Match play is underway at Merion. Luke Poulter fell in a 16-for-11 playoff, joining Preston Stout and Ethan Fang on the sidelines, as medalist Josh Ryan opens against the No. 64 seed.
Bracket set: Poulter falls in playoff, Cowan and Jennings survive to face top seeds
The 16-for-11 playoff is complete and the Round of 64 bracket is full. Emile Lebrun, Taishi Moto, Joshua Bai, William Love, William Jennings, Grayson Wood, Fifa Laopakdee, Ryder Cowan, Jack Whaley, Kihei Akina and Parker Sands claimed the last 11 places, several of them with a single birdie or par at the 119-yard 13th, where the playoff began.
The five who fell short: Luke Poulter, the World No. 5 and a 2025 Great Britain and Ireland Walker Cup player, along with Gabriel Palacios, Sihao Cong, Matthew Diehl and Giuseppe Puebla. Poulter's exit means a third top-10 player leaves Merion without a match, following World No. 1 Preston Stout and Ethan Fang.
Two others rescued their weeks in dramatic fashion. Ryder Cowan, the World No. 8 and co-low amateur at this year's U.S. Open, qualified as the No. 59 seed — and drew World No. 4 Miles Russell in the Round of 64. William Jennings, the World No. 6, survived as the 56 seed and meets No. 9 Malan Potgieter.
At the top of the bracket, medalist Josh Ryan opens against Japan's Taishi Moto, the No. 64 seed — the same seed line from which Mason Howell launched last year's title run at No. 63. Tyler Watts drew Parker Sands, Drake Harvey faces William Love, and Finn Koelle meets Kihei Akina. The early matches are already underway, with the top seeds going out last.
126th U.S. Amateur Championship
Merion, the Wicker Baskets and the Havemeyer: Your Complete U.S. Amateur Guide
August 10–16, 2026 · Merion Golf Club (East), Ardmore, Pa. · Philadelphia Country Club, Gladwyne, Pa.
Latest — updated Aug. 11, end of Day 2
Stroke play is complete. Josh Ryan, a Liberty senior from nearby Norristown, Pa., closed a 65 to earn medalist honors at 8-under 132. The field is set for match play, which begins Wednesday at Merion with the Round of 64. Live scoring, the bracket and recaps continue here all week.
Day 2: A hometown medalist as Ryan runs away and the favorites fall
The 126th U.S. Amateur found its medalist, and the story could hardly be more local. Josh Ryan, a Liberty senior from Norristown, Pa. — barely 30 minutes from Merion — backed up his opening 67 with a second-round 65 at Merion East to finish stroke play at 8-under 132, two clear of the field. A three-time Pennsylvania Golf Association champion who conquered Oakmont for the state amateur title just two weeks ago, Ryan will carry the No. 1 seed into match play in his home state.
Tyler Watts, the world No. 3, matched Ryan’s 65 to take the second seed at 6 under. The first-round co-leaders held on to round out the top of the board: Germany’s Finn Koelle and BYU-bound Drake Harvey finished at 4 under, with Jackson Ormond, Miles Russell, Jack Turner and Carter Loflin a shot back at 3 under. Of the pre-tournament favorites, only Russell and Watts truly thrived across the two-course test.
Because the day’s bigger drama was survival. Merion and Philadelphia Country Club again played nearly even and brutally hard, and the cut to the low 64 settled around 2 over — a line that swallowed a stunning list of names. World No. 1 Preston Stout, the 2025 U.S. Amateur stroke-play medalist, never recovered from his opening 75 and missed. So did U.S. Junior Amateur champion Noah Maclauchlan, 2025 Amateur Championship winner Ethan Fang, and Stuart Grehan, who won this year’s Amateur Championship at Royal Liverpool. Defending champion Mason Howell was also on the wrong side of the number at 4 over, leaving his title defense in serious jeopardy.
A Championship Weather Watch shadowed the finish for a second straight day, with dangerous weather again in the forecast, but the field was completed and the bracket is set. Match play begins Wednesday at Merion, where all 64 survivors reset to zero and the single-elimination race to the Havemeyer Trophy starts for real.
