Surprisingly, the best gallery in golf this week isn’t at BMW Championship or LIV Golf Indianapolis—the penultimate events of the season on both the PGA Tour and LIV Golf. Instead, it’s clustered around the 91st-ranked men’s amateur, Niall Shiels Donegan, at San Francisco’s iconic Olympic Club.
On Thursday, the UNC golfer sprung a massive upset at the 2025 U.S. Amateur, defeating Oklahoma State’s Preston Stout, the world’s 4th-ranked men’s amateur, to punch his ticket to the quarterfinals. Raised in Mill Valley about 30 minutes north of San Franciso, Donegan was surrounded by his own personal fan club throughout the match, as they roared him to victory in a back-and-forth battle that came down the final hole.
https://twitter.com/USGA/status/1956151444937036071
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But that was just the start. After the clinching putt dropped, Donegan and his band of merry revelers delivered a rowdy, raucous U.S. Amateur interview for the ages that had to be seen to be believed. SOUND UP!
This has to be one of the greatest post-round interviews in U.S. Amateur history.
See you tomorrow, Niall! pic.twitter.com/YBoge7IrEh
— USGA (@USGA) August 15, 2025
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What a scene. Though Donegan’s fan club was only about 30 people deep, he could barely hear the questions over their whooping and hollering. To Donegan’s credit, he stayed calm, composed and humble throughout the interview, displaying maturity beyond his years. As soon as the interview was over, however, he was swept into the throng for a much-deserved coronation. Donegan has another match to play on Friday, however, when he’ll face 2025 ACC medalist Jacob Modleski with a spot in the semis on the line, so something tells he won’t be celebrating too hard … at least not yet.
This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
