Kiko Francisco Coelho, Leopoldo Herrera win dramatic US Amateur Four-Ball at Chambers Bay
If the United States Golf Association indeed was considering this to be a test for Chambers Bay to potentially host another U.S. Open, as Pierce County leaders hope, the jewel links course absolutely aced it.
Just like the U.S. Open six years ago, the USGA’s last championship here, it was an epic finish in an epic setting.
Collegian Leopoldo Herrera, and Kiko Francisco Coehlo, a 2021 Florida high-school graduate, won the sixth U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship on the first hole of a sudden-death playoff Wednesday evening over Canadians Brendan Macdougall and Sam Meek.
It was Herrera’s and Coelho’s first USGA championship tournament.
And it was another thrilling USGA championship ending at Chambers Bay.
Chambers’ remade, poa annua greens? Exquisite. All week during this Four-Ball they were soft yet firm. They showcased all their hills and shelves and curves, and put a premium on putting creativity.
“This course is spectacular,” Loyola of Chicago golfer Devin Johnson said minutes after he and Tyler Anderson lost their semifinal match to Macdougall and Meek in another sudden-death playoff earlier Wednesday.
“The greens are unbelievable. They make you be so creative.
“This course is special.”
Indeed, the tee boxes, the fairways—the entire course—have never looked better. Don’t take our word for it. Those with the USGA who came out to see how Chambers Bay has evolved since its 2015 U.S. Open said same thing.
So of course the final match of this Four-Ball went down to the final hole. An extra, playoff hole at near-sunset, at that.
Epic seems to be what Chambers Bay does. And is.
With stately strides and exquisite drives, the Portuguese-born-and-raised Coelho joined his partner Herrera in control of their title match, particularly after they birdied the par-4 11th hole to go 2 up.
Then, just as they had in their morning semifinal match that stretched into the afternoon, Macdougall and Meek rallied late. Rugged like their home country, the teammates at the University of Nevada carried their own Wolf Pack bags up and down and up the sprawling, 7,475 course for five rounds across 92 holes over the last three days. As Wednesday became night, the gritty Meek and the quieter (at least on the course this week), steely Macdougall won the 15th hole with brilliant tee shots, then Macdougall’s birdie-2.
On the 17th green, a freight train roared past on the adjoining tracks. Macdougall ignored it—or reveled in it. He also birdied that par 3. The championship match was tied again.
It was just after 7 p.m., 12 hours after these two sides began golfing in the semifinals.
On the 18th green, the pin was set at the same place on the back shelf of the 18th green where it was six years ago, when Dustin Johnson infamously three-putted the 2015 U.S. Open Championship to Jordan Spieth.
This time, both amateur sides birdied. But it was almost much more.
Macdougall nearly won the title with a chip from the front right fringe of the green at the bunker. It rolled close and almost fell in the cup for an eagle.
“Yeah, I saw his chip, and I was telling the caddie after that, I was like, ‘There was no way that ball shouldn’t have gone in,’” Herrera said.
“And the fact that it didn’t told me right away, ‘All right, this is my moment.’ Like, this is going to happen.”
But Coelho missed his chance to equal Macdougall’s birdie putt. So it was up to Herrera to keep the match and his side’s title hopes alive.
“I was putting terrible today,” Herrera said.
“Like, I was literally shaking over this putt.”
No matter. He nailed his birdie putt from about 15 feet on the back shelf.
Herrera like out a Tiger (Woods)-like roar.
“Yeah, I had to,” he said. “It means a lot.”
The tournament kept going. It was nearing 8 p.m.
“I believed it. I knew we could do it. I kept telling him: ‘I know we can do it. We’re going to be hard to beat,’” Herrera said. “We were tough as nails out there.
“That team really put up a good fight.
“I mean, I’m just so happy that putt on 18 went in. So much adrenaline going on, and at the end of the day it worked out on our favor.
“Could have easily lost hope there. But I knew this was for us the whole way.”
The 19th hole to start the sudden-death playoff was the par-5 first, 555-yards downhill with a slope off the left of the fairway toward Puget Sound. Coelho and Herrera carded another birdie to begin the playoff.
Meek had a birdie putt to halve the hole and extend the final again. Playing as methodically as he had all morning, afternoon into evening, Meek contemplated his putt. He pushed it to the left of the hole. The tall native of Peterborough, Ontario, bent over at the waist in disbelief.
So ended their morning, afternoon and evening of comebacks.
“Yeah, it sucks,” Meek said as darkness was arriving on the course. “I feel like I did what I needed to do to make it, and imagined put a perfect stroke on it. But I thought I put a good enough stroke on it to go in. And it just sat there.
“I mean, it’s tough. But we’ll be all right.”
Standing next to his partner, Macdougall said: “It’s heartbreaking, really.”
The flip side to how Coelho, in his first USGA tournament after moving to the U.S. a couple years ago, and Herrera, who’s been a member of the Venezuelan national team, won the sixth U.S. Amateur Four-Ball.
“No words can describe,” Coelho said. “We came here, we knew we could win. We had a really good team, we just played solid all week. We just put in the work and we’re here right now,
With the silver trophy, Coelho and Herrera get a 10-year exemption from the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball.
Chambers Bay gets the U.S. Women’s Amateur on Aug. 8-14, 2022. The USGA announced that this week.
The idea for the course and for Pierce County, which owns it, is for the Women’s Amateur to lead to the U.S. Women’s Open at Chambers Bay, possibly in 2026 or ‘27. Don Anderson, counsel to County Executive Bruce Dammeier, told The News Tribune Friday that was the target.
That, they believe, would be as exciting and unique as this week has been—and would result in another U.S. Open returning in 2028 or later.
This story was originally published May 26, 2021 at 8:13 PM.
