Jack Whaley stood on the iconic 13th hole of Merion Golf Club Wednesday morning fighting for a spot to compete in match play at the 126th U.S. Amateur. In a 16-for-11 playoff, he birdied the hole to earn the 60-out-of-64 seed.
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On a rainy Sunday afternoon, Whaley, a 22-year-old rising senior at Florida State, secured a 4-and-3 victory over rising Stanford senior Jay Leng Jr. on the 33rd hole of the 36-hole championship match to become the second Englishman, behind Justin Rose, to win a USGA title at Merion.
“I think Justin Rose is definitely one person that I look up to in terms of his success and the demeanor he has about himself,” Whaley said. “He’s an incredible person, incredible athlete. To be sat alongside him in that category is very, very honorable. I’m really very honored to be there.”
The final match of the U.S. Amateur is a 36-hole match, with 18 holes in the morning, followed by a short lunch break and 18 holes in the afternoon.
Whaley started off strong in the morning match, with a chip-in on the first hole to take a 1-up lead. He birdied the par-3 third hole to take a 2-up lead, but lost the ninth and 10th holes to square the match. Leng made lengthy birdie putts to take the 2-up advantage heading into the lunch break.
“To be honest, I wasn’t — I was kind of a little bit shocked that I managed to lose that many holes coming in,” he said. “I got off to a good start, and I was up, and then I was just like, what just happened, and Jay just made a 20-foot putt, a 30-foot putt and then another 20-foot putt, and I’m like, well, that was out of nowhere and I’m kind of scraping my pars and he’s just making birdies out of nowhere. He played unbelievable this morning coming down the stretch.”
Confidence was the key for Whaley going into the final 18 holes.
“During the break, it was kind of just reset, recoup and get ready for the afternoon,” he said. “I knew 2-down wasn’t too much for me to handle, so I think going into it, it was just be confident and let things happen.”
After a lunch break, the momentum shifted toward Whaley after he won four holes in a row to take the 2-up advantage. Whaley won the 28th hole for a 3-up lead, but Leng won the famous 11th hole, the site of Bobby Jones’ 1930 Grand Slam-clinching match, with a bogey to cut the deficit to 2-up.
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On the 33rd hole, Whaley made a 10-foot putt to secure the win.
Whaley picked up the game at 4 years old, but it was not an easy journey for him. He missed many cuts, struggled early and almost quit the game. But his dad, Andy, has been by his side the entire time — even on the bag at Merion.
“I think from the hours that my dad has taken me to practice and all the different golf lessons he’s taken me to, it feels like it was all worth it,” he said. “Now he can actually see me happy and I can see him happy coming off the golf course, which is really good. I’m very proud of myself for this week.”
This was his dad’s first time caddying in a major tournament.
“We just liked to be a part of it, me ball spotting, watching through binoculars,” Andy Whaley said. “But this week it just clicked. I can’t explain it. I don’t know why. We just thought it would be a bit of fun. We could enjoy ourselves out here. But all I’ve really done is validate his decisions. I’ve not helped him make those decisions. I’ve not really given him much idea of what to do. All I wanted him to do was be free of any doubt when he stepped up to play a shot so that he could just commit and play that shot.”
Whaley played at Dalton (Ga.) State College and won five NAIA tournaments, including the 2025 NAIA Men’s Golf Championships after firing a record 61 to start the tournament. Whaley transferred to Florida State University in 2025 and will be a senior in the fall.
Florida State coach Trey Jones and assistant coach Brandon Smith flew in from Tallahassee to support Whaley.
He became the seventh player in the U.S. Amateur history to come from at least 2 down at the lunch break to win the Havemeyer Trophy. His name will forever be engraved on the trophy with golf legends like Arnold Palmer, Tiger Woods, and Phil Mickelson.
With this win, Whaley receives an exemption into the 2027 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach Golf Links and the Open Championship at the Old Course at St. Andrews, as well as a likely invitation to the 2027 Masters Tournament.