Joe Hillman, 57, of Zionsville, Ind., was a member of the 1987 Indiana University national championship men’s basketball team under legendary coach Bob Knight. As a prep player at Hoover High in Glendale, Calif., Hillman averaged 41.4 points per game as a senior and 26.6 points during his three-year varsity career. During the 1986-87 season, he averaged 13 minutes per game while backing up All-American Steve Alford and Keith Smart, who hit the game-winning shot in the 1987 title game against Syracuse. Hillman had a team-high six assists in the title game. Also a standout baseball player, Hillman was drafted in the 25th round by the Oakland Athletics in 1988, and he hit .310 for the Southern Oregon A’s in the short-season Pioneer League. He played one more minor-league season at Modesto before going overseas to Australia and England to play professional basketball. In 1999, Hillman suffered a hand injury from a 60-ton hydraulic press, forcing doctors to perform multiple surgeries. This will be Hillman’s second USGA championship following the 2004 U.S. Mid-Amateur.
Roger Hoit, 59, of Delray Beach, Fla., is not only an accomplished competitor, but also an amateur photographer whose work was exhibited in a show entitled “The Eyes of Africa,” at the DeCastellane Gallery in Brooklyn, N.Y. He produces images across a variety of mediums, including SLR, drone, and iPhone. Hoit captained the tennis team at NCAA Division III Amherst College. He’s competed in a pair of U.S. Senior Opens and won 30-plus club championships.
John Husband, 63, of Canada, will be making his third start in the U.S. Senior Amateur. A year ago, he played at The Kittansett Club with a torn media-collateral ligament in his knee that he suffered three months prior to the championship. Husband is the VP of Sales for an IT solutions company.
Stephen Marland, 56, of England, first came to the U.S. in the mid-1980s to play soccer at American University, where the team lost to UCLA in an eight-overtime thriller in the national title game. Injuries forced him to switch to competitive golf and the now resident of Houston, Texas, will compete in his first U.S. Senior Amateur. Marland qualified for the 2010 U.S. Amateur at Chambers Bay.
Pete McDade, 76, of Apollo Beach, Fla., is the oldest player and qualifier in the field. This will be his second U.S. Senior Amateur; the first came 19 years at Bel-Air Country Club, site of this year’s U.S. Women’s Amateur. McDade got the last available spot in the qualifier at Palma Ceia Golf & Country Club in Tampa, Fla., and carded a 68 a day after shooting a 77 in his practice round. McDade won the Dixie Senior Amateur in 2006.
Roger Newsom, 59, of Virginia Beach, Va., is a full-time ophthalmic surgeon who performs 20-30 eye surgeries per week. He was the runner-up to Bob Royak in the 2019 U.S. Senior Amateur at Old Chatham Golf Club in Durham, N.C. He has competed in 10 USGA championships, including three U.S. Senior Opens (2014, 2019, 2021). Newsom has won the State Open of Virginia twice (2008, 2011) and won the 2014 Virginia State Golf Association Senior Open. His brother, Tim, is the director of golf at Riverfront Golf Club, in Suffolk, Va.
Alvaro Ortiz, 55, of Costa Rica, remains the oldest player to make the cut in the Latin America Amateur Championship at age 48 in 2017 at Panama Golf Club. He held the 54-hole lead in the championship before finishing tied for fourth. Ortiz is a 25-time Costa Rican national champion. He played collegiately at Texas Wesleyan.
Bob Royak, 61, of Alpharetta, Ga., won the 2019 U.S. Senior Amateur at Old Chatham Golf Club in Durham, N.C. This year, he will play alongside his younger brother, Paul Royak, of Tampa, Fla. Bob is a four-time Georgia State Golf Association Senior Player of the Year. He also won the 2021 Georgia Mid-Amateur and 2020 Senior Jones Cup. Both Bob and Paul played collegiately at the University of Tampa. Outside of golf, Royak has been involved with the Russian Orphan program to help find forever families for children. Royak and his wife hosted two brothers on three occasions and visited St. Petersburg nine times.
