Tom Rock: Sam Stevens, an everyman in search of a U.S. Open title
Sam Stevens tees off on the first hole during the third round of the 2026 U.S. Open Championship at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club on Saturday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
The Hamptons isn’t a place for regular joes to stand out. Between the A-listers and the glitterati and the big-money moguls who stroll the streets and hit the beaches out here, the unremarkable tend to be not only overlooked but squeezed out.
It’s a place for stars. No-names need not apply.
Sam Stevens is trying to change that.
The 29-year-old third-generation golf also-ran with a stature as unassuming as his so-simple-it’s-forgettable name, for whom the USGA staff had to inconspicuously lower the microphone at his post-round news conference to accommodate his lack of physical presence, somehow finds himself challenging for the U.S. Open Championship at Shinnecock Hills as the tournament heads into its final round on Sunday.
He’s never won a PGA Tour event. His only win as a pro was in 2021 at the Holcim Colombia Classic on the PGA Tour Latinoamerica. Even when he did come out on top on a big stage as a member of the 2018 NCAA title-winning team at Oklahoma State, he was overshadowed by teammates such as Viktor Hovland and Matthew Wolff.
To a certain generation, he probably isn’t even the first Sam Stevens to come to mind, at least not phonetically speaking. Sam Stephens, the main character from the classic TV show “Bewitched,” may hold that honor.
But even without the aid of a nose twitch, he shot a 72 in the third round of this Open on Saturday, a round that began with a birdie that brought him within two strokes of leader Wyndham Clark after Clark bogeyed the same hole moments later. Stevens now finds himself in a four-way tie for second and in the third-to-final pairing heading into the championship round.
It’s the golf equivalent of a nobody sitting at the window table at Nick & Toni’s. Everybody is going to walk past, gawk and ask: Who is that?
Seriously. Who is Sam Stevens?
“I don’t know, just an average PGA player, I guess,” Stevens said when asked that question by Newsday. “I’m excited for [Sunday], and hopefully I can play well enough to help a few more people get acquainted with who I am.”
While there were two points on the front nine when Stevens was within two strokes of Clark, he began to fade a bit after the turn. He bogeyed 10, 11 and 12 to drop to 1 under for the tournament, but he nearly chipped in on 13 to end that slide and saved par with an up-and-in on 14. He had putts for birdie on each of the last three holes but missed them by what must have been a combined six inches.
That left him and the rest of the field looking up at Clark. Eight of the top nine are at a very Shinnecock-appropriate even par or minus-1 going into the final round, but the outlier looks as if he is out of reach.
As Tom Kim, one of the others in that four-way tie for second, said: “It’s kind of a jumbled-up leaderboard — except for the leader.”
Stevens on being in chase mode so close to the top yet so far back: “I could play a great round [Sunday], shoot 3 or 4 under and still lose by seven.”
Stevens has come close to enjoying the spoils and recognition of a winner a few times. As a Tour rookie in 2023, he was runner-up at the Valero Texas Open. In 2024, he tied for second at the Wichita Open. Last year, he finished in second place at the Farmers Insurance Open.
And Stevens has had a knack for sticking around through the weekend at majors, even if it has typically been as a morning seat-filler. He made the cut in each of his previous three U.S. Open starts, but his best finish was tied for 23rd last year. He tied for 26th at this year’s Masters.
If Stevens can pull off the upset victory on Sunday in a field top-heavy with at least one past U.S. Open winner, a career Grand Slam-searcher, and a who’s who of household names in the sport, he’ll be the first golfer to score his first PGA Tour win in a major since Keegan Bradley did it in the 2011 PGA Championship.
Not only that, but he’d be the first in his family to post one. His grandfather, Johnny, made 30 PGA Tour starts in the 1960s without a victory. His father, Charlie, played a handful of tournaments on the Korn Ferry Tour in the early 1990s.
Stevens said he recently found himself getting “a little worn down” about his second-tier status and the grind it took to maintain even that chorus- line role far from the spotlight. He recognized he was becoming a “curmudgeon.”
“I’m only 29,’’ he said, “so I probably don’t need to be bitter about things quite yet.”
So he talked things through with his caddie, Will Dennis. He spoke with his wife, Kelsey. He consulted with his father. They all had the same advice for him.
“They were, like, ‘Hey, you’ve got to chill out! It’s just golf!’ ” he said. “So it’s a pretty simple fix. Just a little bit of perspective can change a lot of things.”
Stevens altered the way he looks at the world.
Now, out here in the land of excess and glamour and among all the beautiful people with whom he normally would not seem to fit in, he is a day away from the world potentially altering the way it looks at him.
It would be a rare East End win for Everymen everywhere.
Tom Rock began covering sports for Newsday in 1996 and became its NFL columnist in 2022. He previously was Newsday's Giants beat writer beginning in 2008.
