124th Western Amateur · Beverly Country Club · Chicago
The Sweet 16
One hundred fifty-six players started Tuesday. Sixteen are left. Every one of them, and why this particular bracket matters more than any other in amateur golf.
What the Sweet 16 actually means
Start with the résumé of the room. Since 2006 alone, the list of Sweet 16 qualifiers includes Scottie Scheffler, Rickie Fowler, Gary Woodland, Patrick Cantlay, Jordan Spieth, Justin Thomas, Xander Schauffele and Collin Morikawa. Fourteen Western Amateur champions have gone on to win 52 major championships between them — a group running from Chick Evans and H.C. Egan through Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. Evans, Nicklaus and Woods are the only three players in history to have won the Western Amateur, the Western Open, the U.S. Amateur and the U.S. Open.
Then there's the gauntlet itself. Two rounds of stroke play, a cut to the low 44 and ties, 36 more holes in a single day, a cut to sixteen, then four matches in two days. Six days, seven competitive rounds before the final match even begins. Nothing else in amateur golf asks for this much, and that is precisely why the players who survive it keep turning up on leaderboards for the next twenty years.
Beverly has its own footnote in that history. When the championship last came here in 2014, Doug Ghim was the medalist and Beau Hossler beat Xander Schauffele 2 up in the final. Nick Hardy, another Chicago-area product, once knocked off a future world No. 1 in Scottie Scheffler in a Western Amateur quarterfinal. This bracket has a habit of producing that kind of footnote.
The sixteen
Listed by stroke-play finish. Crimson marks each player's low round of the week.
The medalist, and the most decorated 17-year-old in the game. Russell was the youngest player ever to make a cut on the Korn Ferry Tour, doing it at 15 at the 2024 LECOM Suncoast Classic and finishing T20 — also the youngest top-20 finish on either tour on record. He made his PGA Tour debut at the Rocket Mortgage Classic that same summer, has been AJGA Player of the Year, and won the Junior PLAYERS and Junior PGA Championships as their youngest-ever champion. He arrived in Chicago straight from a runner-up finish at the U.S. Junior Amateur, then played Thursday's 36 holes without a bogey — 13 birdies, seven in the morning and six in the afternoon. At 17 years, 8 months and 29 days he is the second-youngest medalist in the Sweet 16 era, four days older than C.T. Pan in 2009.
Twenty-one years old, born in Queensland and raised in Alabama, where his father is Director of Instruction at Capitol Hill in Prattville. He played the final 36 holes bogey-free and closed with a seven-under 64 — the best round of the afternoon — to finish one shy of the medal in his first Sweet 16.
What should worry the rest of this bracket is what he does when the format changes. Gilbert is a two-time NCAA team champion and a two-time Palmer Cup selection for the United States, and his match-play ledger reads like a hit list: as a freshman he beat then-world No. 1 Gordon Sargent 4&3 to clinch the SEC title, and this spring he took down Stanford's Jay Leng 3&2 in the NCAA quarterfinals and Ethan Fang 4&3 in a 5-0 semifinal sweep of Oklahoma State before Auburn beat UCLA for the national title. He also finished solo third individually at the NCAA Championship and was First Team All-SEC. Leng, it's worth noting, is in this bracket too.
The most consistent ball-striker of the week. Mudadana made just one bogey across the first 36 holes and never posted a round worse than 67, backing up his second-round 65 with a pair of 67s on Thursday. He credited a small gain in ball-striking and a simple plan — fairways, greens, score from there — which is exactly what a Donald Ross course rewards.
Dumdumaya's seven-under 64 in the third round matched the low round of the championship and moved him from the pack into the top five in a single morning. He gave a little back with a 68 in the afternoon but never seriously threatened his position. A Trojan who timed his best golf for the day that mattered most.
The steadiest card in the field: four rounds, none worse than 68, none better than 66, and a five-under close that moved him up the board while others were coming back. Leng has yet to shoot over par this week. In match play, a player who never beats himself is a difficult out.
The most accomplished amateur here, and he needed all four rounds to get in. Watts began Thursday at five under, outside the projected bracket, and went 65-68 to reach his first Sweet 16 in three Western Amateur starts. He arrived in Chicago three weeks after being named to the 2026 USA Walker Cup Team. The rest of the résumé is absurd for a player who has yet to enroll in college: the 2026 Northeast Amateur title — the youngest champion in that tournament's history, won with a course-record 60 at Wannamoisett in the second round — plus the 2025 Elite Amateur Series crown, the 2025 Sunnehanna Amateur, runner-up honors at the 2024 U.S. Junior Amateur, and the youngest Alabama State Amateur champion in that event's 107-year history. He has also made the cut in both his PGA Tour starts, finishing three under at the 2025 Procore Championship and T58 at the Butterfield Bermuda Championship, and peaked at No. 3 in the world.
Riebe opened with a 66 and never fell out of the top 15 all week — the definition of a player who took care of business on a course that punished anyone who didn't. He arrived at Vanderbilt as the No. 2-ranked player in the class of 2025 by Junior Golf Scoreboard, a three-time Rolex AJGA All-American and a three-time San Diego Junior Golf Association Player of the Year, with a spot on the 2024 U.S. Junior Presidents Cup squad and top-five finishes at the Western Junior, the Junior PGA Championship and the AJGA Rolex Tournament of Champions. He also reached the Round of 16 at the 2024 North & South Amateur, so the match-play format holds no mysteries.
