Twice U.S. Amateur Four-Ball runners-up, Drew Kittleson and Drew Stoltz of Scottsdale opened the 11th edition of the championship at home Saturday with a 9-under 63 on Desert Mountain’s Outlaw course — sharing the Round 1 lead in a tournament that has come painstakingly close to their grasp before.

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Drew Kittleson, 37, and Drew Stoltz, 41, finished runner-up in 2022 at the Country Club of Birmingham and again in 2023 at Kiawah Island Club’s Cassique course. Saturday, the fellow Whisper Rock members were first off the tee at Outlaw and took advantage, shooting their lowest opening round in five appearances at the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball. They share the 9-under lead with Will Davenport, 33, and Mike Smith, 35, the 2024 semifinalists from Florida, and Southern Californians Jared Abercrombie, 20, and Max Emberson, 18.

One stroke back at 8-under, alone in fourth: Bryan Hoops, 57, of Scottsdale, and Jeremy Defalco, 53, of Tucson, the oldest side in the field. Defalco and Hoops shot 63 on host course Cochise, where they made a back-nine 29 keyed by four birdies from Defalco. In ten previous editions of the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball, no senior-age side has hoisted the trophy — or even reached a final. This week, that ceiling is in play.

The 2026 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball — the first USGA championship contested at Desert Mountain in 27 years — continues with Sunday’s second round of stroke play. The first tee time is 6:45 a.m. MST, with sides flipping courses from their Round 1 assignment. The field of 128 sides will be cut to 32 for match play Monday.

Round 1 at Desert Mountain Club, where three sides shot 63 to share the opening lead at the 2026 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball. PHOTO · EAKIN HOWARD / USGA

Round 1 Leaderboard: Top of the Board

O = Outlaw (Par 72) · C = Cochise (Par 71)

★ = Arizona-based side (5 of the top 14 sides) · Full leaderboard at USGA.org →

Four Things from Round 1

Notes from the Rest of the Leaderboard

• The 2025 runners-up are in position. Evan Beck and Dan Walters opened with 67 on Cochise to sit T22 at 4-under. The 2024 U.S. Mid-Amateur champion is exactly where he wanted to be: in the conversation, with a clean book heading into Sunday.
• The Long brothers were on a plane nine days ago. Craig Long II (21, Northern Illinois) and William Long (17, Georgia Tech verbal commit) got the email confirming their alternate spot on May 7, after Miami of Ohio won the MAC and freed a tee time. The Alpharetta, Ga., brothers carded 65 on Outlaw to share T5.
• The Trey Kidd / Alison Lee angle. Trey Kidd, who’s playing alongside South Dakota State head coach Parker Edens, is the partner of LPGA Tour star and two-time Solheim Cup competitor Alison Lee. The couple welcomed their first child in April 2025; Lee tees it up next month at the U.S. Women’s Open Presented by Ally at Riviera.
• Two grooms cost two sides a real shot. Zach Foushee, last year’s medalist with partner Robbie Ziegler, was a best man at a wedding Saturday and missed Round 1; Ziegler played solo at Cochise and shot 79. Christopher Bornhorst, a groomsman at a different wedding, left partner John Baldwin to play alone at Outlaw (84). Foushee was hoping to make it for a 9:21 a.m. tee time Sunday.
• The Hong Kong storyline lives. Sixteen-year-olds William Lisle and Darren Zhou, the youngest side in the field, posted 65 at Cochise to share T9. The Asia-Pacific qualifier is producing on a course neither had ever seen before practice rounds.
• Eleven straight and counting. Nathan Smith and Todd White, the 2015 inaugural champions and the only side to compete in all eleven editions, opened with 70 at Cochise (T69 at -1). This is the final year of their 10-year exemption from winning the inaugural title.
• The Michigan State consolation. Drew Miller and Lorenzo Pinili didn’t qualify for NCAA regionals this spring, but qualified for this championship last fall. Their 65 on Outlaw echoes 2023, when fellow college teammates Aaron Du and Sampson Zheng followed the same path and went on to win the title at Kiawah.

The Stakes: What Brought Everyone to the Desert

The 11th U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship marks the first USGA event contested at Desert Mountain since 1999 — when Carol Semple Thompson won the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur on the Renegade course — and the first time the men’s four-ball has been staged on a desert layout since the championship’s founding in 2015. All match play this week will be contested at the par-71 Cochise course, the only other Desert Mountain layout to have hosted a USGA championship.

Defending co-champion Tyler Mawhinney, 18, of Fleming Island, Florida, is back in the field with a new partner: Luke Colton, 18, of Frisco, Texas, his future Vanderbilt teammate. Mawhinney’s 2025 partner Will Hartman, who is completing his freshman season at Vanderbilt, is absent. With one half of the defending tandem missing, the door opens — and the most credentialed pair walking through it is the duo Mawhinney and Hartman beat 3-and-1 in last year’s final: Evan Beck of Virginia Beach, the 2024 U.S. Mid-Amateur champion, and Dan Walters of Winston-Salem.

The 2026 winners receive a gold medal, a 10-year exemption back into the championship, and exemptions for each member of the winning side into the 2026 U.S. Amateur at Merion Golf Club — one of the hardest tickets in the amateur game — plus U.S. Junior Amateur, Mid-Amateur, and Senior Amateur exemptions if age-eligible.

Desert Mountain: Two Nicklaus Tracks, One Championship

Cochise (host) and Outlaw (co-host) by the numbers

Desert Mountain is home to six 18-hole layouts designed by Jack Nicklaus — plus a seventh par-3 course. Cochise, the 1988 original, hosts the second round of stroke play and all match play. Outlaw, opened in 2003, was the co-host for Round 1 — and gave up the three 63s. At 2,400 feet of elevation with afternoon winds reaching the mid-teens, the math on every shot is layered. As Davenport described it: “Ground number, adjust for altitude, adjust for elevation change, adjust for wind, adjust for landing spot.”

Championship Schedule

Pre-Tournament Favorites: Where They Stand After R1

The Field: 16 Exempt Sides

Past champions, recent finalists, and WAGR top-400 sides claim direct entry

The 128-side field at Desert Mountain was built from 16 exempt entries plus 112 sides who advanced through 18-hole qualifiers at 52 sites between August and December 2025.

How Four-Ball Match Play Works

Each side plays its own ball. The lower of the two scores on each hole counts. That structural detail changes everything: a player can swing freely on a risk-reward par-4 because his partner is in play with a safer line. A bogey by one player is irrelevant if the other makes par. The format incentivizes aggression in a way stroke play does not — and rewards the side whose two players have complementary tendencies.

Stoltz called Saturday’s round at Outlaw “a good ham-and-egg day,” and the language fit the format. The teams who win this championship aren’t always the two best individual players in the bracket. They’re the two best partners.

A Decade of U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Champions