Tiger has had plenty of success in the U.S. Amateur. Tiger Woods, that is.
There’s another Tiger in the field this week hoping to add his name to USGA lore, but his last name is Christensen.
The rising senior at Arizona topped World No. 2 Gordon Sargent 4 and 3 on Wednesday in perhaps the upset of the day. While Christensen is ranked 51st in the World Amateur Golf Ranking, he feels like one of the best amateurs in the world, and he played like it in the Round of 64.
“I just started pretty good,” Christensen said. “Obviously a birdie on 1 feels pretty good to start off with, but then I had a good tee shot on 2 and just kind of kept it going. It was definitely a good start to have, but I think it was just a good match.”
Christensen was 3 up after three holes and won four of the first five. Sargent, who has lost in the round of 64 each of the past four years at the U.S. Amateur, never got the deficit lower than 2 down. Christensen hit his opening approach shot to a foot and never looked back.
Christensen, from Germany, has a tiger head cover on his driver and has a game similar to Sargent: hitting long, straight bombs off the tee box. It’s a recipe for success at Hazeltine, but Christensen can also play well in the wind, which was blowing plenty Wednesday.
“We played a bunch in college, and I played with him at the World Am,” Christensen said of his relationship with Sargent. “I’ve played a major too now. So you see each other week in and week out. It’s not that crazy as it might seem from the outside.
“It definitely was cool. I respect him a lot. I think he’s one of the great players we have as an amateur. Yeah, it was definitely a lot of fun.”
On Wednesday morning, Christensen was in the dining hall when Sargent walked in. Christensen kept his eyes focused on his opponent for some time, seemingly lurking his prey.
A few hours later, Christensen completed his hunt, and he’s into the Round of 32.
“I think I was definitely pretty confident to go,” he said. “As I said, I had a really good range session yesterday, and today warmup felt pretty good. So I felt very confident going into the match.”