Merion’s ‘magical’ U.S. Amateur ended up being about something bigger than golf

ARDMORE, Pa. — Andy Whaley couldn’t believe his eyes. Standing at the back of Merion East’s soaked 15th green, he smiled and laughed as his son, 22-year-old Jack Whaley, raised the Havemeyer Trophy after conquering the best amateur field in the world.

“Did I ever think he could win the U.S. Amateur? No. Did I ever think he’d win it this year? Absolutely not,” Andy Whaley told GOLF with a laugh as his son did the post-win media car wash.

Andy and his wife, Kerry, were scheduled to fly home on Saturday night. “That tells you how confident we were,” Andy Whaley said with a chuckle. Instead, Andy Whaley, carrying his son’s bag for the first time in five or six years, changed his flight and set out to walk Merion for a final day with his son.

This week’s U.S. Amateur at Merion was golf watching in its purest form. The famed golf course opened its doors to the world’s best amateurs and local crowds flocked by the thousands to walk its fairways, raid the pro shop and watch the best amateur golf has to offer. It was a week for the true, die-in-the-wool golf fans who appreciate and understand what the game has always been about.

It was fitting that, during a week about Merion, the Hugh Wilson design outside Philadelphia remained the main star throughout the week. The world’s best amateurs — Preston Stout, Miles Russell, Tyler Watts and others — all either failed to make it out of stroke play or made an early match play exit. This week was about getting to see Merion, one of the game’s great cathedrals, without it being overrun by giant buildouts and throngs of fans. It was just the world’s best ams and fans who wanted to soak in good golf at a place steeped in history. It was about the magic and mystique of a place we rarely see.

But as Jack and Andy Whaley made their way through the bracket, knocking off the last mid-am and then the Merion favorite Carter Loflin, a different story emerged. One with a meaning far greater than golf or trophies or cathedrals. A story as old as time, but one that never gets old.

That of fathers and sons.

Andy Whaley might say he didn’t think Jack Whaley could win the U.S. Amateur, but he always believed his son would achieve his golfing dreams. Andy first got Jack into golf as a 4-year-old, when he’d take him to the Pete Cowen Golf Academy in Rotherham, England. Andy would buy Jack a lollipop after every practice at the Academy. As fathers tend to do for their sons, Andy Whaley did everything he could to allow young Jack to play golf. Money was tight back then for the Whaleys. Jack didn’t get his first new set of irons until he was 16. When Andy bought his son a new 60-degree wedge when Jack was 12, he dipped into his savings, telling his son that he had worked hard and he deserved it.

“At 12 years old, I don’t understand, but now when I look back at it, I really do appreciate the things he sacrificed for me,” Jack said on Saturday at Merion. “He’s my hero. I want him to see me play well and watch me succeed.”

On Saturday night, after Jack Whaley beat Loflin on the 18th hole, he opened up about how he felt he had disappointed his dad during a stretch of golf from 12 to 17 that saw him rack up missed cut after missed cut. Jack felt that he was stealing from his dad, who was footing the bill for his golf dreams. But Andy Whaley only wanted one thing for his son on the course — enjoy it.

“He’s voiced it, so he clearly felt that that was the case,” Andy Whaley said as the celebration commenced. “But it never ever crossed my mind. It was just about giving your son the opportunity to have fun. If ever, if ever I thought he wasn’t enjoying what he was doing, then that would’ve been difficult to keep it going. I’ve seen him miss cuts. And he’s missed a cut, and we’re having a sandwich after on the patio and having a beer and a chat with the other parents, and he’s not moping; he’s out on the putting green with the other guys who have made the cut, just having fun. You think, well, you’ve missed the cut, but you’re alright if you’re having fun. That’s what mattered. It’s why we’re here.”

“To have a dad that’s that supportive of someone who’s almost — almost looks as if I was failing, was just amazing,” Jack Whaley said on Sunday night about his dad’s influence on his golf journey. “A lot of parents would have just given up, and I know a lot of parents that have given up. He’s not one of them, and he’s the guy that will back me for everything.”

Jack Whaley blossomed during a gap year before college. He planned to work hard on his game, and if he didn’t feel like he was getting better, he was going to hang it up. No college golf, no chasing pro dreams, that was that. But he improved and played well enough to finally crack the World Golf Amateur Rankings. He went to NAIA Dalton State and won five times in two years, including the 2025 NAIA individual title, and won the Nicklaus, Palmer, Player, and Mickelson awards. Then he transferred to Florida State as Andy watched his son do what he always thought was possible, as long as his cup and soul were full on the course. Like all good fathers, Andy Whaley just wanted his son to find joy in life, whatever that entailed. Nothing more, nothing less.

“We’ve always felt that he could be an elite golfer, but you just don’t know where you can get to,” Andy Whaley said. “We’ve looked at each season, we’ve looked at how he’s performed and we’ve look at this season and gone, ‘Right, this season was better than the last season. So we’re still headed in the right direction.’ We don’t know how far that will take us. But the theory being that if you keep improving until you just can’t improve anymore then you are where you are. As long as you’re having fun along the way, as long as you’re enjoying what you’re doing. If it becomes a job and it becomes a chore and it’s becoming hard to get out of bed in the morning to want to do it, then maybe it’s not for you. He’s always, well, the last seven or eight seasons that escalation has been there. We’re still escalating. We’re still scaling the ladder.”

