Brien closer. Playing golf has been not only fulfilling but cathartic.

“When Matt made it to [final qualifying], I know the boost it gave me [in 2021],” said O’Brien. “When he was under par early in Washington, I just thought he’s going to do it. It’s meant to be. I know it’s not quite that easy. It was super cool to see.”

Added Vogt: “I felt the same thing. I told my caddie out in Washington as we were coming down the stretch that I think it’s going to happen. I had a sense of peace that day. There was peace when my dad passed. He couldn’t drive. He wasn’t happy. It was tough. You don’t want to see your loved ones wither away.”

No matter what happens over the course of five competition days at Desert Mountain – and Vogt and O’Brien hope it includes adding their name to the trophy – a special moment will occur a few weeks later. Two days before O’Brien exchanges vows with Gigi, he, Vogt and two other buddies will tee it up at Oakmont almost one year to the date of one of their coolest days ever spent on a course together. There won’t be full grandstands, ropes or digital scoreboards. And it’s doubtful Vogt’s hands will shake enough to cause seismic movement.

Flashbacks are likely.

This time, however, they both hope to find the fairway, and perhaps with a shiny trophy to show off.

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