What a difference a few years can make.
Three summers ago, Mack Edwards traveled to Country Club of North Carolina in Pinehurst as first alternate for the 2021 U.S. Junior Amateur. He played a practice round, just like any competitor in the field, but when it came time for the first round of stroke play, Edwards found himself warming up multiple times and keeping an eye on the shuttle that was taking players to the back nine on the adjacent course.
“I thought I was definitely going to get in,” Edwards said. “I sat by that bus the whole first day, and it just didn’t happen. It felt like I was a full balloon that just got popped.
“But that’s OK, we’re here now.”
Is he ever.
Edwards, a 17-year-old Charlotte native who attends boarding school in Virginia, fired a 4-under 66 Monday at Oakland Hills Country Club’s South Course, the round of the morning on the tougher of the two stroke-play layouts (about a shot and a half more difficult than the North Course) for this week’s U.S. Junior in Bloomfield Township, Michigan. It’s Edwards’ USGA debut, and so far, he’s in great position to punch his ticket to match play, which begins with Wednesday’s Round of 64, and on the first page of the leaderboard with the likes of AJGA standouts Tyler Watts (5-under 65, North), Blades Brown (66, North) and Miles Russell (68, North).
Edwards, who is verbally committed to North Carolina, isn’t exactly a household name on the national junior circuit. While Brown and Russell have notched PGA Tour starts already as high-school underclassmen, Edwards has only played in two AJGA invitationals and spent the first five months of this year solely playing prep golf for Woodberry Forest School, a boarding school in central Virginia.
“Being up there with those guys is really nice,” Edwards said. “I don’t get to play with those guys in events very often. You play in the best junior events, and they’re in the Elite Am Series. They’ve done really well recently, so it’s nice to see how I stack up, and being at the top right now, it’s a good feeling.”
Edwards has led Woodberry Forest, which has a nine-hole Donald Ross design on campus, to back-to-back VISAA Division I state team titles, and this year helped the Tigers complete an undefeated season, their first since 2000. Edwards set the program’s single-season record for scoring average, and his 63 at conference led Woodberry Forest to a 17-shot win at the Virginia Prep League Championship.
“That was where my priorities were for those first few months of the year,” Edwards said. “I wanted to do everything I could for that team.”
He’s excited to join his future team as well. Edwards, who verbally committed to the Tar Heels in February, is set to sign his national letter of intent this November and join the North Carolina team in Fall 2025. Last year, Edwards let his game slip because of pressure to impress Tar Heels head coach Andrew DiBitetto, who has had Edwards, the 2019 North Carolina Junior Boys’ 13-Under champion, on his radar for years.
“I always knew that was where I wanted to go,” Edwards said. “So, when I started playing poorly, I just got a little tight because Carolina had been playing well, was bringing in some good players, and I knew that opportunity would be tough to get.”
Edwards talked to a few coaches last summer, but he took just one visit: to Chapel Hill.
“It was a narrow mindset,” Edwards said, “but I knew that if I had the chance, I was going to bite.”
Luckily for him, the Tar Heels offered him a spot – and he bit.
“That was nice to cross off my list,” Edwards said. “This whole summer, knowing where I’m going to school has been very comforting, and not having the added pressure of coaches around has been nice to have off my shoulders, and it’s freed me up.”
After a few failures at U.S. Junior qualifying more locally, Edwards decided this summer to travel to Southampton, New York, with his dad and take his chances there. He shot 69 and got through a 2-for-1 playoff at Southampton Golf Club. Also this summer, Edwards tied for eighth at the AJGA Wyndham Invitational and was T-42 at the Western Junior.
Entering his USGA debut, Edwards “felt like there was some good stuff cooking.” He missed just two fairways Monday on the South Course, at Nos. 4 and 16, the only two holes he bogeyed on the round.
“I found fairways, and that was crucial, that set me up for absolutely everything,” Edwards said. “Your find the rough here, you’re playing your butt off to make par.”
Just two days earlier, Edwards’ driver was squirrely in a practice round the North Course. But he found a little fix on the range and striped it on Sunday around the South – and obviously again Monday.
“Hopefully,” Edwards said, “it continues throughout the week.”
If it does, Edwards won’t be easy deflated.