AUGUSTA, Ga. — Neal Shipley wasn’t raised in a golf family. But he did grow up with a family that loved golf.
The Sunday afternoon of the 2004 PGA Championship was all it took for the Ohio State graduate student — the only amateur to make the cut at this week’s Masters — to fish his dad’s neglected golf clubs out of a closet and give this humbling game a lifelong shot.
“Me and my dad were on our couch,” Shipley said on Friday after finishing 36 holes at Augusta National in 3-over and making the cut by three shots. “And Vijay Singh won. The next day I took my dad’s golf clubs, which were dusty and probably never used, and started swinging around. I decided to get my own little set, and it took off from there.”
Shipley wasn’t just hooked, he was adamant. As an elementary schooler, he told anyone in his hometown of Mt. Lebanon, Penn. that he intended to become a professional golfer. In the second grade, he took his bag to school for “show and tell.” Shipley’s class ventured outdoors at recess to watch him launch drivers into the schoolyard. He was a regular at his local junior league. Shipley’s family eventually decided to join St. Clair Country Club, so he could properly hone his craft.
“We joined a country club so that he’d have a place to play,” says his father, also named Neal Shipley, “But we’re not country club people.”
Twenty years later, Shipley will play the weekend at the 88th Masters at a firm and fast Augusta National after being invited as the 2023 U.S. Amateur runner-up. He’s tied for 30th, hanging right in there with legends of the game, including 61-year-old Singh, who sits at 4-over, one stroke behind the 23-year-old on the leaderboard through 36 holes.
GO FURTHER
How Neal Shipley claimed Masters low amateur honors: ‘A little bit of grit’
