How did you spend your summer vacation, Tyler Mawhinney?
It would be an interesting essay if teachers still did that when he returned to Fleming Island High School this week to begin his junior year.
Take just one 17-day stretch in late July and the first two weeks of August. Mawhinney played 13 competitive rounds of golf in Potomac, Md. (the Junior PGA), Saskatoon, Canada (the Canadian Amateur), and Chaska, Minnesota (the U.S. Amateur). It totaled 230 holes and he was a combined 22 under par.
Mawhinney had only one round over par. He tied for 15th in the Junior PGA, won the Canadian Amateur, tied for 22nd in U.S. Amateur stroke-play qualifying and then won two matches after making the final 64 at Hazeltine National.
He calculated that counting practice rounds, he played 19 rounds in 19 days.
“I’m a little tired,” he said. “It was a lot of golf but that’s what I enjoy the most.”
And the travel time? Mawhinney racked up more than 4,300 frequent-flyer miles going to Jacksonville to Washington D.C, then to Saskatoon via Toronto, then to Minneapolis and back to Jacksonville.
Winning in Canada led to U.S. Amateur
Mawhinney’s working vacation got extended when he won the Canadian Amateur, which earned him a spot in the U.S. Amateur. Mawhinney was in the Canadian Amateur field as a member of the U.S. Junior National Team.
Vacations also can be learning experiences. Mawhinney said the most valuable education he got from playing golf in three cities and two countries is that his game travels as well.
“I picked up a lot of confidence,” he said. “I can see that when I’m playing good golf, I can compete with just about anybody, junior or amateur. My good golf is just as good as anyone else’s good golf.”
As Fleming Island golf coach Bruce Cloud put it, “Tyler is playing in some rarefied air right now.”
Consider Mawhinney’s final day in the U.S. Amateur.
Mawhinney beat Paul Chang 2 and 1 in the round of 32. Chang is a University of Virginia senior who started for the Cavaliers last season and has qualified for the last two U.S. Amateurs.
In the third round, Mawhinney faced Jackson Buchanan, a senior at Illinois and the Big Ten Player of the Year. Buchanan was in for a battle against the 16-year-old and Mawhinney was 1-up with two holes to play.
Buchanan had to birdie the last two holes to advance, the second one coming after Mawhinney made an all-world par on the 18th hole, forcing Buchanan to make a 10-foot putt to avoid extending the match to sudden death.
“Those guys were playing well but so was I,” Mawhinney said.
What’s next for Tyler Mawhinney?
Mawhinney will take a bit of a breather before teeing it up in the 18th Junior Players Championship Aug. 30-Sept. 1 at the Players Stadium Course at TPC Sawgrass. He tied for sixth last year, joining winner Miles Russell and runnerup Phillip Dunham as First Coast among the top 10.
Mawhinney also is taking college visitation trips. He said the leading candidates at this point at Florida, Auburn and Vanderbilt but he’s got another year before he has to sign a letter-of-intent.
After the Junior Players, Mawhinney will turn his attention to helping the Fleming Island Golden Eagles repeat as the state 3A golf champions. Mawhinney also is trying to become the first player to repeat as the individual champion in the state’s highest classification since Julian Suri of Bartram Trail won back-to-back 2A titles in 2007 and 2008.
Mawhinney will take only one break from the high school schedule when he returns to Canada Sept. 22-23 to play in the Junior Presidents Cup at Royal Montreal.
Mawhinney is true to his school
Not all nationally ranked junior golfers (Mawhinney is 11th on the American Junior Golf Association Polo Rankings) play high school golf and college coaches rely more on the larger sample size of high-level junior and amateur golf tournaments during the spring and summer when it comes to recruiting.
But Mawhinney said it’s just as much about loyalty to his school and his teammates as golf.
“I don’t want to look back and have any regrets if I didn’t play [for Fleming Island],” he said. “It’s a lot of fun, representing your team and your school, all the bonding with your teammates. It’s something I don’t want to miss. Our goal is to win the team title again and my goal is to win the individual title.”
Eagles’ core group wants to ‘complete the task’
Cloud said Mawhinney and seniors Emmett Kuhlenkamp and Emmett and Dylan Frein want at least one more ride together. They’ll be doing it in Class 2A, with Fleming Island dropping down a class.
“They have set a goal to win the state again and achieve great things together,” Cloud said. “They grew up together and have been playing a lot of golf with each other over the years. It’s going to be the last time they’ll be together on a high school level and they want to complete the task.”
Cloud said Mawhinney not only enjoys high school competition himself but has made it a point to try and help his teammates get better.
“He spends time with them on the range, watches their swings, records them and goes back and looks at the video with them,” Cloud said. “He does it up and down the roster, with anyone who’s willing to listen. At this point, I don’t know why anyone wouldn’t listen to him.”
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Tyler Mawhinney’s summer included Canadian Amateur win, U.S. Amateur run
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