Drew Kittleson and Stephen Behr Jr. had nearly met in each of the last two U.S. Mid-Amateurs. Both lost in the 2024 semifinals and in the 2025 Round of 32 before they could face each other. When the draw came out Sunday night at Sand Valley Resort, they finally got their match, in the first round.
"Maybe I should have bogeyed my last hole," Kittleson joked about the draw. "We've played a bunch of golf together. He's such a nice guy. It was a good match."
Kittleson, 38, of Scottsdale, Ariz., won it 2 and 1 on Monday at The Lido. He was 4 up through eight holes and then had to hold off a back-nine charge. He advances to the Round of 32 at the 45th U.S. Mid-Amateur, along with medalist Bobby Massa and three-time champion Stewart Hagestad. Both of last year's finalists are out.
For every result, the full bracket and live updates all week, follow our 2026 U.S. Mid-Amateur live coverage hub.
Kittleson holds off Behr
Kittleson is a three-time USGA finalist. That includes the 2008 U.S. Amateur, which he reached while at Florida State, and two U.S. Amateur Four-Ball finals with SiriusXM PGA Tour Radio host Drew Stoltz. He was the No. 31 seed. Behr, 33, of Atlanta, was the No. 34 seed and a former second-team All-American at Clemson. He's ranked No. 197 in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, well ahead of Kittleson at No. 2932.
Kittleson birdied the par-5 fourth and was 4 up through eight. "I played the really hard holes into the breeze [on the front nine] great," he said. "The downwind holes you can really get. The into-the-wind holes are brutal."
Behr won three straight holes starting at the 10th, with birdies on 10 and 12 and a par on 11. Kittleson birdied the 354-yard, par-4 13th, then bogeyed the par-3 14th, which cut his lead to 1 up. He ended it on the par-5 17th with a bunker shot to 4 feet. Behr conceded the birdie putt.
"I think maybe your brain's a little sharper," Kittleson said about playing an established opponent. "But also in this day and age, you're going to have to play pretty good. With this course, there's an aspect of don't lose it versus win it."
That's how The Lido plays. It is a re-creation of Charles Blair Macdonald's lost Long Island course, with his template holes and several blind shots, and pars or even bogeys can win holes. On Tuesday morning, Kittleson faces No. 2 seed Zach Foushee of Lake Oswego, Ore., who beat playoff qualifier Jose Luis Montano 3 and 2.
A new champion is guaranteed
Neither of the finalists from Troon Country Club made it out of the first round. No. 50 Jonathan Fricke of Destin, Fla., beat defending champion Brandon Holtz 2 and 1. No. 17 Ben Greve of Eden Prairie, Minn., was 1 down going to 18 and beat runner-up Jeg Coughlin III in 19 holes.
Fricke, 44, is a commercial real estate executive. He has taken a long road back to this level. He played four seasons on the Korn Ferry Tour without much success and then stepped away from golf for five years. He regained his amateur status in 2021, but his first competitive start came two years later at a U.S. Open local qualifier. That same year he played his first Mid-Am and lost in the first round to eventual semifinalist Sam Jackson. Last year Coughlin knocked him out in the Round of 16. After Troon, he didn't touch a club for five months.
This week he got into match play just inside the 145 cut line. Against Holtz, a former backup point guard at Illinois State, he took control early. He said the key moment was a bogey that won the 12th hole and put him 3 up. Holtz won 13, 14 and 16, after Fricke had won 15 with a conceded birdie. Fricke closed out the match with a par on 17.
As for how he finds time to practice with two young kids at home: "I really don't. I chase the kiddos around [and] if I can squeeze in an hour here and there, I get it in."
Massa pars them to death
Medalist Bobby Massa of Dallas is an athletic trainer who helps golfers build speed. He beat No. 64 seed Brett Viboch 4 and 3. Viboch won the second hole with a birdie, and Massa didn't lose another hole over the next 12. He played the equivalent of 2 under with the usual concessions.
