Alas! Jose Luis Ballester becomes the first Spaniard to win the US Amateur
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Jose Luis Ballester lifted the Havemeyer Trophy after winning the 2024 US Amateur on Sunday in Hazeltine.
USGA/Chris Keane
CHASKA, Minn. — The legend of Jose Luis Ballester slowly spread throughout the area Thursday afternoon.
Playing a Round of 16 match against Christian Brand at Hazeltine National Golf Club, Ballester and Brand hit the uphill, windy 624-yard par-5 3rd hole. Ballester’s ball found the right side of the fairway, and from about 315 yards he reached into his bag and grabbed… the driver.
The 100 or so accompanying fans exchanged confused looks. The driver? But Ballester took a powerful swing and hit a low, chipped putt that stayed in front of the green and rolled to pin it up, 15 feet from there. He showed no signs, but those around him were filled with anger. Fans were walking around trying to confirm the yards on the sprinkler heads. A few who brought rangefinders measured the distance themselves.
Even three holes later, on the 6th fairway, a man in his mid-50s is still trying to untangle it all. He walked away unconsciously talking on the phone.
“The driver got out the porchSteve,” he said. “You have to have it hear it its sound. Not the to see of it, but noise with it.”
So who is this new US Amateur champion? Despite being ranked 10th in the world, the Spaniard’s quiet and unassuming demeanor has seen him fly under the radar all week. But after Sunday — and his 2-over victory over Noah Kent in the US Amateur final — Ballester is no longer off the radar.
Not even close.
To defeat Kent in the 36-hole final, Ballester had to win over the crowd. It was already America vs. A Spaniard on US soil, and Kent was somewhat of a homebody, as long as he attended school a 4 1/2 hour drive south at the University of Iowa. He had a lot of support in his corner, and while it wasn’t overly aggressive, it was still very likable for a growing sophomore.
Fortunately, Ballester had perhaps the best person in the world to teach him well about the situation: Sergio Garcia. They are from the same place in Spain and Garcia’s father, Victor Garcia, has coached Ballester for the past seven years. Ballester and Sergio have become close and even played rounds together, and it was on this same course that Garcia had to face the raucous American crowds of the 2016 Ryder Cup, when he halved his Sunday match with fan favorite Phil Mickelson.
Garcia and Ballester talked all week and Saturday night.
“He told me to stay patient in your game,” said Ballester, a rising senior at Arizona State, “and the best way to show other fans your game.”
USGA/Chris Keane
Ping-Pong also helps. He’s played it every night this week, and even though he seems cold inside the ropes, Ballester jokes that Ping-Pong is probably helping him release the violence — “I’m really, really mad at Ping-Pong,” he said — so he doesn’t. I don’t have to go. He played again on Saturday night, although he had trouble sleeping. Yes, he was already at the 2025 Masters and the US Open by just reaching the final, but how many people can say that won this cup? That keeps the man awake at night.
“When you get to the finals with this kind of opportunity, you want to write your name in history,” said Ballester.
As the son of former Olympians who competed in three different Olympic sports, Ballester has good genes. His father, Jose Luis Ballester, was a swimmer, and his mother, Sonia Barrio, won gold in field hockey at the 1992 Summer Games. But he has won his own golf course. In three years at ASU he earned honorable mention All-America each season. In 2023 he qualified for the 2023 Open Championship at Royal Liverpool and missed out by two strokes. He hits it a mile, but his short game is no joke, either.
Last year he missed the US Amateur, his first USGA event. Now? He was in the final and on the verge of becoming the first Spaniard to win the Havemeyer Trophy. And on Sunday morning, Ballester spent little time getting a head start. He birdied two of the first four and took a 2-up lead, and even on holes where Ballester didn’t make a birdie, Kent struggled to get out. Ballester won 16 and 17 with pars and was 4 up after 18.
During a break between rounds, Kent, a rising sophomore at Iowa, said he took a long shower and spent some time on the phone, talking to trainer John Harris, sports psychologist Brett McCabe and trainer Claude Harmon III. Something worked, because Kent sent the gallery into a frenzy when he chipped in for birdie to win the first hole on the second 18th.
“You don’t want to be 4 under going into an 18-hole match,” Kent said, “but it’s been done before, and I’ve been telling myself that.”
They traded shots in the afternoon and Ballester’s lead was reduced to 2 up after Kent birdied the 31st and 32nd holes. On the 33rd hole (par-4 16th) Ballester hit his drive right and was left with tree trouble and a terrible lie. He threw it in the swamp in front of the green. Watching nearby was Ballester’s best friend Navid Mousavi, who bit his nails anxiously and exhaled. Aside from Ballester’s two Arizona State coaches who made the trip, Mousavi may have been the only Ballester fan who actually knew him on site.
Mousavi grew up with Ballester and plays on the men’s team at William Carey University in Mississippi. He made it to the semifinals on Saturday and trailed every shot in the final two days.
“He’s a good kid with good values,” said Mousavi, who was wearing the red Spanish national team shirt that Ballester wore on Sunday. “He was always a long hitter, but around 15 or 16 he got bigger, taller and stronger. He’s always strong in the gym, he just hits it all the time.”
Mousavi said Ballester is determined inside the ropes but can be shy, too, like when they sat together at a tournament when they were 14 and Ballester randomly shaved a line of hair from his calf and pulled some from his eyebrow. (“His mother was not happy,” said Mousavi.)
His college coach, Matt Thurmond, said that Ballester is not the leader of the Sun Devils and he tends to be puffed up or sleepy before the round, but when the round starts he has no problem closing.
And that 16th hole where Ballester got into trouble — 34 of the day — might have been Thurmond’s favorite moment from Sunday. Ballester finally found the ball after looking for a few minutes, muscled it out and threatened the hole with a par-t attempt from 40 feet. Kent had an easy putt-putt par to win and cut Ballester’s lead to 1 up, but Thurmond said it was an example of Ballester’s determination. He just thought he was going to take a drop and hoped it would go in.
“To have a putt and maybe try to hole it out,” Thurmond said, “I felt like it was a little bit of a victory and it shows his fight.”
They pushed each other on the par-3 17th, so Ballester and Kent went to the 36th hole with Ballester 1 up. Kent drove it into the fairway bunker, missed the green and failed to chip in for birdie, and the hole opened up after Ballester holed his birdie putt to get within.
He had won. Then he started to cry.
“I started thinking a lot about my family and friends, especially my mom and dad,” said Ballester. “It’s been a tough summer for me. I wasn’t really feeling well and I wanted some personal stories. Grandma is not feeling well. He is really sick. It was a difficult summer back in Spain, so I feel like all those emotions came from thinking about my family and my friends back in Spain.”
Thurmond couldn’t hold back the tears.
“Just seeing him in this moment, a moment that will last forever, that changes his life,” said Thurmond. “To reach this moment, to be good, at this stage, you have to overcome a lot, and he has done it.”
It was a day of celebration. Not only the US Amateur Cup, but Ballester’s birthday. He would have turned 21 on Sunday.
“It doesn’t get much better than this,” he said.
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