Identical Ford twins rocket into U.S. Amateur Four-Ball match play at Chambers Bay
Chambers Bay just got overtaken by the identical Ford twins from Georgia.
David Ford and fellow 18-year-old graduating high-school senior Kelly Chinn ignored cool winds up to 20 mph and combined for a 7-under par 65 at Chambers on Sunday to move their two-day stroke-play total to a tournament-best 16-under 127 at the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship. They are the top duo of the 32 sides that advanced to Monday’s match-play elimination round at Pierce County’s sound-side jewel links course.
“I know David and I were trying to go as low as possible,” said Chinn, who is headed to Duke University in the fall while David Ford has signed to golf at neighboring rival North Carolina. “To shoot that for 36 holes is awesome.”
Thing is, Maxwell Ford was even better than his twin on Sunday.
Playing with an injured left middle finger that a doctor had said would be in a splint for two more weeks, Maxwell Ford taped his digits together and combined with playing partner Bruce Murphy to post these digits: a 10-under 62 on Sunday at Chambers Bay.
“They told me four to six weeks before I could play,” Maxwell Ford said. “So I was not at all expecting to play in this tournament.
On Tuesday back in Georgia, his doctor told him to try to swing to see if he could tolerate the pain.
“He didn’t expect it to be painless,” Maxwell said. “And it wasn’t, at all.
“Yeah, it’s kind of a miracle that I’m here. ...It’s getting better each day. Kind of unreal.”
Maxwell Ford and Murphy, a junior at Johns Creek High School 10 minutes from where the Fords live in Georgia, birdied the first three holes Sunday. Then they eagled the par-5, 557-yard fourth hole.
They ended up making birdie on 10 of the 18 holes. That enabled them to withstand bogeys on 6 and 11 to card the low score of the day. It vaulted Maxwell Ford and Murphy from tied for 99th after Saturday to tied for 13th.
That means the Ford twins from Peachtree Corners, Georgia, both comfortably advanced within the top 32 sides to Monday.
More low scores
With the chilly fog forcing some of the visiting golfers to put on beanie caps to begin play for the second consecutive morning, University of Michigan teammates Brent Ito and Patrick Sullivan posted a 9-under 63 on Sunday. That gave Ito and Sullivan a two-day stroke-play total of 15-under 128, second-best in the 128-side field.
Opening-round leaders Brendan MacDougall and Sam Meek advanced on the strength of the Canadian side’s 10-under at Chambers Bay on Saturday. The teammates graduating from the University of Nevada maintained that start with a 4-under 67 on The Home Course Sunday.
“It was a pretty good two days. We’re on to match play and that was the main goal,” MacDougall said.
“It doesn’t matter if your first or 32nd, once you’re in you’ve got a chance.”
Defending U.S. Amateur Four-Ball champions Scott Harvey and Todd Mitchell tied Macdougall and Meek for third in stroke play at 14-under for the first two days. Harvey, a 42-year-old self-employed property manager from Kernersville, North Carolina, and Todd Mitchell, 42, an insurance agent from Bloomington, Illinois, won the 2019 Four-Ball at Bandon Dunes, another links-style, coastline course on the coast of southern Oregon.
High schoolers Preston Summerhays, the 2019 U.S. Junior Amateur champion who played in last year’s U.S. Open at Winged Foot, and 17-year-old Luke Potter combined to finish stroke play in fifth place. They were 13 under for Saturday and Sunday.
The cut line was a gaudy 8-under par, showing the golfers’ universal praise of Chambers Bay’s remade greens has translated into low scores.
Chambers Bay has remade its scrubby, bumpy greens that got almost universally panned at the 2015 U.S. Open—including by the governing United States Golf Association. Gone is the (not so) fine fescue. In its place: greens with poa annua, a grass natural to the Pacific Northwest.
This U.S. Amateur Four-Ball is the USGA’s return for the first time since the 2015 U.S. Open. Chambers Bay and Pierce County leaders see this week as their test toward the Open returning.
Pierce County executive counsel Don Anderson, a point man with the USGA, said this weekend the hope is to attract the U.S. Women’s Open to Chambers Bay in 2026 or ‘27, as a springboard to another U.S. Open.