That ladder brought Jack and Andy Whaley to Merion this week. Jack didn’t know if he’d be in the field, but as some top amateurs turned pro, he slipped inside the top 100 in the WAGR rankings and booked a ticket to Merion and told Andy he wanted him on his bag. The Merion experience started with Jack Whaley shooting 2 over through the first two days, which landed him in a 16-for-11 playoff to get into match play. Whaley nearly holed his shot on the par-3 13th and tapped in a birdie to advance. He beat Jackson Ormund in the Round of 64, dispatched Bowen Mauss in the Round of 32, took care of Christian Cavaliere in the Round of 16, handled Adam Bresnu in the quarterfinals, and outlasted Loflin to reach the championship match against Jay Leng Jr.

Andy Whaley has always shared a mantra with Jack: Drive forward, see where you go and just have fun

On Sunday, at famed Merion, Jack and Andy arrived with their eyes forward and calm nerves after a hectic semifinal Saturday. The job was clear. After 18 holes, Jack trailed Leng by two, but he never felt like he was in trouble. Andy had a front-row seat to the biggest day of his son’s life. But it was easy for Andy to be caddie Andy and not dad inside the ropes. He caddied for Jack a lot when he was younger. Then, they butted heads, needing a “250-meter rule” because Andy says that if he was closer than 250 meters and Jack hit a bad shot, then it was his fault.

“It’s Dad’s fault, you know, and that’s OK, that’s what I’m here for,” Whaley said, recalling those times he carried the bag as Jack struggled.

But Sunday was different.

“We’ve been through some good days and some bad days,” Andy Whaley said. “Today just felt mellow. He was good. He was good. We both knew we got a job to do. Focus on the job. Focus on what we need to do out on the course. There’s a lot of people come to watch good golf, so we needed to give them some good golf. … It has been surreal.”

Whaley quickly flipped the script on Leng during the afternoon in 18. He won four straight holes to take a 2-up lead as the rain started to pour. A birdie at No. 10 moved him to 3 up, and then Jack and Andy Whaley reached the 15th hole, still with a three-hole advantage, knowing they were close to a place they never imagined.

Whaley bombed his drive over the right fairway bunker and then hit his approach to some 10 feet. When Jack and Andy arrived at the green, they looked at their destiny and liked what they saw.

“I will admit that when we stood behind it, we did fancy it a little bit. We did like it. There wasn’t much in it. We did like it,” Andy Whaley said with a glimmer in his eye, a laugh and a big smile as the sun set on soggy Merion.

Andy placed the back on the back of the green, planning to go to 16. But Leng missed his birdie putt, and then Jack Whaley, who once thought about quitting golf to stop wasting his dad’s money, settled over the biggest putt of his life with his dad watching. Jack Whaley took the putter back smoothly and sent the ball right into the middle of the cup. He unleashed a mighty fist pump and then turned to Andy and embraced his father, the two crying as the rain continued to pummel Merion.

“When it dropped, I just roared,” Andy said. “I screamed my bloody head off. … It’s surreal. I can’t believe it.”

“I think it was amazing,” Jack Whaley said of his championship-winning week with his dad on the bag. “I think, from the hours that my dad has taken me to practice and all the different golf lessons he’s taken me to, it feels like it was all worth it. Now he can actually see me happy and I can see him happy coming off the golf course, which is really good. I’m very proud of myself for this week.

“I wouldn’t be here without him. Everything is for him.”

As the Whaleys celebrated on Merion’s 15th green, Andy Whaley beamed as his son snapped photos with every fan remaining at Merion. He took some himself, but mainly, Andy Whaley just smiled and laughed in awe. What he saw, however, was not the U.S. Amateur champion or a likely Walker Cupper. It was his son, who handled himself in the manner that Andy and Kerry always wanted him to. It was the pride of a father who saw his son becoming the type of man he had always hoped for; the good golf is just extra.

“The pride of what he has achieved, for me, I like how he’s gone about it,” Andy said as his son took a photo with a young kid on the green. “Just the kind of guy he is and always will be, I hope. The pride in what he achieved is tremendous. But the pride in how he behaves and how he does it overrides it.”

As the crowds started to disperse, the stage belonged to the Whaleys. A cathedral of the game that is synonymous with Bobby Jones and Ben Hogan now also belongs to Jack Whaley. No matter what the future holds, no matter if golf breaks his heart or not, Jack Whaley and Merion will forever be linked. Nothing can steal the joy the week has brought.

“Whenever anything is happening at Merion, I’m sure that clip will pop up,” Andy Whaley said of his son’s winning putt, the giant smile of a proud parent still stretched across his face. “That’s incredible. Just the opportunity to come and play here is magical. That will do for starters. And then to come and compete against the best in the world and be successful is just the icing on the cake. This is a seriously iconic place, and to go out there and test yourself against the best in the world is just epic.” 

Late college basketball coach Jim Valvano once said: “My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person: He believed in me.”

Such has always been the story of fathers willing to put their sons on their shoulders, giving them a chance to be all they could dream of. Not to be rich or famous or powerful, but to be happy and kind and to live a full life.

And so there was Andy Whaley watching his son’s crowning moment, beaming from ear to ear and laughing with anyone who came by to congratulate him on his son’s win and for the son he raised.

Then, Andy Whaley, still wearing his red USGA bib, wiped his eyes and started to follow his son and the rest of the crowd toward the Merion clubhouse, his son, Jack, having just answered the most important question of all.

“Of course he’s still having fun,” Andy Whaley said.

That’s all that’s ever mattered to Dad. Jack wanted to give his father more to repay him for an invaluable gift.

On Sunday at famed Merion, a magical week ended with both father and son getting their wish.