It’s one of golf’s most compelling stories this year, with unheralded Noah Kent nearly winning the recent U.S. Amateur before falling on the final hole of the championship match, with the drama playing out in front of a national television audience.
The 19-year-old from Naples, Florida, a University of Iowa sophomore, is actually the latest player with a Jersey Shore lineage to have an impact on the sport’s biggest stages this year. Most notably, Little Silver’s Chris Gotterup became the first area player to win a PGA Tour event in 76 years.
Kent’s father, David, is a Fair Haven native who starred at Rumson-Fair Haven High School, eventually moving to Florida to chase his dream as a player in 1998. He’s now a PGA Professional serving as general manager and COO at the Golf Club at Crown Colony in Fort Myers, Florida.
“I’m beyond proud,” David Kent said. “He was a massive underdog, but he never felt like one.
“In my entire career around the game of golf, this is the greatest experience I’ve ever had. I have never felt this level of emotion and just sheer joy, ever.”
Now Noah Kent’s one of the sport’s rising young stars, entering the biggest event in amateur golf at No. 560 in the World Amateur Golf Rankings, taking Spain’s Jose Luis Ballestar, a senior at Arizona State ranked No. 10 in the world, to the final hole in the 36-hole windup, losing 2-down on Aug. 18 at Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, Minnesota.
“When the field started to get whittled down, when you got down to the quarters, I think every player in was ranked in the top 50 in the world,” David Kent said. “And then you’ve got Noah sitting at 560. And then you get into the semis and he’s playing Jackson Buchanan, the Big Ten Player of the Year, and in the top 20 in the world, and Ballestar, ranked No. 10 in the world.”
Local ties
The Shore Conference has been well represented in 2024, with Gotterup and Middletown’s Ryan McCormick in their rookie seasons on the PGA Tour. Gotterup’s win was the first by a local player since Rumson’s Vic Ghezzi captured the last of his 11 Tour wins in 1948.
The performance was also the latest illustration of the impact former Seton Hall athletes are having on the sports landscape. David Kent was a sophomore on the Pirates’ 1992 Big East championship squad, finishing seventh individually in 1992 and 1993.
It’s already been a stellar summer for the Pirates, with Noah Lyles, son of former Seton Hall track star Kevin Lyles, crowned the World’s Fastest Man by winning the 100-meter title at the Paris Olympics, with Lyles and Kent at Seton Hall at the same time.
Swell of support
As Noah Kent made his way around Hazeltine, a four-hour drive from the Iowa campus, a large, boisterous contingent, including his Hawkeye teammates, cheered him on, clad in gold T-shirts bearing Caitlin Clark’s iconic No. 22. David Kent was at Hazeltine for the semifinals, while his parents, Dave and Sandy, who still live in Fair Haven, flew in for the championship match.
“It was special. As he kept progressing in the tournament his gallery’s continued to swell with a big circle of support,” Kent said. “By the final, it had the feel of a Ryder Cup match.”
Noah Kent provided a hint of what might be possible earlier this summer when he finished second at the prestigious Porter Cup in Lewiston, New York.
“I could just see the confidence he was building,” said Kent, who competed at the 1990 U.S. Junior Amateur. “In his interviews he stressed belief in himself. His toolbox is beyond full. When we would have an opportunity to either play together, to see him practice or watch him compete, his game is absolutely complete. It was just a question of his self-belief and confidence going to the next level and having that breakthrough. It just all happened to line up at the U.S. Am.”
Now Kent, a three-time Monmouth County Amateur champ, will get to see his son compete against the world’s best in some huge tournament by virtue of his reaching the U.S. Amateur final.
“To consider the four events he now has on his schedule, rarified air when it comes to the clubs.,” Kent said. “He has the Masters at Augusta National, the U.S. Open at Oakmont, the U.S. Amateur at Olympic, and he’s also exempt into the 2026 U.S. Open at Merion.
“Hazeltine was spectacular in every way. The golf course, the condition, the piece of property. It was amazing. And maybe I’m being a little romantic – I’m not sure if that’s the right word – but Robert Trent Jones built Hominy Hill (in Colts Neck) around the same time as Hazeltine in the early 1960s, so that was pretty cool to have that emotional connection with the course I grew up playing.”
And it’s that Jersey Shore upbringing that’s played a role in the meteoric rise of one of this country’s top young players.
Stephen Edelson is a USA TODAY NETWORK New Jersey sports columnist who has been covering athletics in the state and at the Jersey Shore for over 35 years. Contact him at: @SteveEdelsonAPP; sedelson@gannettnj.com.
This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Golfer Noah Kent, with ties to Jersey Shore,…
