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Minh claims historic silver at US Junior Amateur Championship 2025
Cập nhật: 5 giờ trước
Nguyen Anh Minh didn't win the trophy, but his silver medal in the US Junior Amateur Golf Championship 2025 made history.
He was the first player from Vietnam to ever advance to a USGA final, and the 14th international player to reach a US Junior Amateur final.
It was his second time competing at the tournament. The Vietnamese golfer stands at No 51 in the world, and was listed among the top five athletes with the highest WAGR ranking in this year's competition.
The USGA also honoured Minh by introducing him on its official website as one of the most notable faces in the tournament.
After proving his ability and qualifying for the second stage by earning the No. 22 seed from the Stroke Play round, he defeated Nicholas Brooks of the US, Liangliang Gu of China and Ayden Fynaut of the US in the next three knockout rounds.
He went on to beat American golfer Nicholas Gross 3 and 1 in the quarter-finals, and China's Qiyou Wu 4 and 3 in the semi-finals.
It was a tough task for Minh going up against Hamilton Coleman, who was at his peak and received strong support from his family and the crowd of fans at the Trinity Forest Golf Club in Dallas, Texas.
Making a slight adjustment to his putting alignment and receiving positive reinforcement from caddie Mitch Blackburn, Coleman, 17, kept getting more and more comfortable on the slick greens.
Against 18-year-old Minh, an incoming freshman at Oregon State University, Coleman was the equivalent of 7 under par, with the usual match-play concessions.
He gave an incredible performance to lead five-up after 12 holes, but Minh was not an easy rival and was not planning to go down without a fight.
Minh has won four low-level professional events in Vietnam, represented the International Team in the 2024 Junior Presidents Cup and claimed the title at national amateur tournaments in Chinese Taipei and Malaysia.
He also competed in the Amateur Championship conducted by The R&A, losing out in a playoff in June for a spot in the match-play draw at Royal St George’s in England.
The Vietnamese golfer played 6-under golf, trimmed the deficit to three down at the lunch break and then kept chipping away at Coleman’s advantage in the afternoon round. But his putter let him down in several key moments, including chances to win the 28th and 34th holes. He also bogeyed holes 1, 8 and 11, giving them away.
“For some reason, I was picking my lines, I felt good about my lines, and just going nowhere near that [with my putts],” said Minh.
“My speed was okay for most of the day. Yeah, definitely got to work on the putting.”
Coleman never lost his composure. Before his match-clinching putt on hole 35, he had not won a hole since the par-4 25th hole.
Minh claimed holes 26, 29 and 30 to tighten the screws, until Coleman ended his run by calmly converting a 3m putt on the penultimate hole, a putt that just snuck in the left portion of the hole.
Coleman received a gold medal and custody of the US Junior Amateur Trophy for one year along with exemptions to several prestigious tournaments, including the 2026 US Open Championship and the 2025 and 2026 US Amateur Championships.
Runner-up Minh secured a silver medal and an exemption into next month’s US Amateur competition, which he had already secured with his position among the top 100 in the WAGR.
His second-place spot was a milestone for Vietnam, where golf is still developing as a sport. The teenager is considered as an inspiration for the future of golf in the Southeast Asian country.
“Yeah, it's been growing a lot. It's really good to see all the kids playing golf now back at home, to see them working and hopefully we can see them one day here at the US Junior or in any USGA event," said Minh.
"I'm pretty excited for the future for our country. Hopefully this will motivate them. Hopefully they can look back and see, hey, we have a chance.”
Từ khóa: Golf, Golf, US, Junior
Thể loại: Thể thao
Tác giả: vns
Nguồn tin: VOVVN
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