James Piot Becomes First From Michigan To Win US Amateur

James Piot Becomes First From Michigan To Win US Amateur

James Piot, the Canton native who has been a fixture in Michigan golf championships since at least 2014, has won the US Amateur.

Piot is the first Michigan native to win the prestigious title.

The 2021 US Amateur was contested at the legendary Oakmont, where Piot and Austin Greaser played the traditional two rounds of match play on the final day.

Piot lead by one after the first eighteen, but fell behind when Greaser won three of the first four holes in the afternoon round.

By the 27th hole, Greaser was up by three.

Piot came charging back. He birdied the 28th to cut the lead to two. Pars on the 29th and 30th took advantage of Greaser miscues to bring the match back to even. Another par on the 33rd hole put Piot in a commanding position of two up, with two to play.

The match ended on the 17th. Piot landed in a bunker on the drivable par 4 17th. He blasted out, only to run through the green into another bunker. From there, however, he got up and down for par.

Greaser had a birdie putt to extend the match, but lipped out.

Piot finished the day two up.

The win gives Piot the opportunity to play the 2022 Masters, US Open and British Open. As of this writing, he plans to return to Michigan State as a fifth-year Senior.

In the qualifying rounds, James Piot shot 73-74 to finish T-29 in stroke play for the number 31 seed. Piot then beat Arizona State’s Cameron Sisk in the round of 64 1-up, but has cruised since then. Piot has won 4-and-3 in the rounds of 32, 16 and the semifinals. In the Friday quarterfinals, he topped Matthew Sharpstene, a 2020 semifinalist 3-and-1.

It was fun to watch, but inexplicably, local television coverage cut out to a “breaking news” segment on Afghanistan as the final holes were being played. Go figure: a local kid is about to win the US Amateur, and the Detroit NBC affiliate decides to give us a lecture on the Taliban.

Local 4’s inflated opinions of themselves as “serious news reporters” borders on comical. Anyone who has been paying even marginal attention for the last week has known that the Taliban was going to take Kabul. The station’s breathless reporting on the subject makes me wonder if they themselves have been paying attention.

Local kid on the brink of winning the first US Amateur for the state of Michigan? Apparently not news-worthy. Maybe they don’t know that Canton is a suburb of Detroit.

Fortunately, I subscribe to Peacock and was able to switch to see the final holes of the championship live. Heh. Since I have Peacock, there is absolutely no need to watch Local 4 ever again.

If you missed the action, you can watch every televised shot of the 2021 US Amateur Championship match online.