![James Piot](/sites/default/files/2021-08/210823_Piot_2H.jpg)
Four-Time Finals Placer Piot Earns Ultimate Amateur Championship
By
Tom Lang
Special for MHSAA.com
August 23, 2021
James Piot was a high school all-state Super Team member all four years he played golf at Detroit Catholic Central.
Piot – who has since moved on to play at Michigan State – was never an MHSAA Finals individual champion. But recently he achieved something much bigger, winning the ultimate individual crown for amateurs – the 121st U.S. Amateur Championship.
His championship run concluded Sunday, Aug. 15 at the iconic Oakmont Country Club with a 2 and 1 match play victory over Austin Greaser of Ohio and the University of North Carolina.
Piot led the Shamrocks to a Lower Peninsula Division 1 runner-up team finish in 2014 as a freshman, followed by three consecutive championships creating arguably the best era of high school golf for any one program in Michigan history.
According to his former assistant coach – Jimmy Dewling, now the boys golf head coach at Brighton – team titles suited Piot just fine.
“I think his team winning meant just as much to him than any individual title,” Dewling said. “Truly he’s one of those types of guys.”
Piot’s senior year in 2017, Catholic Central had three players on the all-state Super Team: Piot, Ben Smith (Georgia Tech) and Sean Niles (MHSAA individual champ), while teammates Dyllan Skinner and Sean Sooch were first team all-state.
Now on the national stage, Piot defeated Greaser of Ohio, 2-and-1, by sinking a 20-foot par putt on the 17th hole of the day’s second round in the scheduled 36-hole national final.
“It's the greatest feeling in the world,” Piot said to the national media on site. “I mean, as an amateur it's the best thing you can do. It was making that putt on 17 was just like, ‘Oh, my God. I might've done it.’”
By winning the elite amateur tournament, Piot is to receive presumably automatic exemptions into three professional majors next year: The Masters, the U.S. Open and the British Open. That alone is a career-defining bucket list for anyone in golf – and he’s still a college student.
Piot was playing in the U.S. Amateur for the second straight year. In 2020 at Bandon Dunes (in Oregon), he was second in stroke play to enter the match play portion the No. 2 seed. He won his first match but then was bumped out in the round of 32.
This year he finished his unfinished business by cruising through the match play, winning three of his six rounds with identical scores of 4-and-3. In the final, Piot was 1-up after the morning round of 18 holes. But after a lunch break and change of shirts from a dark color to a white one with a green Sparty golfer logo, there was a 4-hole swing where Piot found himself down three after 27 holes.
“I told myself on that tee box (on 10), I said, ‘I'm going to play this (last) nine 4-under.’ That's what I put in my head. Just self-belief.”
The tables turned hard at that point when Piot won four consecutive holes (10-13), and five of six, to go 2-up with three holes remaining, eventually grabbing the win 2-and-1.
Standing at that 10th tee, Piot was down three holes and TV commentator ‘Bones’ MacKay said it would be very difficult for Piot to get back into the match.
“I gave him the nickname when he was 9-years-old of ‘Spunkdog,’ because he’s got so much fight,” said Brian Cairns, his long-time teacher at Fox Hills Learning Center in Plymouth. “He’s in a corner by himself, he’ll come out every time by himself. He’s got spunk. You saw how he walked; you saw how mellow he was. You saw his shoulders go up on the back nine. He made the swings when he needed to make them.”
Dewling provided a similar but different angle on Piot.
“He took pride that he’s a public course guy and put that chip on his shoulder to beat people,” Dewling said about the high school years. “He’d watch other people practice and play and he believed he was doing things different and better than they were.
“I’ve been around high school golfers who practice because they feel like they have to. They think if they’re at the course it means they’re getting better than the next guy. But I think James would go to practice because he really wants to be there, and he really wants to know he’s preparing differently and he’s going to win more.”
Piot has always shown gratitude for the support he’s received over the years from high school buddies to his family and fans of both Catholic Central and MSU – who made up a huge section of the crowd that memorable Sunday afternoon at Oakmont.
“Mom and Dad have always been there, and I’ve been blessed to have the family and the support system I had before I even got to Michigan State,” he said. “I also had my high school coaches there (at Oakmont), Mike Anderson, Rick Williams (Detroit Catholic Central) and Jimmy Dewling, who are great mentors to me in life as well. It’s an extreme blessing to have some of the people in my life and seeing them (at Oakmont). Beyond golf, it was the coolest thing in the world.”
