Sam Bennett is one of seven Masters amateurs in the field for this week’s tournament, and the American, who qualified for the Major as US Amateur champion, could barely have embraced the occasion more impressively.
In the first round, Bennett held his nerve to finish on four-under and tied for sixth with a host of household names, including champion and World No.1 Scottie Scheffler. He continued where he left off in the second round, too, with a birdie at the first as he remained close to the top of the leaderboard.
The Texan draws on a poignant and permanent source of inspiration while on the course, which could help explain his incredible performance.
Bennett’s dad Mark passed away aged just 53 in 2021 due to early-onset Alzheimer’s. The year before that, though, he had some words of advice for his son, and they now adorn the inside of Sam’s left arm as a tattoo. In the style of his father’s handwriting, the advice reads: “Don’t wait to do something”.
Before making a name for himself at Augusta National, Bennett also played in the 2021 Valero Texas Open, and it was there that he opened up about why he got the tattoo and how much the words mean to him.
He said: “Last summer, me and mom were doing yard work. Dad was out there and, I’ve been struggling with some stuff mentally, and this was when my dad can still… we can still kind of have a conversation when he could still talk and it was the last piece of advice. He was like: ‘Don’t wait to do something’. That kind of stuck with me.“
“Don’t wait to do something.”Sam Bennett’s late father gives him inspiration before every single shot.Today, he made history. pic.twitter.com/hhEFZFGv9nApril 6, 2023
I was in Dallas in a golf tournament for, I think, the Southern Am. I was like, I’m going to get this tattoo. He wrote it out, it took him like 15 minutes to write it and it was probably the hardest thing he’s probably had to do in his handwriting.“
Bennett also revealed that his dad was the reason he took up the game, and that his words are now an integral part of his pre-shot routine. He said: “It means the world to me you know. He was the reason I started playing golf and why I wanted to be good to impress him.
“It’s like a new pre-shot routine that I do now, like right before I’m about to hit it, look at it and I’m like: ‘Don’t wait to do something’. It’s something that will always stick and he means the world to me.”
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