Thomasville-native Mason Howell helps lead Team USA to Walker Cup victory at historic venue

It’s not often that someone can say they have played Cypress Point Club in Monterey, California. And holing an approach shot at the 377-yard par-4 17th hole to clinch a point on the way toward the United States retaining the Walker Cup is utterly unthinkable for most high school golfers.

Enter Mason Howell during the Sunday foursomes matches that helped lead Team USA to a 17-9 victory over Team Great Britain and Ireland. Up two holes and needing to tie the hole to win their match, Howell’s perfectly placed drive left him 147 yards from the hole.

His well-struck wedge landed just left and short of the hole, bounced right and into the cup, without rolling at all.

A slam-dunk, so to speak.  

Howell rose to fame in August by becoming the youngest winner of the U.S. Amateur Championship at The Olympic Club in San Francisco after winning 7&6 – seven holes up with six holes to play – in the final.

A rout.

He helped lead the Brookwood School in Thomasville to a GISA state championship last season and was the individual champion in the tournament. And after his perfectly struck wedge on Sunday, the sky is the limit for the UGA-bound teenager.

Cypress Point Club, which was designed in 1928, is not only consistently ranked as one of the greatest courses on the planet, but it helped encourage legendary golfer Bobby Jones to hire its designer, Alister MacKenzie, to help carve out 18 holes on the rolling hills of a former ornamental plant nursery outside of Augusta.

PHOTO - Howell raising the US Amateur Trophy, credit USGA