This story is part of Peak, The Athletic’s desk covering the mental side of sports. Sign up for Peak’s newsletter here.
Brandon Holtz won the 2025 U.S. Mid-Amateur to qualify for a spot in the Masters. He shot 15-over and missed the cut. He lives in Bloomington, Ill., with his family.
I’m pretty sure I could see my heart beating through my chest on the first tee.
Just to even be on the practice green with those guys was surreal. Then I walked up and saw my name on the board. I played with Bubba Watson, a past Masters champion, and Nico Echavarria, who has had a heck of a year. And then they called my name.
I looked at my dad and was like: This is real stuff, man. Here we are.
I’m a 39-year-old real estate agent. For me to be there was super unlikely. In a little bit of fairness to myself, I’m ranked somewhere around 3,000 in the World Amateur Golf Rankings. But I’ve only played in one USGA event and I’m one for one.
That was the 2025 U.S. Mid-Am, which I won in September and got me my spot at the Masters. As I understood it, the invitation would come sometime around Christmas. That’s exactly what happened.
My son and I were outside shoveling snow in the driveway. The delivery guy shows up and gives me a tearaway envelope and I knew that had to be it. It was just a simple one-card invitation.
Big things come in small packages, right?
I played college basketball at Illinois State and was always first in the gym, last out. I just never gave up. If I wasn’t good at it, I wasn’t going to do whatever it took to be good at it.
I kind of had that never-give-up attitude.
Golf had always been secondary for me, but when I graduated from college, I still felt I had a competitive drive in my bucket. I said: Alright, I just got done with basketball. I’ve still got to find something to do. Let’s try golf for a couple of years.
I tried the mini tours and played professionally from 2010 to 2014, but it wasn’t anything sanctioned. I wasn’t sponsored in any way. I was just doing it on my own. The goal was to play for two years, and if I got better, I’d keep going.
I made it to year four and then realized it was time to give it up.
I still kept my pro status. People would ask me: “Oh, you’ve got your pro card?” Well, you don’t really have a card. Actually, maybe if you’re on the PGA Tour you do, I don’t know. I was never on the Korn Ferry or the PGA Tour. But I kept my professional status because it was fun to play in the Illinois Open every year. I had some success too, got second a couple of times.
But I got to the point where I just wasn’t playing or practicing enough. I was playing in only one event a year. I had a good group of buddies, and I wanted to get my amateur status back so I could go play in amateur events with them. You know, have fun and talk some garbage.
The intention of getting my amateur status back was never winning the Mid-Am. That was not in my sights at all.
I played five practice rounds at Augusta before teeing off Thursday. I’ve never seen a golf course play so difficult. Mentally, that golf course is 18 holes of complete concentration. Every shot in those 18 holes has to be so precise.
Standing on the first tee was emotional, but at the same time, I was there to compete, so I had to block out those feelings. I’ve played basketball in front of a lot of people before – not quite as many people as I’ve played in front of today – but I do have a space for that mentally in my head because I’ve been there before. That helped a little.
I just got up there, took a deep breath and said to myself: Just take it back and swing it, man. Who cares where it goes?
And I ended up hitting it down the fairway.
Mentally, Augusta is exhausting. I’m a bigger guy, but physically I wasn’t tired. I was mentally tired. I feel like at a lot of golf courses that the Average Joe like me plays, you can take a couple of holes off and hit a couple of squirrely shots and you’ll be OK.
If you’re not to the precise, exact yardage at Augusta, you’re in trouble. That was mentally exhausting. I honestly don’t feel like I hit the ball that terribly even. It was just, if I needed to hit it 160 yards, I maybe hit it 157 or 167. And you just have to hit the exact yardage.
That was so mentally hard for me. It was hard for me to understand: Hey, dude, back it off a little bit. Give yourself a little bit of grace here. Because it is that hard. It is that difficult.
I just looked at the scores and Rory McIlroy is 12-under through two days, and I’m sitting here thinking: What the hell? I have a whole extra appreciation for how good these guys really are.
When I got done with my round on Friday, I gave my dad a big ol’ hug. I got to the locker room and just took a big deep breath. I just wanted to take it all in.
I’m a super competitive dude, and I wasn’t happy with how I played. But I just played in the Masters, man. I did it.
— As told to Jayson Jenks