PINEHURST, N.C. — Ashton McCulloch will have quite the summer, playing all the top-tier amateur events in North America, including defending his title at the Canadian Men’s Amateur in a few weeks.
But he, perhaps, has no bigger week ahead then this one in Pinehurst.
The 21-year-old from Kingston, Ont., earned the last spot in Canadian Final Qualifying for the U.S. Open last week at Cherry Hill Club, Ridgeway, Ont., and will become the first Canadian amateur to tee it up at this major championship since Garrett Rank in 2018.
“It was a little bit stressful for planning. But the last two weeks have been awesome and I’ve learned a lot,” McCulloch told Sportsnet. “I’m excited to get back out there.”
McCulloch picked up golf a little bit later than most of his peers after growing up playing hockey at a high level. When he was 16 he could see his game progressing, he said, and won the Ontario Junior Amateur Championship that year. It was then he thought he might have a future in golf, after giving up hockey the summer prior.
“Things were progressing the way I wanted,” he said of that win. Universities started to come calling quickly and Michigan State ended up giving him an offer first, showing him a lot of interest. He admits with a smile he didn’t know if he deserved the attention he was getting from such a great program.
“I kept on progressing and won some bigger golf tournaments and played well in even more. Other coaches came calling but Michigan State was always there,” he said. “I knew I was going to come in and play and hopefully be an impact on that team.”
McCulloch is now a sophomore at Michigan State and had four top-5 finishes at school this year — including a win at The Johnnie-O at Sea Island and a tie for third at the Big Ten Championship.
McCulloch is also a second-year member of Golf Canada’s National Amateur Team.
“He’s just a complete pit bull. Organized. Professional. Works his ass off,” said Derek Ingram, the national amateur team’s head coach. “Quite frankly, he reminds me a lot of Mackenzie Hughes.”
McCulloch missed the cut at the RBC Canadian Open at Hamilton, his PGA Tour debut, but was pleased with how the numbers looked through two rounds — with his strokes gained: around the green and strokes gained: approach the green both inside the top 50 in the second round.
“It does give me a lot of confidence, as weird as it might say, to get confidence from the Canadian Open. I played poorly but if you look at the stats, it wasn’t that far off from how well I know I could play,” he said.
McCulloch got through a qualifier just to get to the U.S. Open chalk full of hearty PGA Tour-level competition, as it took place the day after the Canadian Open — beating PGA Tour winners Keith Mitchell, Matt Wallace, Martin Laird, and major champ Stewart Cink, to name a few.
“You look at the field and it’s stacked with PGA Tour players. I knew (the qualifying score) would be low. It was my first U.S. Open qualifier and I just went out there and played. I knew I had to play well but I just had that one-shot-at-a-time motto,” McCulloch said.
Now that he’s in the field and the week has arrived, it won’t be a completely new place for McCulloch. He played the North-South Amateur at Pinehurst No. 2 two years ago and his assistant coach from first year at Michigan State, Dan Ellis, will be his caddie. Ellis caddied for James Piot (former winner of the U.S. Amateur and now a golfer on LIV) at the Masters and has big-game experience.
And if there’s anyone who can understand what McCulloch will be going through
this week it’s fellow Canadian Nick Taylor. Taylor qualified for the U.S. Open as an amateur in 2009 (and carded a second-round 65, an amateur record) through his very special run that year when he got to No. 1 in the World Amateur Golf Rankings. McCulloch getting a spot meant seven Canadians got into this year’s U.S. Open — tied for the most ever.
“If you play well, and whomever you play with, hopefully they play well so you can learn from that. You can see how your game stacks up,” Taylor said. “It’s going to be such a tough test. If you can play well here, you can play well anywhere.”
The first step was getting here, and now McCulloch is hoping to just enjoy the experience to come.
