BETHLEHEM, Pa. — The word “huge” cuts through Chase Yenser’s laughter when asked if he is an Adam Sandler fan. “Grown Ups” and “Happy Gilmore” top his favorites list.
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He unwillingly starred in another Sandler movie Thursday during the 78th U.S. Junior Amateur at Saucon Valley Country Club (Old).
You don’t mess with the Sohan.
Yenser fell to Sohan Patel of Weston, Fla., 4&3, in the Round of 32. Patel, the event’s co-medalist and No. 3 seed, is a second-year member of the U.S. National Junior Team and 2027 verbal commit to Vanderbilt University.
“He was 5 under through nine, and I was even,” Yenser, 18, of Douglassville, Pa., said. “In stroke play and just in general, this golf course is not that easy, so I felt even par wasn’t even that bad for nine holes. And I was down five. We were controlling the controllables. He was balling out. There was nothing I could do there. I was proud of the way I fought and stayed in it.”
“I’m super happy with my play,” Patel, 17, said. “Chase is a fighter. I thought I was going to win earlier than I did, but he pushed me to the 15th hole. He played some great golf today. He has a bright future ahead of him.”
Patel only cracked the door open once on the first nine, when he bogeyed No. 7 (par 4, 451 yards) after leaving his approach 30 yards short of the green. Yenser leaned into a five-footer for par, pumped his fist and smiled.
An opening small and short-lived. On No. 8 (par 4, 431 yards), Yenser yanked his drive left. It landed on a root, then the road. Only when he knelt in pine straw did he realize the grimness of his circumstance. Yenser elected to take an unplayable, which put the RiverCrest Golf Club & Preserve member some 190 yards from the flagstick, with a grove of towering trees in his path. He conceded the hole with Patel 10 feet for birdie, his own turmoil persisting.
“There was no way I was going to recover from that,” Yenser, a two-time Pennsylvania Golf Association Junior Boys’ Champion (2025-26), said. “That was tough after his first minor mistake. We felt like we had a little bit of momentum going into that tee shot. We had a good plan. I just didn’t execute it. Hit a bad shot, high toe. We thought it was still going to be in grass and we’d have to make a gritty 4.”
Yenser did display that grit by converting clutch birdies on Nos. 10 (par 4, 381 yards) and 11 (par 3, 125 yards): a wedge 104 yards to four feet on the former, a knockdown gap wedge to 10 feet on the latter. He came a few revolutions short of winning Nos. 13 (par 4, 340 yards) and 14 (par 3, 160 yards).
“That hurts, especially when you know you need to make birdies,” Yenser said.
In a rinse-and-repeat of No. 8, Yenser again found peril off the tee. His drive on No. 15 (par 5, 613 yards) sailed into a thick grove of trees right.
“It was straight in the middle of the woods,” Yenser said. “We’re looking at it. We don’t want to move the ball, and loose impediments would’ve moved the ball. There was a huge log to our right that we were able to move.”
With a narrow window, Yenser executed a punch 5-iron. Two more feet to the left, and his golf ball coasts down the fairway. Instead, Saucon Valley’s insufferable rough suffocated it. Yenser mustered what he could from a 9-iron. He then hit a gap wedge from 128 yards to 23 feet.
His must-make missed. Patel’s must-cozy cozied.
“If you would’ve told me that I would be in the second round of match play after my first round of golf, then I think I would’ve been thrilled,” Yenser said. “I’m super proud of the grit and the toughness I showed these past two days, shooting 5 under [in Round Two of stroke-play qualifying] and tying [reigning U.S. Amateur Champion] Miles Russell for the round of the day. It’s super cool, especially to do it kind of at home. It’s been a special week, especially with Andy [Miller, Yenser’s uncle and swing coach] on the bag.”
Yenser, a Team Pennsylvania member as part of the U.S. National Development Program, will next compete in the Pennsylvania Amateur at Oakmont Country Club July 27-29. He will head to Baylor University in the fall as a business major.
GAP
Celebrating Amateur Golf since 1897, GAP, also known as the Golf Association of Philadelphia, is the oldest regional or state golf association in the United States. It serves as the principal ruling body of amateur golf in its region. The organization’s 345 Member Clubs and 140,000 individual members are spread across Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and Maryland. The GAP’s mission is to promote, preserve and protect the game of golf.