He set the tone with a seven-under 64 on Tuesday, the low round of the opening day, and led until Reilly's Wednesday ace. Thursday's closing 71 was his only round over par all week, and it dropped him from a potential top seed into a share of sixth — but he got in, which is all that matters now. Bertagnole also arrived at Beverly sitting second in the Elite Amateur Cup standings, so this bracket is worth double to him.
Author of the week's signature moment. Reilly made a hole-in-one on Beverly's 188-yard par-3 sixth on Wednesday — a hole he rates among the three hardest on the property — with a flighted 6-iron aimed at the right edge of the green and left to the wind. It was his second ace in consecutive starts, after one at the Northeast Amateur in June, and it carried him to the 36-hole lead at 11 under. Thursday was harder: a 68 and a 71 dropped him back into the pack, but he plays Friday morning all the same.
The second-highest-ranked player in the field behind Watts, and the highest-ranked collegian. Bennett found his form exactly when the tournament demanded it, going 66-68 on Thursday to climb from the middle of the pack into a bracket spot with room to spare. A Longhorn a long way from Pretoria, and a name worth knowing if you don't already.
The best Thursday in the field, and the biggest move of the week. Herendeen sat T-22 at five under after 36 holes, then went 69-65 to finish inside the top 10 — the 65 was the low round of the final session. He does it on a Chicago golf course with an Illinois crowd behind him. If there's a home-state story this week, it's his.
The only player in the field who has been this deep at the Western Amateur before — Swanwick reached the semifinals in 2025 at Skokie. That matters more than a ranking here: he knows what four matches in two days feels like, and he knows how to win them. Three rounds of 67 in four days suggests the form has traveled with the experience.
Greyserman's week was built backwards: a middling opening 36 holes at two under, then 66-67 on Thursday to play his way comfortably into the bracket. One of two Stanford players in the field, and among the lowest scorers over the final two rounds of anyone who advanced.
Four rounds inside 70 and not one of them spectacular — Larrabee got here by never going backwards, then survived the three-hole playoff for the final bracket spots. His reward is Gilbert, the player who nearly took the medal. A Bruin from a Washington border town, about as far from Beverly as an American golfer can start.
Bracken had the bracket in hand and nearly gave it away. He was inside the number all week — a 66 in the third round put him comfortably clear — before a closing 71 dropped him into the four-way tie at 12 under. He won his way through the playoff, and his reward is Miles Russell in the 8 a.m. match. The Sun Devil has nothing to lose Friday morning.
Don't let the world ranking fool you. Hartman is a reigning USGA champion — he won the 2025 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball — and he arrived at Vanderbilt as the No. 10 player in the class of 2025 and a three-time Rolex AJGA All-American. He was a semifinalist at the 2023 U.S. Junior Amateur, has represented the United States twice at junior level (Junior Ryder Cup in 2023, Junior Presidents Cup in 2024), and was named to the inaugural USGA Development Team alongside Riebe, the teammate who joins him in this bracket. Add two North Carolina 4A state titles at Charlotte Catholic and three Charlotte Observer player-of-the-year awards.
This week he opened with the highest score of anyone who advanced — a 70 — and got better every day until the playoff, which he survived. He draws Mudadana, who made one bogey in his first 36 holes.
Four things to watch
Watts vs. Bertagnole is a first-round final
The highest-ranked player in the field against the man who opened with 64 and led after Round 1, at 8:12 a.m. One of them is finished before lunch. It is the best match on the board and it happens first.
Three programs have two players each
Auburn (Gilbert, Reilly), Vanderbilt (Riebe, Hartman) and Stanford (Leng, Greyserman) each landed a pair in the Sweet 16. The Vanderbilt two are the tightest story: Riebe and Hartman signed together in the Commodores' No. 1-ranked 2025 class, were named to the inaugural USGA Development Team together, and are now both in the same bracket as freshmen.
Russell and Watts are on a collision course
The two most accomplished juniors in the world sit in the same half of the bracket. They have traded blows before — Russell beat Watts by three at the 2026 Junior Invitational at Sage Valley — and both would need to win twice Friday to meet in Saturday's semifinals.
The playoff trio drew the top three seeds
Larrabee, Bracken and Hartman face Gilbert, Russell and Mudadana respectively. Three players who needed extra holes just to get in now meet the three best scorers of the week. Match play being what it is, that is not the disadvantage it looks like on paper.
How to watch
First tee at 8 a.m. ESPN+ coverage of the Round of 16 begins at 10 a.m. CT Friday, with quarterfinal coverage from 3 p.m. CT — available via the ESPN app, ESPN.com and connected TV devices, plus TSN+ in Canada and Disney+ in the Caribbean and Latin America. Attendance and parking at Beverly are free.
Player photographs courtesy of the respective university athletics communications offices. Tyler Watts photo by Ben Adelberg / Tennessee Athletics. Kayun Mudadana photo courtesy of Golf NSW.
Sixteen players, four matches, two days. By Saturday evening one of these names will be on the George R. Thorne Trophy alongside Nicklaus and Woods. Based on the history of this championship, several of the other fifteen will be worth remembering too.