U.S. AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

August 13, 2026

Jack Whaley

Merion Golf Club

Quick Quotes

Q. Safe to say that this afternoon match was probably a little less stressful than when you had to wake up yesterday morning to come to a playoff, right?

JACK WHALEY: Yeah, coming off that golf course the day before a playoff, was kind of thinking which hole it was going to be for starters, and finding out it was 13, it's like, well (indiscernible) it was a lot more stressful than it needed to be. But after that was pretty awesome, being able to hit it close and get out of there with a 2 straight away and leave (indiscernible).

Q. Got off to a quick start today and was able to maintain and grow that lead throughout the match. How much confidence does it give you when you're able to start quickly like that? I don't know if you kick it into cruise control, but what's it do to your mentality?

JACK WHALEY: Yeah, when you start off with a hot start, you're setting the pace for the afternoon round. But I think as soon as I got to -- I think I was 5-up at one point, it was kind of like go into defense mode, and I quickly realized that going into defense mode opens a lot of doors. Then I switched straight after that, after probably 13. I was like, wow, we're going to go straight at the pins again.

Then I made -- I hit a good shot in on 13, and then on 14 I hit a good one as well.

I think one of the big things, as well, coming into the final stretch, Christian kind of put himself out of it a little bit off the tee, and it kind of opened the door a little bit for me. Yeah, definitely less stressful than what I had yesterday morning, yeah.

Q. Less than 36 hours ago, not even in match play, now you're a quarterfinalist. You're going to be one of eight people left out of 312. How do you try to wrap your head around what the last 36 hours have been?

JACK WHALEY: The last 36 hours, I didn't really expect it coming into this week. I knew my game was pretty solid. I knew I was playing nice. But obviously there's so many good players in this field, you can never really say, wow, I'm going to win. It's always a goal, but you never know.

Q. There's been a lot of talk about this course. It's obviously shorter than a lot of courses you play in college and amateur golf. Why is it able to still test you guys so much?

JACK WHALEY: It's probably, what, 7,000 yards, 6,900 yards, so it's a lot shorter than what we normally play, but I think that the way the architecture is, you can't hit many drivers. You've got places where you can hit driver, and that's where it comes a little bit easier, but some of the holes you're kind of hitting irons and hybrids and 3-woods, which makes it feel longer than it actually is.

Pulling driver on some of them holes brings in a lot of trouble, so I think it definitely plays a lot longer than it is.

Q. Are you someone who -- did you maybe look up YouTube footage of the U.S. Open that was here in 2013? How did you prep for this?

JACK WHALEY: So I've got a golf shot app thing where I can pinpoint where all the tee boxes are, so I kind of used that and went through in the practice rounds how wide the fairways were so I could kind of navigate. But I also completely forgot the fact that Merion had the U.S. Open until my dad told me the day before.

Yeah, prep, I wouldn't say it was 100 percent perfect, but it's working.

Q. I'm sure you know who won that U.S. Open, too, right? It would be cool to have an Englishman go back-to-back here.

JACK WHALEY: Yeah, hopefully. That would be really nice. I think if I'm right, I think I'm the only English person left. Bring one home for England, right?

Q. It's coming up on a month to go to the Walker Cup. Have you put any thoughts, hey, if I have a good week, I could pretty much lock in my spot for Ireland?

JACK WHALEY: Yeah, I know a lot of guys that have kind of been probably told that they're probably going to get in and their spots are finalized, but --

Q. You're not one of them?

JACK WHALEY: Honestly, I have not received a text message or email from anyone. I may need to prove a point, but if they don't see that I'm worthy of being in the Walker Cup, it's the selectors' choice. But I'm here to prove it.

Q. Does that fire you up a little bit, that you've heard all this stuff going around?

JACK WHALEY: Yeah, I mean, 100 percent. Coming from the British Am, I didn't really have a great -- I played really solid the first round and kind of messed it up on one hole in the second round, which kind of put me out of the running for that tournament, which kind of took the eyes off me a little bit. But I think coming in and then playing the Western and just missed out on the sweet 16 of western and then obviously quarterfinals in the U.S. Am, it definitely puts the eyes back on me. But it's down to the selectors. I'm not here to say I should be in the Walker Cup. I feel like I should be, but we'll see.