U.S. MID-AMATEUR CHAMPIONSHIP

September 15, 2022

Stewart Hagestad

Erin Hills

Quick Quotes

Q. Is that your statement, you didn't play good enough to win?

STEWART HAGESTAD: Yeah, he played well, and I didn't play good enough to win.

Q. On the last putt, was it a misread or just --

STEWART HAGESTAD: No. I mean, I haven't made a putt this week, so why start now?

Q. You've made some putts this week.

STEWART HAGESTAD: No, it was a straight putt. It's almost a putt you try and read break into. I personally read break into putts. That's probably a flaw.

You can't just look at 18. I missed -- like lets run through it. I missed one on 6, missed one on 8, on 13. I guess you could say I missed one on 17 and 18. So no, I just didn't play well enough to win, and that sucks for me, but he played great, and he's really good, so good luck to him.

Q. This week's winner gets at spot at next year's Open at your club in LA. Does that sting a little bit?

STEWART HAGESTAD: I mean, I guess. I don't have to -- I don't know, like I don't have to go to work and tell them I'm going to miss a week now.

Q. There was a couple of points in the match where you fought back and got to even, though.

STEWART HAGESTAD: Yeah. You know, I had three good chances. Like if I make that putt there, his six-footer gets a lot longer. I had an 18-footer on 16 that never sniffed the hole. Like besides the line and the speed, it was pretty good.

Then on 17, I don't know, I had a challenge reading the greens, not just this round but the other ones. Like I would read too much into it and I'd miss it by a bunch. Then I would kind of adjust and make it closer, and I'd feel like I'd hit a good putt and it would snap across the hole.

I never felt -- I don't want to say I never felt super comfortable, but I wasn't doing a good job of seeing putts go in, no matter how hard I tried to be like, positive attitude, yeah, you're a great putter, every one is going in.

I don't know, I've got nothing. Yeah, I didn't play well enough to win, and he did, and that sucks for me, and I don't really know what else to say. That's all there is to it.

Q. How would you rate your year overall, though, everything that's happened, going all the way in the U.S. Open, quarterfinals, Amateur? Obviously this is no slouch even though you wanted to win it, obviously.

STEWART HAGESTAD: Yeah, that's a much better question to ask in a couple days. Yeah, listen, I think if you looked at it all in the grand scheme of things and you -- yeah, I don't know. If you looked at it all and said, well, you played the Masters even though you might still be playing because that's how bad you played, and I made the cut at the Open, didn't do much at the Northeast. What else did I do? Quarters, round of 16. I don't know, it's okay.

Like depending on what your level of self-belief or self-confidence or expectations are, you can either read those results with a degree of -- you can either read those results with a degree of content and accomplishment and be like, wow, what a great year, and I think to a lot of people, that would be a great year.

Unfortunately, just the expectations I had for myself were probably unrealistically high, and that's where, for better or worse, I have for like a lot of my life, and if you come up anything short of, in this case, making it until Saturday, I deem that to be unsuccessful.

Again, I totally understand how that's unrealistic and how a lot of people may see that differently, and that's fine. That's just the standard I have for myself. It stings, and I'm bummed. I'm going to go have a handful of spotted cows.

Q. The standard for you is possibly different than for a lot of folks because you're trying to build a resume for -- I don't want to put words in your mouth, but the ultimate goal of playing on a Walker Cup.

STEWART HAGESTAD: That's the only goal. I mean, I've been probably like abrasively transparent about that relative to 2016 and 2017, and yeah, it would be a really amazing opportunity, and I could look back at a really neat part of my life if I was able to be on that team and to play for Mike and the USGA and the United States.

If you told me right now that hey, that stinks you lost, but you only helped your candidacy, that would make it sting a little less. But I didn't make the world Am team; I came up one short. Obviously you want to win every USGA event you play in. It's really kind of my only goal left.