"I don't necessarily take more risks in match play here," Massa said. "It's just about staying in the holes. You can par people to death, just because it's so hard. A lot of the pin placements are right on the back edges ... so it's really hard to get close."
Massa got his medal before his match. "After the first round, that was my new goal," he said. "I didn't want to just limp into match play. I wanted to see if I could go out and win. And it's my first medalist honors." A Massa has now been medalist two years in a row. His brother Cody shared medalist honors at Troon last year, and the brothers reached the semifinals of this year's U.S. Amateur Four-Ball at Desert Mountain.
Hagestad, Rank and the top seeds
Hagestad won 11, 12 and 13 to pull away from Sam Grindle of Deer Isle, Maine, and won 2 and 1. The 2026 Crump Cup champion is now 32-6 in 10 Mid-Am starts, four match wins short of Jerry Courville Jr.'s all-time record. On Tuesday he plays No. 45 Nate Smith of Tetonia, Idaho. This isn't Nathan Smith, the four-time Mid-Am champion who captained Hagestad on the last two U.S. Walker Cup teams. This Nate Smith won the 2026 Idaho Amateur, played in last month's U.S. Amateur at Merion and briefly played as a pro.
NHL referee Garrett Rank, the 2012 runner-up and 2026 Canadian Mid-Amateur champion, went 1 up on Michael Padilla of Carson, Calif. Rank was 3 up three different times. Padilla birdied 14 and 17 to make it close, and both parred 18. Rank came to Sand Valley after NHL officials' training camp in Buffalo, the Crump Cup at Pine Valley and two preseason games. His first regular-season game is Saturday. "My wife at home is not very happy with me," he said. "I've been gone for like 20 days now."
Seven of the top eight seeds won. No. 3 Andrew Bailey, No. 4 Matthew Paradis and No. 7 Matt Vogt all advanced, and Vogt, an Indianapolis dentist, needed 19 holes against Will McCurdy. No. 6 Grady Brame Jr., who won the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball in May with Lawrence Allan, also went 19 holes against Preston Dembowiak. The only top-eight seed to lose was No. 8 Ryan Schmitz, who fell 1 up to 2025 semifinalist Christian Cavaliere. None of the four playoff survivors won a match.
Notable
Big margin: Rhadames Pena is the first player from the Dominican Republic to reach match play at the U.S. Mid-Am. He beat Will Minton 6 and 5, the biggest win of the round. Pena has won nine WAGR-counting events in the last two years, all in the Dominican Republic.
Home-course caddies: Sand Valley caddie Matt Hutchins played at UCLA and Chico State and has worked at the resort for six years. He beat Jack Biwer 5 and 3 with "six or seven caddies" watching. Fellow caddie Adam Miller, a Wisconsin native, lost 2 and 1 to Tyler Stahle.
Extra holes: Four matches went 19 holes. Greve and Sean O'Donnell were both 1 down on the 18th tee and beat Coughlin and Nicholas Dentino. Greve's wife is Lindsay Whalen, a four-time WNBA champion with the Minnesota Lynx and a two-time Olympic gold medalist.
Marathon playoff: The 13-for-4 playoff for the last match-play spots took four holes and nearly 2.5 hours. Viboch and Bolivia's Montano won the last two spots with 4s on the par-4 13th. Michael McCoy, 63, the only player to win both the Mid-Am (2014) and the U.S. Senior Amateur (2025), went out on the second playoff hole.
What's next
The Rounds of 32 and 16 are Tuesday at The Lido. The Round of 32 goes off the first and 10th tees every 10 minutes starting at 7:20 a.m. CT. The afternoon matches start at 12:30 p.m. off No. 1. The quarterfinals and semifinals are Wednesday, and the 36-hole final is Thursday. Admission is free.
Tuesday's Round of 32 includes Massa vs. Jordan Russell, an all-Dallas match, and Foushee vs. Kittleson. Hagestad plays Nate Smith, and caddie Hutchins plays Greve. The full draw, results and live updates are in our U.S. Mid-Amateur coverage hub.