The upcoming 2023 Masters Tournament will feature seven amateurs looking to make a name for themselves amongst the elite of the sport. However, it seems like 19-year-old Vanderbilt golfer Gordon Sargent hasn’t exactly passed the eye test to some around the course.
Sargent is the reigning winner of the NCAA Individual Golf Championship as just a sophomore in college. He received a special exemption for play in this year’s Masters Tournament. It is in the first time in more than two decades that any amateur has received a special exemption to the prestigious tournament.
His extreme talents at such a young age have raised some questions from the course security at Augusta National.
Sargent hilariously revealed on Monday that he was mistaken for a participant in the Drive, Chip, and Putt competition for junior golfers from the ages of 7 to 15 years old at the course.
“I was definitely grounded a little bit this morning when I was looking for Player Dining, and a couple of people thought I was in the Drive, Chip, and Putt,” Sargent said via Paulina Dedaj of Fox News.
He then went on to explain that he was asked y security to show his badge to prove that he is indeed a participant in the Masters Tournament.
“It starts off yesterday, I tried to go into the pro shop to ask them what time I could play tomorrow. I’m like, ‘Look, I’m a player, I have my caddie right here.’ The guy’s, like, ‘No, you’re going to have to have your badge.’”
“So then I’m like, ‘Can you just get someone from the pro shop to come out here. And of course they come out, and they’re like, ‘Oh, hey Gordon,’ and the security guards are there kind of like, whatever, you know.”
To be fair, Gordon did detail that some of the 13-year-olds in the Junior event are in fact bigger than him.
“There probably were some kids over there that were bigger than me, some 13-year-olds.”
Regardless of whether or not Sargent looks the part, he will tee off on Thursday afternoon alongside Jason Day and Zach Johnson in the biggest tournament of his life.
[Fox News]
