Six First Coast golfers are in the field for 124th U.S. Amateur at Hazeltine National

The First Coast will have a strong presence in the North Star State next week. 

A half-dozen area players, led by defending Junior Players champion Miles Russell of Jacksonville Beach, Canadian Amateur champion Tyler Mawhinney of Fleming Island and Florida Amateur champion Jimmy Ellis of Atlantic Beach, will be playing in the 124th U.S. Amateur at the Hazeltine National Golf Club in Chaska, Minn. 

Stroke-play qualifying will begin on Monday at Hazeltine and the Chaska Town Course. The top 64 players will advance to match play beginning on Wednesday. 

U.S. Amateur groups, tee times for first two rounds

In addition to Russell, Mawhinney and Ellis, University of North Florida senior Brett Schell, Florida Gulf Coast sophomore Brody Stevenson (both Bartram Trail graduates) and Florida State redshirt freshman Andrew McLauchlan of Neptune Beach, a Bolles graduate. 

Here are the tee times for the first two rounds for the area players (times are EDT): 

• Schell: No. 1 (Chaska Town Course), 9:39 a.m.; No. 10 (Hazeltine), 3:09 p.m. 
• Russell: No. 1 (Chaska Town Course), 9:50 a.m.; No. 10 (Hazeltine), 3:20 p.m. 
• Stevenson: No. 10 (Hazeltine), 1:41 p.m.; No. 1 (Chaska Town Course), 8:11 a.m. 
• Mawhinney: No. 1 (Hazeltine), 1:41 p.m.; No. 1 (Chaska Town Course), 8:11 a.m.
• Ellis: No. 10 (Hazeltine), 3:31 p.m.; No. 1 (Chaska Town Course), 10:01 a.m. 
• McLauchlan: No. 1 (Chaska Town Course), 3:42 p.m.; No. 10 (Hazeltine), 10:12 p.m. 

Also playing are University of Florida players Ian Gilligan and Parker Bell, who were semifinalists in the Western Amateur two weeks ago (Gillian beat Jack Turner in a 29-hole final), U.S. Junior Amateur champion Trevor Gutschewski, a Gator commit for 2025 and past First Coast Amateur champion Ty Gingerich. 

TV coverage will begin on Wednesday through Friday on Peacock (5-6 p.m.) and NBC (6-8 p.m.). The match play semifinals will be on Golf Channel from 3-6 p.m. on Aug. 17 and the championship match will be on Golf Channel from 2-5 p.m. on Aug. 18. 

Nease graduate Monique Gesualdi cited 

Troon Golf, which manages more than 900 golf facilities worldwide, has named Nease graduate Monique "Mo" Gesualdi as the 2024 Troon Coach of the Year by the company's Education and Player Development team. 

Gesualdi is the PGA and LPGA Director of Instruction for the St. Johns Golf and Country Club. 

"Monique exemplifies the characteristics of the elite coach: humility, motivator, caring, listener and relationship builder," said Troon Global Director of Education and Coaching, Tim Mahoney in a statement. 

Gesualdi has been at St. Johns since 2021 and is a two-time winner of the North Florida PGA Youth Player Development Award Winner. She also hosts the "Coach Mo" Podcast. 

Gesualdi played college golf at Furman, was a two-time Florida Times-Union high school Player of the Year and was the St. Augustine Record's Athlete of the Decade in girls golf for 2000-2010. 

She also has beaten physical challenges. She received a life-saving liver transplant in 2012, followed shortly by two craniotomies to remove invasive aspergillosis that developed in her brain while immunosuppressed in the hospital. She has beaten a mortality rate of nearly 90 percent for liver transplant patients who develop invasive aspergillosis. 

First Coast juniors play in Florida Cup 

Henry Robards, Maxwell Morgan and Cooper Franklin of Ponte Vedra Beach and Luke Balaskiewicz of Jacksonville competed for North Florida in the 18th Florida Junior Cup last week at the Bent Pine Golf Club in Vero Beach. 

South Florida rallied in singles to win 17.5-14.5 after trailing 10.5-5.5. North Florida still holds an 11-6-1 margin in the series. 

Balaskiewicz was the only area player to win in singles, beating Wylie Inman 2 and 1. 

Franklin and Anthony Monteleone defeated Inman and Lawson Ford 1-up and Morgan and Palmer Haynes topped Josh Orgen and Eddie Gu 4 and 3 in fourball matches. Robards and Alexandra Snyder earned a mixed foursomes halve with Layla Pedrique and William Lisle.