Jack Schlotterback, 55, of Naples, Fla., made two holes-in-one during the same round on Feb. 11 of this year at the Golf Club of the Everglades. His last ace came 38 years ago in the Waterloo (Iowa) Open when he was 17. He played collegiately at Mount Mercy University in Iowa and spent 10 years as a club professional and played one season on the Sunbelt Senior Tour in 2017 before regaining his amateur status.
William “Bud” Schultz, 64, of Hingham, Mass., has qualified for his second U.S. Senior Amateur. He is a former tennis professional who reached as high as No. 38 in the world and competed in all four grand-slam events (Australian Open, US Open, Wimbledon and French Open). He only picked up golf after turning 50 because it didn’t “hurt” the way tennis did on the body. Schultz co-founded an urban tennis program called Tenacity that uses the sport as a hook to get buy-in for literacy and life-skill development. It served more than 5,000 kids from grades 4 through high school in the Boston public schools. In 2014, he hiked the Appalachian Trail, trekking more than 2,100 miles from Georgia to Maine from March 3 to July 12 with his wife, Elaine.
Mark Sear, 59, of Los Angeles, Calif., should feel right at home at Martis Camp. That’s because he’s a member and a five-time club champion. This will be his first U.S. Senior Amateur and third USGA championship, having previously qualified for a U.S. Amateur and U.S. Mid-Amateur. While Sear wasn’t at Martis Camp when the U.S. Junior Amateur was contested there in 2013, the event did inspire him to purchase a home on the property in 2017. He also is a past champion of the prestigious San Francisco City Championship (1991).
L.D. Simmons, 64, of Charlotte, N.C., is a mental skills coach who works with juniors, college players, amateurs and professionals. He also has served as a volunteer assistant coach at Davidson College, his alma mater. He earned a law degree from Vanderbilt University and practiced law for a number of years before getting involved with sports psychology.
Paul Simson, 72, of Raleigh, N.C., is a two-time U.S. Senior Amateur champion (2010 and 2012) and the runner-up in 2017. He owns a 36-12 match-play record in the championship, including a perfect 14-for-14 mark in the Round of 64. Simson, a native of Chatham, N.J., played his college golf at the University of New Mexico before moving to North Carolina and joining the insurance business. Simson also won the Canadian and British senior amateur titles in a magical 2010 season. This will be his 67th USGA championship.
Michael Smith, 58, of Laguna Niguel, Calif., is a former NBA and college basketball player who has spent the past 27 years as a television analyst for both the Los Angeles Clippers and Utah Jazz. He was a consensus second-team All-American at Brigham Young University before being drafted in the first round (13th overall) by the Boston Celtics in the 1989 NBA Draft. He played three seasons with Boston and one with the Clippers in 1995, while also playing overseas. At BYU, he was the 1988 Western Athletic Conference Player of the Year, and finished as the school's all-time leader in rebounds (922) and second in points (2,312) behind only Danny Ainge. His first introduction to golf was from Hall of Famer Larry Bird. The father of 10 will be competing in his first USGA championship. At 6 feet, 10 inches, he is the tallest golfer to compete in a USGA championship this year, surpassing 6-foot-9 Texas sophomore Tommy Morrison, who played in the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball and reached the quarterfinals of the U.S. Junior Amateur.
Rohn Stark, 64, of Kapalua, Hawaii, spent 16 seasons in the NFL as a punter, 13 of which were with the Baltimore/Indianapolis Colts. He also played for the Pittsburgh Steelers, Carolina Panthers and Seattle Seahawks before retiring after the 1997 season. He was first-team All-Pro in 1983 and second-team All-Pro in 1992, and a four-time Pro Bowler. He also played in Super Bowl XXX for the Steelers. At Florida State, he was a first-team All-American in 1980, and owns the highest net average for a single game at 59.5 yards in 1992. At FSU, he also was a decathlete and was drafted in the second round (34th overall) in the 1982 NFL Draft. When he retired from the NFL, he moved his family to Maui and got involved in the real estate business. While his home was not affected by the recent devastating fires in Lahaina, he lost cable and internet service. Stark was a member at Kapalua and played professionally in the Aloha Section of the PGA before regaining his amateur status just a few months ago. He also played some golf with U.S. Senior Amateur competitor Joe Hillman when he was a member at Wolf Run during his Indianapolis Colts days. This is his first USGA championship.
