Jack Whaley wins US Amateur 4&3 over Jay Leng Jr at Merion

On 16 August 2026 Jack Whaley beat American Jay Leng Jr 4&3 at Merion to claim the US Amateur Championship in the 36-hole final.

Whaley, a 22-year-old from Doncaster who studies at Florida State University, had missed the cut at the 2025 US Amateur but returned this year as an underdog against Leng Jr; the American is 23rd in the world amateur golf rankings, 67 places higher than Whaley.

Whaley fell two down after the opening 18 holes of Sunday’s 36-hole match but mounted a recovery in the second round.

He produced back-to-back birdies on the second and third holes of the second round and proceeded to win four holes in a row to turn the contest in his favour.

With rain lashing down in Pennsylvania, both players halved two of the following six holes before Leng Jr misread a putt at the 12th, which handed Whaley a three-hole lead.

Whaley sealed the victory with a left-to-right birdie putt at the 15th to finish 4&3; the report also described him as only the second Englishman to win the US Amateur Championship since 1911.

The account adds that Whaley became the first English amateur to triumph in the US Amateur since Matt Fitzpatrick in 2013, notes that Harold Hilton had been the last Englishman to win the title in 1911, and records Scotland’s Richie Ramsay (2006) as the only other British winner since 1898; it also records that Fitzpatrick later won the US Open on the same course in 2022 and lists former US Amateur champions including Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Bryson DeChambeau and Viktor Hovland.

The victory will give the 22-year-old a place in the field for the Masters, the US Open and The Open at St Andrews in 2027.