Ethan Fang’s year just got even better.
Less than a month after helping Oklahoma State to its first NCAA Championship in seven years, the rising Cowboys junior captured the 130th British Amateur on Saturday at Royal St. George’s. The win earns Fang three major championship invitations and likely secures his spot on the U.S. Walker Cup team.
Fang trailed Ireland’s Gavin Tiernan, 1 down, at the halfway point of the 36-hole final. He took his first lead after Tiernan bogeyed the par-4 fifth, his third bogey of the afternoon. Tiernan, a freshman at East Tennessee State, eagled the par-5 seventh to tie the match back up, but struggled with six bogeys over the final half after making just one in the morning.
The match swung in Fang’s favor when he won Nos. 14 and 15 to go 2 up. Tiernan fought back with impressive long-range birdie putts at the next two holes, sending the match to the par-4 18th all square. That’s where Fang delivered the decisive shot – a perfectly executed approach that hit the upslope and rolled to about 5 feet. Tiernan missed left with his approach and couldn’t convert his third straight long-range putt.
Fang calmly drained his closing birdie for the win, which comes with invitations to next month’s Open Championship at Royal Portrush, next spring’s Masters, and next summer’s U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills. Already ranked seventh in the world amateur rankings before this victory, Fang is now virtually guaranteed a spot on Nathan Smith’s 10-man U.S. Walker Cup team that will compete at Cypress Point this September.
He’ll likely join three Americans who officially qualified via the world rankings on Wednesday – Auburn’s Jackson Koivun, Virginia’s Ben James and Ole Miss’ Michael La Sasso.
Fang is the 22nd American to win the British Amateur, but the first since Drew Weaver in 2007 at Royal Lytham. Before Weaver, you have to go all the way back to 1979, when the late Jay Sigel won at Hillside.
Eight Americans made match play this week, though Fang was the only one to reach the quarterfinals. Texas senior Tommy Morrison, the reigning European Amateur winner, advanced to the Round of 32 and at fifth in the world rankings is also considered likely to join Fang on the Walker Cup team.