Storylines to watch in match play
Does the medal mean anything? Ryan earns the No. 1 seed and hometown roars, but the medalist has famously little edge once the bracket begins — only rarely does the top seed reach the final.
A wide-open bracket. With Stout, Fang and Maclauchlan gone, the draw lost several of its marquee names. Watts, Russell and Koelle headline the seeds that remain.
A hometown push. Ryan won the Pennsylvania Amateur at Oakmont two weeks ago and qualified for this championship at nearby Llanerch. Now he gets Merion, 30 minutes from where he grew up, with a home-state gallery behind him.
The 126th U.S. Amateur is underway at Merion Golf Club, and it would be hard to script a better stage. From Aug. 10–16, a field of 312 of the world's best amateurs — distilled from 5,111 entries — takes on the East Course in Ardmore, Pa., where Bob Jones closed out the Grand Slam in 1930 and where the wicker baskets have watched nearly a century of championship golf.
This page is our home base for the week: schedule, TV and streaming windows, the full field picture, a hole-by-hole look at both courses, and every round recap as it happens. Bookmark it.
At a glance
Dates
Aug. 10–16, 2026 (practice rounds Aug. 8–9)
Championship venue
Merion Golf Club, East Course — Ardmore, Pa. · 6,939 yards, par 70 · 75.3 / 153
Stroke-play co-host
Philadelphia Country Club — Gladwyne, Pa. · 7,201 yards, par 70 · 75.4 / 144
Field / entries
312 players from 5,111 entries · 173 exempt, the rest through qualifying
Eligibility
Handicap Index of 0.4 or better
Defending champion
Mason Howell, Thomasville, Ga.
Trophy
The Havemeyer Trophy, first awarded in 1895
Day-by-day schedule
Seven days, two courses, and a bracket that shrinks by half every session once match play begins.
Sat.–Sun., Aug. 8–9
Practice rounds
Mon., Aug. 10
First round, stroke play (18 holes). Field split between Merion East and Philadelphia C.C.
Tue., Aug. 11
Second round, stroke play (18 holes). Players switch courses. Low 64 advance; a playoff settles ties for the final spots.
Wed., Aug. 12
Round of 64, match play
Thu., Aug. 13
Round of 32 and Round of 16 — 36 holes of match play in a single day
Fri., Aug. 14
Quarterfinals
Sat., Aug. 15
Semifinals
Sun., Aug. 16
36-hole championship match for the Havemeyer Trophy
How to watch: TV and streaming
The championship draws at least 15 hours of broadcast coverage across Golf Channel, NBC and Peacock, with Rolex as presenting partner for uninterrupted windows. All times Eastern.
Wed., Aug. 12 · Round of 64
3–6 p.m. · PEACOCK
Thu., Aug. 13 · Round of 16
3–6 p.m. · PEACOCK
Fri., Aug. 14 · Quarterfinals
3–6 p.m. · PEACOCK
Sat., Aug. 15 · Semifinals
3–4 p.m. · PEACOCK 4–6 p.m. · NBC
Sun., Aug. 16 · Championship match
3–4 p.m. · PEACOCK 4–6 p.m. · NBC
Both weekend windows cover the closing 18 of a 36-hole match, so the morning halves of Sunday's final will play out untelevised — follow those here on our live scoring.
How the format works
The U.S. Amateur is two tournaments stitched together. The first is a 36-hole stroke-play sprint that exists only to sort the field; the second is a week-long knockout where every score resets to zero.
All 312 players play one round at Merion East and one at Philadelphia Country Club across Monday and Tuesday. The low 64 totals advance, and because ties for the final spots are common, a playoff is run to trim the draw to exactly 64. Everyone else goes home Tuesday night. The player with the lowest 36-hole total earns medalist honors — a nice line on a résumé and, historically, no guarantee of anything after that.
Match play then runs single elimination over 18 holes per match, all at Merion East. The Round of 64 fills Wednesday. Thursday is the brutal day: Round of 32 in the morning, Round of 16 in the afternoon, 36 competitive holes with a lunch break in between. Quarterfinals Friday, semifinals Saturday, and Sunday's final stretches to 36 holes — the last 36-hole final in American championship golf.
