Forget winning low amateur at the Masters. Sam Bennett has sewed that up. He has his sights on something bigger, much bigger, after turning his second consecutive 68, for an 8-under-par 136 going into the third round.
His performance for the first two rounds is the best by an amateur since 1956 when Ken Venturi shot 66-69-135.
“I just wanted to put two good rounds up,” said Bennett, the reigning U.S. Amateur champion from Madisonville, Texas. “I knew my golf was good enough to compete out here. I found myself in a situation that now I’ve got a golf tournament I can win.”
Bennett is dead serious, and why shouldn’t he be? When play was suspended Friday afternoon after he completed his round, he was in third place, trailing leader Brooks Koepka (-12) by four shots, and Jon Rahm (who had played 10 holes), by just one.
On Friday, Bennett made his first bogey of the tournament on the long par-3 fourth hole, when he air-mailed the green and couldn’t get up and down. But from the par-5 eighth to the par-4 14th, he birdied four holes, then made pars the rest of the way. Like his first round, his flatstick work was superb with just 27 putts, and he has yet to three-putt. And like his first round, he hit exactly 13 of 18 greens.
As for the other five amateurs in the field, the next closest were Ben Carr, the American Bennett defeated in 2022 U.S. Amateur at Ridgeline Country Club, and Australian Harrison Crowe, the 2022 Asia-Pacific Amateur Champion. Both were at 5-over-par, 13 shots behind Bennett, and well out off the cutline.
Bennett admitted that he’s having a dream Masters debut, but believed all along he was capable of this type of performance. His college and amateur experience and success — he’s a fifth-year senior All-American at Texas A&M University — have all led to this moment, he said, adding that he doesn’t even think he will be nervous when he tees it up in the third round in one of the last groups.
He also seems to thrive on pressure, helped a good bit by having his college coach, Brian Kortan, caddying for him as he did in the U.S Amateur.
In each of the first two rounds, he birdied the first hole, and he eagled the par-5 second during Round 1.
“I love being able to hit shots that matter in front of people,” Bennett said. “I used that to my advantage. I felt comfortable out there.”
Much this week has been made of the motivation he gets from a tattoo on his left arm that bears advice from his late father, Mark, a dentist who died in 2021 from early…
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