There will be a playoff Monday morning among 11 sides for the final six spots in the 32-side match-play elimination round at Chambers later in the day. The playoff begins at 7 a.m. on the 10th tee at Chambers Bay.
Eleven are the most sides in a cut-line playoff in the six-year history of the USGA’s U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship.
Among the 11 pairs in the cut playoff Monday: Stewart Hagestad and Derek Busby.
They are used to advancing.
Hagestad, 30 from Newport Beach, California, was a member of the winning 2017, 2019 and 2021 USA Walker Cup Teams. He has played in three U.S. Opens (2017-19). In 2017 he became the first invited U.S. Mid-Amateur champion to make the cut in the Masters. He tied for 36th that year to low-amateur honors at Augusta that year.
Busby, 37 from Ruston, Louisiana, has played in the last four U.S. Amateur Four-Balls. He reached match play in the last one, in 2019 at Bandon Dunes. Busby has played in 11 USGA championships.
Danny Woodhead and his fellow Nebraskan and partner Michael Wilhelm missed the cut after shooting 1-over on Sunday at Chambers Bay. That left them 1-over through two days. Woodhead is a former Super Bowl running back and nine-year NFL veteran of the New York Jets, New England Patriots, San Diego Chargers and Baltimore Ravens.
Round-of-32 matches are scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. Monday at Chambers Bay. The round of 16 and quarterfinals will be contested on Tuesday, with the semifinals and 18-hole championship match Wednesday.
Not all identical
It is notable that the identical Ford twins aren’t a team here.
They aren’t entirely identical, either. In fact, the Fords are actually triplets. They have a fraternal sister, Abigail, who is older by 2 minutes.
Maxwell graduated with David and Abigail from Rivers Academy, a private school in Alpharetta, Georgia, Thursday night.
“We were on a plane at 4:45 a.m. (Friday) in Atlanta, so 1:45 out here (to get to a six-hour practice round at Chambers Friday),” Maxwell Ford said.
While Maxwell talked to The News Tribune, David practiced putting 10 or so yards away just off Chambers Bay’s panoramic first tee. When David talked, Maxwell walked away to start practicing his putting.
David golfs left-handed. Maxwell, right-handed.
David Ford is vaccinated from the COVID-19 virus. Maxwell is not.
“I was at a tournament when he got vaccinated,” Maxwell Ford said, shrugging.
“We don’t talk all that much,” David Ford said. “I think competitiveness is one thing, with me and my brother.”
Asked if his twin goes by “Max” or “Maxwell,” David said: “Maxwell. I think. I don’t know.
“I haven’t asked him in a while. It was Maxwell the last time I checked.”
David Ford is headed to the University of North Carolina to golf there. Maxwell is going to golf at the home-state University of Georgia.
You can probably surmise by now they weren’t going to the same college.
“We had the same top two,” Maxwell said. “And he committed to UNC about a month before I ended up committing to UGA.
“After he committed I had to decide if I wanted to go with him or do my own thing. And, yeah, I’m so happy with the decision that I’ve made.”
Yet they aren’t total strangers in their own house, either. The Fords have paired together in other amateur tournaments back home.
“We’ve played together in the past, in the Southeastern Four-Ball,” Maxwell Ford said, “and it worked well.”
But David Ford and Chinn, who is graduating from Langley High School in McLean, Virginia, and headed to Duke University to golf, received exemptions from qualifying for this U.S. Amateur Four-Ball back in September. That was because of their high amateur-ranking number at the time. Maxwell Ford and Murphy had to qualify their way recently to Chambers Bay.
Rather than wait to see if his twin qualified, David Ford teamed with Chinn for this championship months ago.
Asked if there were any hard feelings between the twins about that, David said: “Ummm...maybe a little.”
Then two weeks ago Maxwell Ford got his finger injury that he thought knocked him out of this U.S. Amateur Four-Ball.
But, no, after his and Murphy’s soaring Sunday, he is very much in it.
This story was originally published May 23, 2021 at 8:30 PM.