Why seeding matters less than you'd think
Mason Howell won last year as the No. 63 seed — only the third player to win from that low a seed since the USGA began seeding by stroke-play score in 1985. He also had to survive a 20-for-17 playoff on Monday morning just to reach the bracket.
The field: 312 players, 36 countries, one trophy
Merion's field is deep, international and unusually accomplished. The 312 competitors average 22.85 years old and range from 15-year-olds Landon Tudor and Bento Assis to 63-year-old Michael McCoy. Forty-five U.S. states and 36 countries are represented, while 47 of the top 50 players in the World Amateur Golf Ranking are entered as of Aug. 5.
312
players
22.85
average age
15–63
age range
45
U.S. states
36
countries
47
of WAGR top 50
The defending champion
Mason Howell returns one year after entering match play as the No. 63 seed and leaving The Olympic Club with the Havemeyer Trophy. Howell defeated Jackson Herrington, 7 and 6, in the 36-hole final, then represented the United States in the Walker Cup. Now 19 and preparing to enroll at Georgia, Howell will try to become the first repeat champion since Tiger Woods won three consecutive titles from 1994–96.
Herrington is back as well. The Tennessee junior earned a place in the 2026 U.S. Open through last year's runner-up finish and arrives with another opportunity to finish the job.
The top-ranked contenders
World No. 1 Preston Stout leads a field containing nearly every highly ranked amateur in the men's game. The reigning NCAA individual champion won four times during the 2025–26 college season and returns after earning stroke-play medalist honors at the 2025 U.S. Amateur.
No. 3 Tyler Watts
The youngest Northeast Amateur champion and a member of the U.S. National Junior Team.
No. 4 Miles Russell
Made the cut in the 2026 U.S. Open, finished runner-up in the U.S. Junior Amateur and reached last year's U.S. Amateur quarterfinals.
No. 5 Luke Poulter
Florida standout and a 2025 Great Britain and Ireland Walker Cup player.
No. 6 William Jennings
NCAA Championship stroke-play runner-up with five top-five college finishes during the season.
No. 7 Josiah Gilbert
Helped Auburn win the 2026 NCAA title and finished third individually.
No. 8 Ryder Cowan
Shared low-amateur honors in the 2026 U.S. Open after finishing tied for 23rd.
No. 9 Ethan Fang
The 2025 Amateur champion and a victorious U.S. Walker Cup team member.
Also returning from deep runs at The Olympic Club are semifinalist Niall Sheils Donegan and quarterfinalists Eric Lee, Jacob Modleski, Jimmy Abdo and Russell. Noah Kent, the 2024 runner-up, gives the field another player who has already reached a U.S. Amateur final.
Thirteen USGA champions
The field contains 13 USGA champions: Lawrence Allan, Evan Beck, Grady Brame Jr., Louis Brown, Hamilton Coleman, Stewart Hagestad, Brandon Holtz, Mason Howell, Bryan Kim, Noah Maclauchlan, Tyler Mawhinney, Matthew McClean and Michael McCoy.
Hagestad owns three U.S. Mid-Amateur titles and is making his 17th U.S. Amateur appearance. McCoy, the 2013 U.S. Mid-Amateur and reigning U.S. Senior Amateur champion, leads the field with 21 appearances. He is also the only player entered this year who competed in the 2005 U.S. Amateur at Merion.
Maclauchlan arrives only weeks after winning the U.S. Junior Amateur at Saucon Valley. He entered that championship as an alternate before defeating Russell, 6 and 5, in the final.
Pennsylvania's home contingent
Ten Pennsylvania players will compete in their home state: Charlie Barrickman, Nicholas Gross, Patrick Isztwan, Hank Kancher, Michael Lugiano, Matthew Mattioli, Logan Paczewski, Joshua Ryan, Hunter Stetson and Chuck Tragesser III.
Barrickman grew up less than 30 minutes from Merion and survived a seven-for-five playoff in final qualifying. Gross, Isztwan, Lugiano and Ryan qualified at nearby Llanerch Country Club, while Stetson earned his exemption by winning the Delaware Amateur in a seven-hole sudden-death playoff.
