ARDMORE, Pa. — Please, please ask Rudy Sautron about his wifi.
Not that there’s anything wrong about his golf, which is as glorious and daring and utterly thrilling as any golfer in the field at this 126th U.S. Amateur Championship, and which pushed him into the round of 32 after many hours of toil Wednesday afternoon at Merion Golf Club. It’s just that he has been asked about his internet connection one too many times, and he is ready to set the record straight.
“People seriously ask me if I grew up with wifi,” he says, a half-smile betraying a shade of truly righteous indignation. “Do they think I grew up sleeping in a tree? Of course I had wifi! They ask me how I came to the United States. I don’t know, on a plane?!”
The truth is that Rudy Sautron does not appreciate your condescension, thank you very much. The truth is also that, beneath the edge of his humor, he understands it. Because Rudy did not get his start in golf playing out of Merion or Philly Cricket or [gasp] Pine Valley, but from a place far, far less likely.
A place named Golf Club du Colorado. A 2,600-yard, nine-hole loop located in the middle of a long series of harrowing switchbacks on a one-lane road on a tiny French territory in the middle of the Indian Ocean. It was there, on one of the three golf courses on Reunion Island — a 40-mile-wide speck of dust 400 miles off the east coast of Africa — that Sautron first found his way to a set of clubs.
Sautron is not the only golfer from his homeland to make his way into high-level golf. There is a girl around his age who has just taken a scholarship at a top-ranked women’s program, he says, and an older man who has played for years between the international feeder tours, most recently on the Sunshine Tour. But for a territory of 900,000 people known for holding the world record for rain in a day (71 inches!), Rudy admits his specific intuition for golf is pretty much a miracle.
“The first time I ever touched a club, I pulled up a 60-degree and hit a 60-yard carry,” he says. “I was at a lesson with my uncle, and my coach said I just naturally gripped the club the right way. He looked at me and said, ‘I think this is meant to be.’”
Those initial words have proven prophetic. Especially as Rudy has labored across three high-level Division I college programs and a diminishing scoring average, slowly working his way into the round of 32 at this U.S. Amateur against a field of players from countries with far greater golfing pedigrees.
It’s a feat not even Rudy can quite believe. Not because he doesn’t deserve it. No, quite the opposite — Rudy hasn’t seen his parents, who still live on Reunion Island, in almost two years while he chases a collegiate golf career. It’s just that he doesn’t feel like he deserves it. At least not yet.
“This is the only tournament I kind of feel like I shouldn’t be here,” he said. “There are so many good players out there… and I didn’t know a few months ago that I was so close to the highest level.”
This was the tenor of disbelief Rudy contended with when he was asked by one reporter why he was playing in the U.S. Amateur on Monday.
“Because I’m one of the best,” he’d said. But he wasn’t sure he meant it.
Not until Wednesday, when a knock-down, drag-out brawl with Long Island fan favorite Matt Lowe went all the way to the 18th green — and when Rudy emerged victorious. He started to feel it then … even if, as he admitted, he couldn’t feel his hands.
“The more I play, the more I win, and the more I see around, I’m like, I’m pretty close to where I want to be,” he said. “It’s just by details now.”
The details. Like a date in the U.S. Amateur round of 32, where he will play on Thursday morning, five wins away from a U.S. Amateur Championship.
And four wins from an invite to the Crow’s Nest at the Masters, a perk afforded to the top two finishers at each U.S. Amateur.
“What a feeling to wear a green jacket or something,” he said Wednesday evening with a grin.
The kid from Reunion Island is used to big dreams. His life as a golfer is predicated upon one. He’s not used to what happened on Wednesday afternoon at Merion Golf Club, when he realized he wasn’t dreaming any longer.
“That used to be a kid’s dream,” Rudy said. “But right now, it turned into a goal.”
