Amateur Neal Shipley Gets Dream Tiger Woods Masters Tee Time
The Ohio State amateur will tee it up alongside the 15-time Major winner in the final round at Augusta National
It’s safe to say Neal Shipley was already having a week he’ll never forget at The Masters. On Friday, he became the only amateur in the field to make the cut, an achievement that will see him awarded the Silver Cup on Sunday evening.
However, he must have been in dreamland with what came next - a pairing with five-time Masters champion Tiger Woods.
The Ohio State graduate student completed a round of 80 on Saturday, which followed efforts of 71 and 76 that saw him reach the weekend. That third round performance had left him disappointed. He said: “Just came out and really didn't have it. This place is going to expose you when it's this firm and fast. Certainly caught me with my pants down today.”
Silver linings don’t come much better than the one that followed, though. Woods had the worst round of his Masters career on Saturday with an 82, and that left him tied for 52nd with Shipley on the leaderboard. As a result, they have been paired for the final round, and they head out early, with a tee time of 9.35am.
Shipley is competing at the Major thanks to his performance at the 2023 US Amateur, when he finished runner-up to another player who has made a name for himself this year, The American Express champion Nick Dunlap.
He surely couldn’t have imagined what that performance would ultimately lead to, but he admitted it's been a quite the ride so far. “It's been a pretty cool journey over the last year or so," he said. "The progression of my game has been awesome.”
That was before he was paired with Woods. Even after his big day alongside the living legend, who will, of course, be wearing his famous Sunday red, the knock-on effects of that US Amateur performance will still be felt for Shipley. He has another Major appearance to look forward to later in the year, and he outlined his plans for an exciting few months ahead.
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He said: “I've got US Open as an amateur, and see what happens from there. Got to go to Q-School to get some status on PGA Tour Canada or maybe we'll get some starts. We'll see what happens. Pretty exciting stuff coming up.”
Nevertheless, it’s hard to see how anything over the remainder of the year will top what he will experience on Sunday when he plays alongside arguably the greatest player of all time.
The pairing has echoes of the final round of last year’s PGA Championship, when club pro Michael Block played alongside four-time Major winner Rory McIlroy.
Mike has over 25 years of experience in journalism, including writing on a range of sports throughout that time, such as golf, football and cricket. Now a freelance staff writer for Golf Monthly, he is dedicated to covering the game's most newsworthy stories.
He has written hundreds of articles on the game, from features offering insights into how members of the public can play some of the world's most revered courses, to breaking news stories affecting everything from the PGA Tour and LIV Golf to developmental Tours and the amateur game.
Mike grew up in East Yorkshire and began his career in journalism in 1997. He then moved to London in 2003 as his career flourished, and nowadays resides in New Brunswick, Canada, where he and his wife raise their young family less than a mile from his local course.
Kevin Cook’s acclaimed 2007 biography, Tommy’s Honour, about golf’s founding father and son, remains one of his all-time favourite sports books.
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