Rusty Strawn, 60, of McDonough, Ga., claimed the 2022 U.S. Senior Amateur by defeating 2013 champion Doug Hanzel in the 18-hole final at The Kittansett Club. In 2022, Strawn also won the Trans-Mississippi Senior and Florida Senior Azalea, and was the runner-up to Sherrill Britt in the North & South Senior at Pinehurst. He played his college golf at Georgia Southern with 2016 U.S. Senior Open champion Gene Sauers. He is a chief executive officer of an insurance firm.
Matt Sughrue, 64, of Arlington, Va., made a major career decision following 25 years in the insurance business as a CEO. The 2016 U.S. Senior Amateur runner-up went to grad school at Virginia Tech to become a psychotherapist. His thesis was on Chronic Adult Male Homelessness, and Sughrue served as the family therapist at SERVE, a 90-bed homeless shelter for families in Manassas, Va. He’s now in private practice, where he assists elite athletes with their mental approaches to their sports. That group includes golfers, swimmers and baseball players to help them perform their best in competition. Sughrue also was the runner-up in the 2015 British Senior Amateur at Royal County Down and finished fourth two years later at Sunningdale.
Ken Whalley, 61, of Topsfield, Mass., has had a defibrillator implanted inside his chest to measure his heart rhythm since he was diagnosed with a serious heart condition in 2006. This will be his first U.S. Senior Amateur, but he qualified for the 2005 U.S. Amateur at Merion and has competed in three U.S. Mid-Amateurs. He played his collegiate golf at Duke University.
Todd White, 55, of Spartanburg, S.C., is a high school history teacher who won the inaugural U.S. Amateur Four-Ball in 2015 with Nathan Smith. White, a member of the victorious 2013 USA Walker Cup Team, will be competing in his 35th USGA championship. He was a semifinalist in the 2012 U.S. Mid-Amateur at Conway Farms and on two other occasions has advanced to the quarterfinals. White also qualified for the 1995 U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills. This is his first U.S. Senior Amateur.
Jeff Wilson, 60, of Fairfield, Calif., is the general sales manager of a Toyota dealership. Wilson regained his amateur status in 1997 after bouncing around several mini tours. In 2018, he won the U.S. Senior Amateur with a 2-and-1 victory over defending champion Sean Knapp. He tied for 31st in the 2018 U.S. Senior Open at The Broadmoor and became the second player to earn low-amateur honors in both the U.S. Open and U.S. Senior Open, joining Marvin “Vinny” Giles III. Wilson, who was low amateur in the 2000 U.S. Open at Pebble Beach (Calif.) Golf Links, has competed in 40 USGA championships, including four U.S. Opens.
Jeff Wright, 58, of San Francisco, Calif., has lived a remarkable life that included 30 years as a singer/songwriter opening for such acts as Hall & Oates, Train and Sugar Ray. He’s also a former model who once was one of the country’s top golf recruits being courted by virtually every Division I program in the country. He originally committed to attend Georgia Tech while flying in a helicopter over Augusta National Golf Club before switching allegiances to Arizona State. He then transferred to UC Irvine and discovered an affinity for writing music and playing the guitar. He also modeled for magazines and stores such as Target. He then had a fall from grace, which included a divorce, and spent time living out of his car in California before putting his life back together. This will be his second U.S. Senior Amateur start after playing in 2021.
Compiled by USGA senior staff writer David Shefter. Email him at dshefter@usga.org.
