At U.S. Open qualifying, every stroke matters, including strokes of fate

PURCHASE, N.Y. — James Nicholas, the former Yale biology major who chose Q School over med school, has played all over the world in his 29 years, including Kenya and Qatar, across Europe and South America. But on Monday, he played in his childhood backyard, in a manner of speaking. He grew up in nearby Scarsdale, had breakfast in his childhood home on Monday and then made the short drive to the Golf Club of Purchase for the first part of his 36-hole one-day qualifier for the U.S. Open — the national Open, at Shinnecock Hills.

Nicholas — with his wife, America, caddying for him — shot a morning 68. Seventy-nine players for four spots. So far, so good. Husband and wife made the five-minute drive to Century Country Club, a Golden Age jewel. Purchase is a Golden Bear (Jack Nicklaus) showpiece moderne. 

Nicholas made four straight pars to start at Century. On to the 5th, a 460-yard par-4 where you can’t miss right. Nicholas has played in 13 Korn Ferry events this year and made six cuts, though not his last two. That was then, this is now. Though now in golf is always, to some degree, shaped by all that has preceded it.

He stepped in, driver in hand. America, a psychology major and a dancer as an undergraduate at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn., held her husband’s carry bag in the locked and upright position. You might know the couple, together since high school. They share their lives on golf’s back roads on social media in a way few golf couples, if any, do. Shrimp and an orzo salad for a recent dinner and the rest. You want healthy, disciplined living, find James and America on all your favorite platforms.

At the 5th, Nicholas drove it wildly right. His Titleist ball went into some deep shrubbery not meant for man or ball. His provisional was worse, 20 yards right of his first and totally gone. If you and I were playing were playing for fun, we’re done then and there, right? Your hole — just put me down for 7. But you can’t, of course, do that in a U.S. Open qualifier.

Young James Nicholas, who played in his first U.S. Open last year at Oakmont (played the fourth round with Brian Harman — how fun is that?), was looking kinda stressed. His mother and brother and caddie, ditto. The dozen or more spectators with a rooting interest, ibid. His former college coach, Colin Sheehan, was following the action via his laptop while on a family vacation in Athens. (How Yaley is all that?) Finally, Nicholas’s second provisional — his third drive from the 5th tee — was right down Broadway. A par on his third ball would mean an 8 on the hole. Hard to recover from that.

One of the spectators went running down the 5th fairway. You get only three minutes to search for a wayward ball but the clock doesn’t start until the player gets to the scene of the crime. A marshal was out there, in the land of the lost, with only a vague notion of where the first ball went. The running spectator — okay, jogging, the man is 58 and is not on an orzo salad diet — was no ordinary spectator. It was Phil Mintz, a comically profane former Duke tennis player, retired partner at Apollo Global Management and, notable in this context, a four-time club champ at Century who has played golf with Nicholas since Nicholas was at Scarsdale High. A local high school golf coach, Mark Canno, was right behind Mintz. Both are Nich-o-philes. “Not only one of the best players I’ve ever seen around here, but the nicest kid,” Canno will tell you. Mintz will say the same. He had taken Nicholas out for a practice round just a few days earlier.

Nicholas grew up playing at Westchester Country Club and Winged Foot. So, yes, high cotton, New York style. Mintz describes Century as “the Jewish Winged Foot.” Totally different and one of the same, if you know what I mean, and you may not. Century takes in a handful of new members a year, if that. 

You could write a book about upper crust golf in Westchester County. In all of golf, across the United States, there’s nothing like it, the vastness of the wealth, the beauty of the courses, the tribal affiliations, the timelessness of it all. Before Monday, I had not been to Century in 40 years, since caddying in the 36-hole qualifier on the eve of the 1986 U.S. Open, also at Shinnecock Hills. The whole place seemed unchanged, except there’s a new single-stall men’s room off the clubhouse, convenient if you’re making the turn, with a black-and-white photo of Ben Hogan in follow-through on one wall and a color one of local boy Cameron Young, doing the same, on another. 

Back to the 5th, mid-afternoon on Monday. Phil Mintz could not believe how thick the vegetation was. Nobody hits it where Nicholas had hit it, except righty 100-shooters from the forward tees with wicked slices. Mintz was pushing back the plant life with two arms and two feet, a desperate needle-in-a-haystack search, with the clock running. Where is MacGyver when you need him? But even Angus MacGyver, wielding his Swiss Army knife as a machete in this jungle, would have been lathered into a panic state. “That ball could have been anywhere,” Mintz said later. “It was hopeless.” 

And then — wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles — a vision appeared before Mintz’s eyes: a white shiny golf ball, obviously a new arrival.

Mintz turned around. Nicholas was now in the vicinity. “You got an American flag on it, right?”

How do you spell relief?

M-I-N-T-Z.

Nicholas almost laughed at his good fortune.

He took an unplayable lie — there was absolutely no chance of advancing it from where he was — hit an indifferent third shot (after the penalty stroke), pitched beautifully from eight yards off the green and made a short putt for a 5. That bogey meant the difference between making it to Shinnecock and not.

“And now we’re off to the Hamptons,” America said when golf’s longest day was over. She looked jubilant and not exhausted in the slightest. Neither did her husband. These are fit people in every way. On more than a few occasions over the course of Monday, she gave her husband a one-word pep talk before he played a shot: “Commit.” This week, Nicholas will be playing at the Korn Ferry stop in Amarillo, Texas — with his regular caddie, not America, on his bag.

From there, off to Southampton, on the basis of Nicholas’s morning 68 and his afternoon 72. His 140 was good enough to secure one of the four spots. One more stroke would have potentially been one too many — there would have been a playoff with the veteran Australian golfer Matt Jones. Ben James, who grew up in Milford, Conn., also shot 140. The medalist was Kevin Roy, who grew up in upstate New York and shot 134. The Tour player Max Greyserman, from Short Hills, N.J., finished second, two shots behind Roy. Four qualifiers from the Northeast, playing in the heart of it.

“I played well in the morning,” Greyserman said. “But this afternoon I was driving it all over the place, and these greens are as fast and firm as anything we see on Tour. It was stressful.” It had to be. Trying to qualify for your national championship is stressful. Greyserman’s parents emigrated to the United States from Ukraine as teenagers. What are the chances? What are the chances of this guy playing his way into his third U.S. Open?

P. Mintz got a text late Monday night from J. Nicholas.

I owe you.

“He’s a great kid,” Mintz said. “He doesn’t owe me shit.” 

Michael Bamberger welcomes your comments at Michael.Bamberger@Golf.com