During his Catholic Central career, Piot was not one to dwell on “what could have been” after his MHSAA Finals individual title pursuits. He tied for sixth in Division 1 as a freshman, eighth as a sophomore, fifth as a junior and placed fourth alone as a senior in 2017.
“I think he understood the process better than anyone else – that one or two days of golf wasn’t going to define him. He’s got bigger aspirations than just one tournament," Dewling said. "He truly had an outlook and a perspective that’s so much greater than anything else. He’s so composed in high-pressure situations because he realizes his goals are still in front of him.
“James just plays with a chip on his shoulder, and I don’t think winning the U.S. Amateur is going to change that either. That’s the kind of competitive person he is.”
The people who know Piot well said he won’t change his life much in the short term at least, and will compete with the Spartans this fall and spring while finishing up his degree in finance. His Spartans have unfinished business as well, going after a Big Ten title.
“I just want to enjoy my last ride with the boys,” he said. “My school credit load might shift in the spring … but I’m looking forward to the college season and getting back out there with the Spartans. … We’re going to have a really good team and our goal this year is Big Ten champions, and hopefully we can do that.”
After receiving the U.S. Amateur trophy from the USGA officials, Piot gripped the golden hardware with a graceful respect, and turned it around a few times while looking it over. He was then asked if any past winners’ names stood out to him.
“I was just trying to see if it was real or not. I couldn't believe it. I mean, I honestly was like, did I just win the U.S. Am, in the back of my mind,” Piot answered. “I didn't really sit there and stare at all the names.”
Yet from now on and forever in history, James Piot’s name will be on that special trophy for others to search out and admire.
PHOTOS: (Top) Detroit Catholic Central grad James Piot, now playing at Michigan State, keeps an eye on his shot during a 2020 Golf Association of Michigan event. (Middle) Piot, second from right, stands with his Detroit Catholic Central team after the Shamrocks had clinched their third-straight Finals championship in 2017. (Top photo courtesy of Golf Association of Michigan; middle photo by HighSchoolSportsScene.com.)
![](/sites/default/files/imported/Photos/170510_UPGolf_2H.jpg)
Top Talent Teeing Off in Upper Peninsula
May 10, 2017
By Dennis Grall
Special for Second Half
ESCANABA - With golf courses like TimberStone, Greywalls and Sweetgrass already ranked among the best in Michigan, and Sage Run expected to join that list soon, Upper Peninsula golf is becoming increasingly high class.
Also contributing are some quality golfers past and present. Scott Hebert and Becky Iverson are already in the Michigan Golf Hall of Fame, and Syd Wells is in the Wisconsin Golf Hall of Fame and a prime nominee for the Michigan golf hall.
Players like Mike Nagy, twin brothers Dan and Dave Ellis, Carley Saint-Onge and Avery Rochester have made an impact, and now high school products like Hunter Eichhorn, Bryce Douglas and others are making similar strides.
Eichhorn, a senior at Carney-Nadeau High School, was the Wisconsin Golf Association's junior player of the year in 2016, played in the national Junior Amateur and has a golf scholarship to Marquette University. Douglas, a senior at Gladstone High School, has a golf scholarship to University of Detroit Mercy.
Thursday they were joined in a threesome at the Escanaba Invitational at Escanaba Country Club by Escanaba High School senior John Kositzky, who has committed to play golf at Wisconsin Lutheran University, a Division III school in Milwaukee.
Heading the female ranks is Paxton Johnson, an Escanaba High School sophomore southpaw who has similar potential.
Wisconsin Lutheran coach Adam Volbrecht attended Thursday's six-school tournament and walked with Kositzky's college-bound trio.
"I was very impressed. I saw some really good golf," Volbrecht said, surprise obvious in his voice. "If you think it is good, it is way better than you think."
He was particularly impressed by Eichhorn, who went birdie-birdie-bogey-eagle on the last four holes of the front nine en route to a 4-under par medalist round of 67. "Hunter is as good a junior golfer as I've seen," he said, adding the overall performances were stronger than he saw in a Milwaukee area tourney the previous day.
