Past champ McDonald, OSU’s Lane to meet for State Amateur crown

By Ken MacLeod

The trophy for winning the Oklahoma Golf Association State Amateur Championship will reside for the next year in a very familiar location, or a very unfamiliar one.

It will either be back at the Oklahoma City home of Will McDonald, the 2023 champion, or south of the Red River in Denton, home of Gaven Lane, the Oklahoma State sophomore who this spring helped the Cowboys capture their 12^th national title.

The two reached the finals of the 113^th OGA State Amateur in dissimilar fashions Wednesday. After falling three holes behind through five holes in his quarterfinal match with 16-year-old Edmond phenom Emerson Majma, McDonald didn’t make a bogey after hole 8 in his morning match the rest of the day. He clawed back to beat Majma 2 up with a closing birdie on 18. And he routed Owasso’s Cameron Cheek, a sophomore-to-be at the University of Oklahoma, 7 and 6 in the semifinals.

Cheek had not trailed in the tournament and took a 1 up lead on McDonald with an opening birdie in their semifinal. But Cheek made three consecutive bogeys on holes 3 through 5, McDonald birdied the par-3 sixth and made a conceded eagle on the par-4 eighth hole when he drove it within 15 feet on the 295-yard hole that had the tee moved up considerably for risk-reward fun. A conceded birdie on the ninth hole when Cheek was again in trouble off the tee moved his lead to 5 up and no rally was forthcoming.

McDonald, who finished his eligibility and has graduated from Cincinnati, has now reached the championship match three years running, having defeated Ryder Cowan in 2023 at Southern Hills Country Club and lost to Christian Johnson in 2024 at The Patriot.

“Something about match play helps me focus,” said McDonald. “Sometimes in stroke play I tend to get ahead of myself. I don’t know, I just focus a lot better in match play.”

The two had met previously in this event at Oklahoma City Golf & Country Club when Cheek was just 16. McDonald also eliminated Majma in the 2023 event at The Patriot.

“I remember that,” McDonald said of his first encounter with Cheek. “I remember on No 8 he made an impossible shot and just slam dunked it. I remember thinking this kid has a lot of game. Sometimes that’s just how it goes. And Emerson, he’s grown up a lot and just keeps getting better.”

Lane advanced in an emotional quarterfinal duel with former OSU teammate Grant Gudgel, who transferred this summer to Iowa. Gudgel played some brilliant golf interspersed with some blunders that gave key holes away, such as hitting his drive into a hazard on eight and then making bogey on the par-4 10^th from the middle of the fairway by flying the green with a wedge on his second shot when Lane was in trouble.

Still, he came back to even the match on the par-3 15^th with a brilliant tee shot to within 3 feet. On 16, he was on the green and within 15 feet for birdie to a devilish pin position, and wound up three-putting to lose the hole. Both players were out of position off the tee on the dogleg right 17^th and had to hit layup shots and made bogeys. But Gudgel stuffed his second shot on the par-4 18^th to within 5 feet only to see the birdie putt slide by on the left.

“It’s tough,” Gudgel said. “Obviously I really wanted to win that match. I feel like I’m equally as good as all the golfers on the OSU team and so as a competitor that’s one you want to win.”

Lane then faced 18-year-old Tripp Anderson, a home schooled senior who plays for the Oklahoma Storm home school team that also features Majma. Anderson, working with coach and caddie Mike Hansen, the director of golf at Quail Creek Golf & Country Club, was the revelation of the tournament with his steady play. He knocked off OSU sophomore Collin Bond of Norman in the quarterfinals in 21 holes, then pushed Lane to extra holes in the semifinals before making a bogey on the 20^th hole.

Lane said he entered the tournament as a good match play tuneup for the upcoming Western Amateur among other events and he got plenty of work in Wednesday in his 38 holes. He said Anderson reminded him of himself when he was a teenager and knocking off some of the bigger names in Texas amateur golf.

“He played great,” Lane said. “He’s fearless and the pressure didn’t seem to bother him at all. Two tough matches today. I’ve just got some things to clean up and looking forward to tomorrow.”

Anderson is currently not committed to a college but said he hopes to draw the attention of UCO and enroll in its Professional Golf Management program.