It's Time to Reevaluate Reinstated Amateur Status

On the 34th hole of the U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship final match on Thursday, Brandon Holz, a 38-year-old realtor from Bloomington, Indiana, decided it was time to put the hammer down. He pulled out his driver, teed the ball high, and launched one toward the green, a 308-yard driveable par 4. His ball finished 7 feet from the pin.

Holz rolled in his eagle putt and put the finishing touches on a 3-and-2 victory over Jeg Coughlin III at Troon Country Club, claiming one of the biggest prizes in amateur golf. It was a thrilling victory that will likely get him an invitation to the Masters, and only comes with one theoretical asterisk: Holz wasn’t an amateur until 2024. He played six years on the mini tours before applying for reinstatement with the USGA.

“I kept my pro card for a while just because I liked to play for cash,” Holz told the USGA after the round.”It got to the point where I just wasn't playing any events anymore, so I decided to get my amateur status back last year. I didn't see this day. I'm glad it's here, though.”

Every year, around the time of the U.S. Mid-Amateur, the great debate over reinstated ams (former professionals who reclaim amateur status) erupts across the golf internet. This year is no different, and the fair police critics are circling around this week’s championship with their pitchforks out.

Seven of the eight quarterfinalists at Troon Country Club in Scottsdale, Arizona, had played some form of professional golf. Most of the outrage focused on Justin Hueber and Christian Brand, who have collectively made 154 starts and $479,351 on the Korn Ferry Tour. Another player had a long career on PGA Tour Americas developmental circuit, where he picked up a couple of wins. All of these players followed USGA Rules to reclaim amateur status, but it does beg the question: Do reinstated ams have a place in the current amateur game?

I will start off by confessing, I am myself a reinstated am. I never held Korn Ferry Tour status or played in a PGA Tour event, but I have made match play at a U.S. Mid-Am in the last five years. I don't think there is a one-size-fits-all answer. The college golf grad that plays a year or two of mini tours trying to make it isn't the same as a multiple-year tour veteran or even someone that goes into the PGA of America line of work, either. A lifetime ban from amateur golf for a post-college decision is too harsh.

The current USGA reinstatement process reflects on the last event played as a professional and is based on “a result of playing performance and success” to determine your waiting period, which could be as little as a year or potentially as long as five-plus years. It's time for the USGA to pull its head out of the sand and reevaluate the process that determines the waiting criteria. A potential fix could be to extend waiting periods and increase fees for those who carry a higher professional status. Not all former professionals applying for reinstatement are the same.

The U.S. Mid-Am started in 1981 and has long been romanticized as a championship for the 25-and-older crowd with jobs, families, and the like (I have two kids and no interest in fighting), so they don’t have to compete against the depth of college kids and juniors at the U.S. Amateur. It has now evolved into a highly popular USGA championship, carrying the carrot of a Masters invite to the champion. Entries and interest in the event have grown through the years, and so has the level of competition.

Yes. I’m slightly biased, but I do think there is a place for past professionals to once again compete after a proper, lengthy break from tour competition. Some might say the decision of declaring yourself a professional golfer should come with weight, and that's totally fine, but there is some middle ground to be found in the process for all. In this current landscape of NIL in college athletics, the true sense of amateurism has essentially become a farce. Who’s to say that a popular college player earning a five-to-six-figure NIL check and flying in private jets is no more professional than the guy who took a crack at the minor league tour five years ago? There was a time in my life when I dreamed of playing in the Masters, and I briefly tried to chase it professionally. It didn't work out, but I have no regrets. But sometimes the dream still flickers in my mind. As unlikely as it is, I still want to chase it.