He was amazed to see the level of golf on display since Upper Peninsula weather has not made it easy for golfers to hit the links this spring. "It is a big transition jumping right out of winter and going under par," he said. "I saw some very good golf without there being a really good reason for it (because of tough weather conditions Thursday and all spring)."
Volbrecht also liked the fact many of the players he saw are multiple-sport athletes. Eichhorn was an all-conference basketball marksman, Douglas is a former football player and Kositzky actually was attracted to Wisconsin Lutheran to play football before deciding on golf. "There are some benefits to being well-rounded," said the WLU coach.
Volbrecht also enjoyed seeing numerous fans watching the first medal-play event of the season, noting "the Upper Peninsula golf culture. Golf is important up here."
Eichhorn, a three-time U.P. Division 3 individual champion, was excited to play with Douglas and Kositzky. "It was a great challenge. I like playing in bigger meets because I know they will push me to play even better. With great competition you've got to lock in a little more," he said, indicating stiffer competition will help prepare him for the challenge of playing at Marquette, which just won the Big East Conference title and graduates only one senior.
Douglas, who beat Eichhorn in one meet last spring and was fourth in the Upper Peninsula Golf Association men's tournament last year, shot 71 on Thursday. "It was really fun competing with them today. It narrows my focus. You want to do better," he said.
"(Eichhorn) is the best player at our level. Of course you want to compare your game to his game." Douglas said. "It will give me an idea what it will be like to play college golf and will get me ready for what is to come."
Douglas plans to play in the UPGA again and will try to qualify for the Michigan Open, the Michigan Amateur and the United States Open.
Kositzky posted a 78 in the chilly, windy conditions and welcomed the chance to test his game against better players.
"Playing with guys like that, you want to try to keep up with them. I tried to stick to my game plan, but they influence you a little bit," he said. "It gives you that focus."
Escanaba High School coach Brian Robinette, himself a former state junior golf champion and Olivet College Hall of Fame golfer, was elated to see such a talented field of prep golfers.
"From the high school standpoint, golf is becoming cool again," he said, indicating a recent decline in girls golf has been a concern. "Getting kids comfortable on the course is a key. Our adult golf population needs to embrace the kids on the course."
Robinette said players like Nagy (Manistique), Saint Onge and Rochester (both graduates of Marquette) "have paved the way. They are high level, top-tier players."
He said having today's preps see what some of the recent standouts have achieved "gets the competitive nature going for these kids. There is really magnificent talent up here."
He also noted the impact of the Road to the LPGA's Symetra Tour visiting Sweetgrass the past six years as a huge bonus.
Robinette said players like Eichhorn and Douglas can use their length to make the transition to college golf. "(Douglas) will see some stud golfers, but his ceiling is pretty high."
He said Johnson, the reigning U.P. Division 1 girls champion, "has the drive to play beyond high school. She has her golf life mapped out. She can launch the ball with her driver, so now you're talking pars and birdies."
Robinette said South Dakota State University golf coach Casey VanDamme, a native of Perkins, also has been beneficial to U.P. golfers.
"It doesn't take much to find talent if you care to look," Robinette said of college coaches noticing the quality of players in the Upper Peninsula. "The U.P. is on a lot of people's radar."
Denny Grall retired in 2012 after 39 years at the Escanaba Daily Press and four at the Green Bay Press-Gazette, plus 15 months for WLST radio in Escanaba; he served as the Daily Press sports editor from 1970-80 and 1984-2012, and as interim during the 2016-17 school year. Grall was inducted into the Upper Peninsula Sports Hall of Fame in 2002 and serves as its executive secretary. E-mail him at [email protected] with story ideas for the Upper Peninsula.
PHOTOS: (Top) A college-bound trio of Upper Peninsula high school golfers played in the top threesome at Escanaba Country Club on Thursday. They included, from left, John Kositzky of Escanaba, Bryce Douglas of Gladstone and Hunter Eichhorn of Carney-Nadeau. Eichhorn, headed to Marquette University, was medalist with a 4-under-par 67. (Middle) Escanaba High School sophomore Paxton Johnson prepares to hit an iron approach to the 17th green Thursday at Escanaba Country Club. She is the reigning Division 1 Upper Peninsula girls champion and a potential college prospect. (Below) Bryce Douglas of Gladstone places the ball on the 17th green Thursday at Escanaba Country Club. The University of Detroit recruit posted par 71 in the Escanaba Invitational. (Photos by Dennis Grall.)