MORAGA, Calif. – The Saint Mary's Golf Program has watched some of its top, young talent mature from prospects with big potential into budding stars with their achievements at tournaments this summer.
Mitchell Hoey
Last summer, between Hoey's freshman and sophomore years, the De La Salle High product made it all the way to a U.S. Open Qualifier. This summer, he won a U.S. Amateur qualifier.
Hoey shot a 66 on both days to finish 12-under par for the tournament at 132 strokes, booking a spot at the U.S. Amateur Championship at Cherry Hills Country Club in Cherry Hills Village, Colo. on August 14-20. The Alamo, Calif. native made 10 birdies and one eagle in the tournament, made birdie or better in his first three holes, and played bogie-free golf for the entire 36 holes.
Golf can be a mentally trying and challenging game. The time spent walking between shots can leave a golfer over analyzing the fine details and actions that dictate where a shot lands in an incredibly difficult sport to master. For Hoey, delving into a deeper level of his faith helped create a calm, piece of mind on the golf course that inspired his success.
"The biggest thing that I noticed during the qualifying was my mindset," Hoey said. "In the last number of months, I've been striving to grow my faith with God, and my mindset for the entirety of the 36 holes was 'give it my all for Him.' This put me in such a peaceful spot mentally in fact, that I honestly didn't look at the scoreboard once the entire day until I walked off the 36th hole, and my dad said I had a three-shot lead."
Hoey was one of two qualifiers from the tournament at Castlewood Country Club in Pleasanton, Calif. The other was Colorado's Brandon Knight, who Hoey finished ahead of by three strokes, after Knight narrowly edged out Hoey in the San Francisco City Golf Championships back in March.
Ryan Hartanto also participated in the qualifier and had a good showing, finishing 1-under par overall at 143 strokes, and 2-under in round two. He was 4-under on par fours with six birdies, good for third among the 66 golfers.
Jack Jerge
Incoming freshman Jack Jerge, also competed in the qualifier and finished 3-under par at 141 strokes, including two birdies.
Jerge already had a big summer on the links, defending his title at the AJGA C.T. Pan Foundation Championship hosted at the San Jose Country Club.
Jerge was ranked No. 44 in Rolex AJGA Rankings and recently finished tied for second at the 2023 PING Heather Farr Classic. His impressive score of 5-under par, with a 65 on the final day sealed Jerge's second AJGA win and a successful defense of his title.
The Pleasant Hill, Calif. native rose to victory by a margin of two strokes and had a 54 hole total of 9-under.
Aidan Lee
The Pasadena, Calif. native has already won two different championships this summer, and looks to take some serious momentum into his sophomore year. He started the summer winning the prestigious Memorial Amateur Championship in Carmichael, Calif. and followed that up by capturing the SCGA 2023 Match Play Championship.
Lee captured his first career victory thanks to a staggering eight birdies in his closing 13 holes at Ancil Hoffman Golf Course. The bogey-free 65 was the lowest score of the tournament, and one of just three sub-70 rounds on Memorial Day.
At the Memorial Amateur Championship, he fired off a two-under-par 70 on the first day, but struggled and carded a three-over 75. On day three he went on to shoot an incredible 7-under 65 before winning the tournament in a playoff.
Lee raced out to a three-hole lead on the front that he never surrendered en route to capturing the SCGA Match Play crown at Goose Creek GC, defeating Sean Birren 1-up in the championship match to wrap up an impressive series of five rounds in three days.
Lee found himself in the championship after a strong morning performance where he eliminated Alex Resurreccion, before going up against Birren, who only needed 16 holes to bounce his semifinal opponent, in the afternoon.
Lee established a lead on the third hole, then doubled it on No. 4 with his first birdie of the round. He remained up by two holes as the match headed to the back nine. Birren reduced the deficit to one hole after a par on No. 12, but Lee stole it right back on No. 13, giving him five holes to retain a two-hole advantage.
Though Birren brought it back down to 1-up on the fifteenth hole, Lee held off any potential comeback through the final three holes to officially claim the crystal and win his first SCGA title. With the victory, Lee is exempt into the 2024 SCGA Amateur Championship and 2024 California Amateur Championship.
After sitting out a season due to a shoulder injury, Lee feels like he's ready to truly hit his stride as a collegiate golfer.
"My development throughout my freshman year has skyrocketed not only as a player, but as a person as well," Lee said. "I feel like I was able to transfer an abundance of the information about course strategy, mental discipline, and overall competitiveness into my own individual game to help with my success this summer. In the two tournament wins, I felt composed and poised in the high-pressure environment that I found myself in.
"Having the ability to handle these difficult situations comes from a continuously growing mountain of experiences and information that I have drawn from coaches, teammates, and competitors throughout my journey at Saint Mary's," Lee added. "I am so excited to be able to continue to use this wealth of knowledge as I head into my sophomore season where we are all looking to improve not only as a team, but individually as well."
Kristian Bressum
Rising junior, Kristian Bressum, is the most WCC-decorated player on the Gaels current roster, as he was named WCC Freshman of the Year in 2022, and named to the
Bressum with Team Denmark
conference's All-Academic Team in 2023.
He gained more international experience again this summer, advancing to the match play stage in the Amateur Championship hosted by the Royal and Ancient Golf Club of Saint Andrews at Hillside in England, and making it to the European Amateur Team Championships as part of Team Denmark at the Royal Waterloo Golf Club in Belgium.
At the European Amateur Team Championships, Denmark and Spain, winners of the title in 2021 and 2022 respectively, faced off in the championship match.
Trailing by two points with just five points available in the afternoon, the Danish team had a mammoth task of overturning the Spanish. They made a valiant attempt at it nonetheless, claiming all of the first three singles matches after lunch. The wins put the Danes ahead in the tie 3-2, before Spain claimed the last two points and captured a second consecutive title.
"I was practicing my team golf skills playing against the top-16 golf countries in Europe," Bressum said. "It was a trip where we cared a lot for team building, playing games outside the course, always giving handshakes to everyone at the end of the day, and asking the players what each other wanted to do and how to make the trip as good as possible for us to play well. So I saw many other ways than I'm used to in which team performance can be improved which was a good experience. It was really awesome keeping up the high level of golf in summer so that I'm top tuned and ready to get back to SMC this fall."
The successful summers of what has been a very young Gaels team the past two seasons, lends hope that the program may be returning to its prior prominence of success under coach Scott Hardy.
"It's been great to see our players come out this summer and be very competitive in amateur golf," Hardy commented. "Their growth and the experience they are gaining is going to carry over into success for our team. I think we will see it right away as we start the fall schedule in Michigan over Labor Day weekend."
