Piot Prevails at Oakmont Country Club

Pennsylvania, United States: James Piot rallied from a three-hole deficit with the help of three birdies over the final eight holes to capture the 121st US Amateur Championship Oakmont Country Club with a 2-and-1 victory over Austin Greaser.

“It’s the greatest feeling in the world. I mean, as an amateur it’s the best thing you can do. It feels phenomenal, shows the hard work I’ve done is paying off,” said Piot, the number 31 seed, the first golfer from Michigan to win the US Amateur.

Greaser assumed a three-up lead with a par on the ninth hole at Oakmont, the 27th of the match. But Piot began his winning comeback on the next hole, the 474-yard, par-four 10th, a hole that the fifth-year Michigan State senior owned this week: he won it in all five of his previous matches, and twice more in the championship match versus Greaser.

Piot hit his nine-iron approach shot to four feet and converted the birdie putt, then won 11 with a par as University of North Carolina junior Greaser three-putted for a bogey from about 12 feet.

Piot then won the long 12th with a par and the short 13th with a conceded birdie to take his first lead in the match since being one-up at the 18-hole lunch break.

“When I got down, I knew that my driver had been a bit shaky,” said 22-year-old Piot. “I just tried to stay confident in myself. I wanted to play the back nine in four-under and I ended up playing it in three-under.”

Greaser, aged 20, stopped the bleeding by converting a 20-foot birdie putt to match Piot’s up-and-down birdie on the 14th, but Piot extended his lead to two-up with a solid par on the 502-yard, par-four 15th, as Greaser drove into the ‘mini-Church Pews’ bunker and was forced to lay up short of the green. He missed an 18-foot putt to tie the hole.

Both players parred the next two holes, the par-three 16th and par-four 17th. On the drivable 17th, both found the deep bunker to the left of the green. Piot put his second shot over the green into another bunker. But he got up and down for par from there, and Greaser missed his 10-foot birdie putt that would have extended the match to 18.

“He hit a really good shot on 10, to three feet for a birdie. Hats off to him there,” said Greaser, the 2020 Ohio Amateur champion. “Then I made some mistakes on 11, 12, 13, just bogey, bogey, bogey. That’s never going to look good on the scorecard. Just didn’t execute coming down the stretch.”