How the field was built
The USGA accepted 5,111 entries. A total of 173 players were fully exempt through championship results, international team selections, rankings and victories in recognized amateur events. The remainder advanced through local qualifying at 48 sites and final qualifying at 19 sites.
Field information and rankings current through Aug. 5, according to the USGA.
The courses
Merion Golf Club, East Course
Merion began in 1896 as a nine-hole course built by members of the Merion Cricket Club in Haverford. When the Haskell rubber-core ball made that layout obsolete, the club handed the job of designing a new course to one of its own members, Hugh Wilson — an insurance man, not an architect. The East Course opened in Ardmore in 1912 and has been arguing with distance ever since. A restoration led by Gil Hanse and Jim Wagner rebuilt every bunker and green complex to pull the course back toward Wilson's original lines.
At 6,939 yards it will be the shortest venue on the championship calendar this summer, and one of the hardest: a Course Rating of 75.3 and a Slope Rating of 153, numbers that belong on a course 500 yards longer. The defense is angles, green complexes and the Quarry — not the tee shot.
Merion East · hole by hole
1
358
Par 4
2
588
Par 5
3
219
Par 3
4
618
Par 5
5
505
Par 4
6
480
Par 4
7
363
Par 4
8
356
Par 4
9
231
Par 3
OUT — 3,718 yards, par 36
10
303
Par 4
11
361
Par 4
12
399
Par 4
13
119
Par 3
14
448
Par 4
15
419
Par 4
16
426
Par 4
17
246
Par 3
18
501
Par 4
IN — 3,222 yards, par 34 · TOTAL 6,939, par 70
Two holes stand out on that card. The 13th plays 119 yards — a wedge that can win or lose a match in one swing, and the kind of hole match play was invented for. The 18th is a 501-yard par 4 climbing back to the clubhouse, the hole where Ben Hogan hit the 1-iron that forced a playoff in the 1950 U.S. Open. Yardages are subject to change through the week.
Philadelphia Country Club
The stroke-play co-host opened in 1890 and is a William Flynn design, more recently restored by Jim Nagle of Forse Design. At 7,201 yards it plays 262 yards longer than Merion to the same par of 70, with a 75.4 rating and 144 slope — a different kind of test entirely, and a real factor in how the two stroke-play rounds compare. Its par 5s at the 3rd (601) and 12th (618) are among the longest holes either field will see.
Philadelphia C.C. became the seventh member club of the USGA in 1899 and is one of the four founding clubs of the Golf Association of Philadelphia. It has hosted four previous USGA championships, including Byron Nelson's 1939 U.S. Open win.
Merion's championship history
With this week's championship, Merion becomes the first club to host 20 USGA championships — passing Oakmont (18) and The Country Club (17). Three moments define its place in the game.
1930 · The Grand Slam
Bob Jones won his fifth U.S. Amateur here to complete the only Grand Slam in the game's history — the U.S. and British Opens and both Amateurs in one season. He retired from competition weeks later, at 28.
1950 · The 1-iron
Sixteen months after a bus collision nearly killed him, Ben Hogan struck an approach into the 18th green that forced a playoff, and won the U.S. Open the next day. The photograph of that swing is among the most reproduced images in golf.
1971 · The rubber snake
Lee Trevino beat Jack Nicklaus in an 18-hole U.S. Open playoff, having tossed a rubber snake at him on the first tee. Trevino won three national opens that summer.
The full ledger at Merion: six previous U.S. Amateurs (1916, 1924, 1930, 1966, 1989, 2005), five U.S. Opens (1934, 1950, 1971, 1981, 2013), four U.S. Women's Amateurs, the 1998 U.S. Girls' Junior, the 2009 Walker Cup and Curtis Cup Matches in 1954 and 2022. This will be the 97th USGA championship conducted in Pennsylvania.
Names on the Havemeyer
The champions list reads like a survey of American golf: Francis Ouimet, Chick Evans, Jones (five times), Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Deane Beman, Lanny Wadkins, Craig Stadler, Mark O'Meara, Hal Sutton, Jay Sigel, Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods (1994, 1995, 1996), Matthew Fitzpatrick, Bryson DeChambeau and Nick Dunlap. The runners-up list is nearly as good — Tom Kite, Ben Crenshaw, Patrick Cantlay, Hunter Mahan, Corey Conners.
