Local Star Shiels-Donegan Rides Home Crowd to U.S. Amateur Quarterfinals
Niall Shiels-Donegan has turned his hometown U.S. Amateur appearance into something special. Each morning this week, he’s rolled out of bed at his Mill Valley home, grabbed his clubs, and made the half-hour drive across the Golden Gate Bridge to Olympic Club—followed by what seems like half his hometown.
When the 20-year-old closed out his third straight match on the Lake Course’s 18th hole Thursday—a 1-up victory over Oklahoma State standout Preston Stout—he tipped his cap to the hundred-plus supporters who’d been with him shot-for-shot. It’s easily the largest and loudest gallery following any player this week.
“That was pretty fun,” he told his caddie, former little league coach Todd Moutafian.
The celebration was just beginning. Friends and family mobbed him in a scene that could probably be heard across nearby Lake Merced.
They chanted his name. Niall! Niall! Niall!
They lined up for hugs and high-fives.
They shook him so hard his hat fell off.
“It’s the best thing in the world!” Shiels-Donegan shouted during his post-round Golf Channel interview. “To be able to play on a stage like the U.S. Amateur and win in front of a home crowd like this, it means the world.”
Though born in Scotland, Shiels-Donegan is Mill Valley through and through. His father Lawrence Donegan was a golf columnist for The Guardian when Niall was born in Glasgow during the 2005 Open Championship at St. Andrews. The family moved to the Bay Area when Niall was 3 after his mother Maggie Shiels took a job at Google.
Growing up, he played nearly every sport—baseball, soccer, volleyball and lacrosse in high school. He was solid on the mound as a kid, though Moutafian vowed never to mess up his golf swing. Shiels-Donegan didn’t get serious about competitive golf until his sophomore year, but a runner-up finish at the 2022 English Boys put him on college coaches’ radar. He played two seasons at Northwestern before transferring to North Carolina this summer.
While he has an honorary membership at Alister Mackenzie’s Meadow Club, he hasn’t forgotten Mill Valley Golf Course, the modest nine-holer where golfers often play in T-shirts and flip-flops.
“About 90% of my gallery are people I’ve played with at Mill Valley,” he said. “It’s a great group of guys who love golf and love each other.”
He needed every bit of that support against Stout, the fourth-ranked amateur in the world and U.S. Walker Cup team member who dominated stroke play at Olympic. Stout earned medalist honors at 8 under, 11 shots better than Shiels-Donegan, who barely squeaked through at 3 over after surviving a 20-for-17 playoff just to make match play.
Still buzzing from his clutch 6-footer on 18 to beat Texas’ Christiaan Maas in Thursday morning’s Round of 32, Shiels-Donegan found himself 2 down through four holes against Stout. But the Oklahoma State star gave a couple back with bogeys, including at the short par-4 seventh, where he twice left shots short of a severe ridge protecting the left hole location.
Shiels-Donegan seized the moment, burying a 50-foot birdie putt at the par-3 eighth. As his ball rolled toward the cup, someone screamed, “One time! One time!” When it dropped, the place erupted—and Shiels-Donegan soaked it all in.
“When I’m down, they’re up,” he said, “and that helps me get back into the moment, stay focused and just keep making pars, making birdies, making the other guy do what he needs to do to beat me.”
Stout responded by winning three straight holes, Nos. 11-13, with bookend birdies. But he couldn’t shake Shiels-Donegan and his red-hot putter.
“Just fell back on my putter,” Shiels-Donegan said, “and luckily it was there.”
He tied the match by sticking his approach at the par-3 15th and holing an 8-footer for birdie. At the mammoth par-5 16th, both players laid up in the left rough before hitting third shots to about 20 feet. Shiels-Donegan made, Stout missed, and the local favorite was leading again.
When Shiels-Donegan drained another birdie from 12 feet at the par-5 17th, he raised his putter as fans roared. (His father, before becoming a golf writer, played bass guitar in two Scottish rock bands, including Lloyd Cole and the Commotions. Fitting.)
“I kind of black out whenever that happens,” Shiels-Donegan said. “I just do whatever feels right. I just try and hit the shots and see what happens.”
Both players hit the final green with similar birdie putts. Shiels-Donegan went first, his lightning-quick attempt sliding about 3 feet by. Stout did the same, finishing just inside. But Stout never got the chance to putt again, as Shiels-Donegan rolled in the match-winner.
“I think I’ve done a really good job this week of controlling that adrenaline and using it only when I need to,” he said. “But, yeah, it’s hard sometimes when you’ve got the crowd around this amphitheater of the 18th green; you’re shaking a little bit. That’s three putts now that I’ve holed to win my matches down 18. It’s been great.”
Dean Robertson, this year’s Walker Cup captain for Great Britain and Ireland, might want to take notice.
Shiels-Donegan spent about a month in the U.K. this summer trying to impress selectors. He tied for fourth at the St. Andrews Links Trophy, but after a first-round exit at the British Amateur and being left off the GB&I squad for the St. Andrews Trophy, his prospects dimmed. He thought he’d miss the U.S. Amateur entirely, ranked outside the top 100 and having missed all qualifiers.
But in the final week, he somehow jumped inside the cutoff for an exempt spot in the 312-player field, though it took days for him to find out since he’d blocked the rankings page on his devices.
His Walker Cup hopes remain alive, even if there’s a household rule that the event can’t be discussed.
“I’ve developed a good mindset of just working hard and knowing that all the extra stuff will take of itself,” he said. “It would obviously be amazing to play the Walker Cup at Cypress Point so close to home and with the support that I could get there, but anything can happen. I’m just trying to have a good time, and if that happens it would be amazing.”
Before his second shot at 17, Moutafian offered simple encouragement: “This is why you’re here.”
Shiels-Donegan’s U.S. Amateur journey continues Friday afternoon in the quarterfinals against Notre Dame’s Jacob Modleski, whose father Matt was a demonstration pilot for the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds. Modleski might need to organize a flyover to combat Team NSD.
How does Shiels-Donegan come down from Thursday’s emotional high and keep performing?
“My dad does a pretty good job of that,” he said. “He reminds me that I’m just human. Like at the end of the day, this is just golf – 10% of my life is golf, 90% percent of my life is my family, my friends. Just keep the 10% where it is and live the other 90 like anybody else.”
But to those watching him this week at Olympic, Shiels-Donegan isn’t just anybody else.
He’s the pride of Mill Valley, and after Thursday, they were ready to carry him back across that bridge.
