Golf, Matt Vogt’s fairy tale, dentist at the US Open

Matt Vogt’s plan, 34 -year -old American dentist, was simple and had prepared it for a long time, since he had seen that the 125th edition of the US Open would be played in Oakmont, about twenty minutes by car from the house where he was born and where his mother still lives, right in the club where he had done the caddie for five years to pay at least a part of the studies in biology. The plan, we said, was to take his wife Hilary, his 15 -month -old daughter Charlotte and their three dogs, to drive 6 hours from Indianapolis, where he lives, up to Cranberry, a suburb of Pittsburgh, let go of the luggage at the mother’s house and then enjoy a few days of golf as a spectator. He had taken a week of vacation from his dentist’s work because Us Open is always a show and he didn’t really want to lose it. But then something unexpectedly happened. Very unexpected.

one on ten thousand

–

Matt Vogt signed up for the qualifications for the US Open, without even believing it too much. The peculiarity of the third major of the year is that only half of the 156 places are reserved for Golf’s greats – for example the best 50 in the world, the last 10 samples or those who have won a major in the last 5 years – the others are available to those who earn them in the various qualifying tournaments, at stake for those who have the constancy and skill and the ability to pursue an impossible dream. This year the members in America were more than 10,200, 16 of them – that is, 0.15% – survived the local qualifying and landed at the Finals, where they confronted many big names, professionals already on the PGA and the European Tour, exempt from the first phase. On June 2, Vogt thus found himself in Walla Walla, Washington, to play the qualification, two places available, two laps, so much fear of not making it one step away from the dream. Instead…

The stop at the University

–

Matt Vogt, dentist, had to partially adapt his original plan: wife, daughter and dogs brought them with him, the mother’s house has been confirmed as a base, but instead of looking at the others there will also be among the 156 players who will play the US Open in Oakmont, Pennsylvania this week. More than two meters high, powerful and precise in hitting the ball, however he had quickly understood that he would not have made a long way in golf. Too inconstant to be successful in a sport that requires discipline and concentration. When he graduated from the Seneca Valley High School, one hour north of Pittsburgh, in 2009, he was sure not to have the “talent”. A couple of years spent playing Butler University have strengthened what he believed true: he was not prepared – physically or mentally – for golf. So he graduated in Biology, then enrolled in the School of Dentistry of the University of Indiana. In 2018 he opened his study as a dentist in Indianapolis. Today he took on another doctor who works with him and has always kept faith with the promise he had made himself: “Do not look back and have no regrets”. He did not want to be the Titpo who spends time to say ‘if I had done this or that, if I had continued, if I had from here and if I had from there ”.

In the name of the Father

–

But at some point he resumed the golf clubs in his hand. Having a job, having a family to maintain, playing because it wanted and not because it had to, all this changed its perspectives. “I put my priorities right,” he explained. Thus, suddenly, the amateur dentist became a face from the news on TV in America. When the tournament will probably start on Thursday he will probably have to give way to the front page to the various Scheffler, Mcilroy and Dechambeau, but in the meantime he enjoys his quarter of an hour of notoriety. And he will do it with a special thought to his father, who disappeared two months ago for colon cancer. His first fan will not be able to see him at Open, but he will be with him along Oakmont’s fairways.