The Havemeyer Trophy: lost, burned, stolen
The trophy has one of the strangest provenances in sport. It was presented to the USGA in March 1895 in honor of the association's first president, Theodore A. Havemeyer, and handed to C.B. Macdonald after he won the first U.S. Amateur at Newport later that year.
That original silver cup, made by J.E. Caldwell and Company in Philadelphia, passed from champion to champion for three decades — until Nov. 22, 1925, when it was destroyed in a fire at East Lake Country Club, Bob Jones' home club in Atlanta. Rather than copy it, the USGA commissioned a new trophy: a tall steeple cup in solid gold, presented in January 1926.
That one was retired in 1992 and then stolen from the USGA Golf Museum in the spring of 2012. It has never been recovered. What today's champion receives is a 1992 copy. The USGA also recreated the original 1895 silver trophy in 1996, working from two surviving photographs.
What Sunday's winner gets
No prize money — that's the point. What the champion gets instead is arguably worth more.
A gold medal and custody of the Havemeyer Trophy for the year
Exemption from qualifying for the 2027 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach
Exemption into the 2027 Open Championship at the Old Course, St. Andrews (must remain an amateur)
A likely invitation to the 2027 Masters (must remain an amateur)
Exemption from qualifying for the next 10 U.S. Amateurs
Name engraved on the 2026 USGA Champions' plaque in the Hall of Champions, Liberty Corner, N.J.
The runner-up receives a silver medal — and, in most years, a long winter.
U.S. Amateur FAQ
Where is the 2026 U.S. Amateur being played?
Merion Golf Club's East Course in Ardmore, Pa. hosts the championship, with Philadelphia Country Club in Gladwyne serving as stroke-play co-host for the first two rounds.
What channel is the U.S. Amateur on?
Peacock streams Wednesday through Friday from 3–6 p.m. ET. Saturday and Sunday, Peacock carries 3–4 p.m. and NBC takes over from 4–6 p.m. ET.
How many players make the cut for match play?
The low 64 scorers after 36 holes of stroke play advance. If more than 64 players are tied at the cut line, a playoff is conducted to reduce the draw to exactly 64.
Who won the 2025 U.S. Amateur?
Mason Howell of Thomasville, Ga., then 18, beat Jackson Herrington 7 and 6 in the 36-hole final at The Olympic Club. He was the No. 63 seed and the third-youngest champion in championship history.
Who is eligible to play in the U.S. Amateur?
Any amateur golfer with a Handicap Index of 0.4 or lower. There is no age limit — this year's field spans teenagers to senior amateurs.
Does the U.S. Amateur champion get into the Masters?
Historically, yes. The champion receives a likely invitation to the following year's Masters Tournament provided he remains an amateur, along with exemptions into the U.S. Open and The Open Championship.
Why does Merion use wicker baskets instead of flags?
Merion's flagsticks are topped with woven wicker baskets rather than cloth flags — a tradition dating to the club's early years. Practically, it means players get no read on wind direction from the pin, which adds a genuine layer of difficulty on an already demanding course.
Future U.S. Amateur sites
2027 Oak Hill Country Club, Pittsford, N.Y. · Aug. 9–15
2028 Whistling Straits, Kohler, Wis. · Aug. 14–20
2029 Inverness Club, Toledo, Ohio · Aug. 13–19
2030 Atlanta Athletic Club, Johns Creek, Ga. · Aug. 12–18
2031 The Honors Course, Ooltewah, Tenn. · Aug. 11–17
2032 Bandon Dunes Golf Resort, Bandon, Ore. · Aug. 9–15
2033 Chambers Bay, University Place, Wash. · Aug. 15–21
2034 The Country Club, Brookline, Mass. · Aug. 14–20
Later commitments run through 2051, including Pinehurst No. 2 (2038), Baltusrol (2039), Bandon Dunes again (2041), Ridgewood (2042), Southern Hills (2044), Oakland Hills (2047) and Saucon Valley (2051).
