Andrew Bailey knew enough about the U.S. Open that late Friday afternoon was an ideal time to sneak away from his duties in the merchandise pavilion and watch golf. He was outside the ropes at Shinnecock Hills this year to see 17-year-old Miles Russell grind to make the cut.
And then it was back to work in a 34,000-square-foot tent where his company, premium golf apparel brand Holderness & Bourne, sets up shop each year.
Bailey will be back at the U.S.
Open next year at Pebble Beach in a far different capacity — hitting shots, not selling shirts.
“I've been trying to process it all,” Bailey said Monday evening, four days removed from winning the U.S. Mid-Amateur by playing bogey-free over the final 17 holes in a 5-and-4 victory. His first USGA title gets him into the Masters and U.S. Open.
That's enough to try to process.
There's also that broken wrist from rock climbing when he was one year out of Cleveland State, effectively ending whatever faint hopes he had of a pro career. “Might have been the best thing to ever happen to me,” Bailey said.
And there was the shoulder surgery in February for a snowboarding injury that limited him to only three amateur events this year. The pain flared up three weeks before the U.S. Mid-Amateur. He didn't feel it again until the morning after he won.
“I laid on the couch and my shoulder was throbbing,” Bailey said. “I was like, ‘How did this not happen the entire week when I was playing?’ Just meant to be. Adrenaline is a beautiful thing.”
The summer has been filled with angst over pros getting back their amateur status. Mike Sposa, who won the U.S. Senior Amateur, spent six years on the PGA Tour and six years on the Korn Ferry Tour. Colt Knost is seeking reinstatement as an amateur after playing 199 times on tour and topping $4.3 million in prize money.
Bailey doesn't fit into that category. At least two publications referred to the final of the U.S. Mid-Amateur (for players 25 or older) as a battle between two former pros. Nate Smith, the runner-up, won once during his three years on the Korn Ferry Tour and played the PGA Tour for one season.
The PGA Tour has no record of Bailey playing on the Korn Ferry Tour or PGA Tour Americas. He tied for 38th in Q-school PGA Tour Canada in April 2015 to earn conditional status but never played. Three months later, he fell 20 feet while rock climbing at Whipps Ledges in Ohio, causing a compound fracture of his wrist that required two plates and 11 screws.
His mini-tour earnings — 12 events, 30 rounds — amounted to about $8,000. Bailey said he tried to play one tournament after the wrist injury, but the pain was too great. He applied for reinstatement as an amateur in June 2016 and received it one year later.
In his final year at Cleveland State, he was intrigued by a startup he found on Facebook called Holderness & Bourne. Bailey wrote to the company to say he might be turning pro and would they like him to wear the apparel. And he stayed in touch.
After the wrist injury, he was working a standard sales job — “150 calls a day, dial and smile,” he said — when he got an offer to help work with the apparel company at the annual PGA Merchandise Show. He used paid time off to travel to Florida and was paid in product.
A year later, he was hired and since has worked his way up to national sales manager, overseeing 14 sales representatives. It has kept him in the game since the majority of his work is in pro shops, along with going to the U.S. Open for work. But not next year. He'll be among 156 players, right there with Scottie Scheffler and Rory McIlroy and defending champion Wyndham Clark.
Of all the text messages, phone calls and letters — Augusta National member Michael McDermott, amateur great Vinny Giles, Walker Cup captain Nathan Smith — nothing made Bailey laugh more than one from Amanda Davis, the event merchandising manager at Holderness & Bourne.
“It’s incredible the extent some people will go to not work a merchandise tent,” the text said.
At his core is a passion for golf that never left him. He had hopes of trying to make the Walker Cup team as a mid-amateur. That ended with the shoulder surgery in February. But he used more paid time off to travel to Ireland just to watch.
Bailey has twice been to the Masters. His parents got him a ticket to a practice round in 2010 as a high school graduation present. Friends got him a pass to Sunday at the 2016 Masters. He had a flight to catch in Atlanta and left after watching Jordan Spieth make a 30-foot birdie putt on the ninth hole for a five-shot lead.
“Missed all the fireworks,” he said of the Spieth collapse and Danny Willett victory.
He will be back at Augusta National in April, this time driving down Magnolia Lane, access to the Crow's Nest for amateurs, the Par 3 tournament. It's a lot to process.
He still hasn't figured out how to balance work and two majors next year. Bailey said he typically plays six amateur tournaments a year. But he made it clear the Masters and U.S. Open are more perks than they are motivation.
His name goes in the Hall of Champions at USGA headquarters in New Jersey that has every USGA champion dating to Charles Macdonald in the 1895 U.S. Amateur.
“It sounds so weird to say, but the reason I played the Mid-Amateur is not to play in the Masters. It's to become a national champion,” he said. “I think honestly I'm going to be more emotional to see my name in Golf House as opposed to driving down Magnolia Lane.”
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