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An Unlikely Champion at the Salt Lake City Amateur
In winning the 2025 Richard C. Kramer Salt Lake City Amateur, Masen Ward may go down as one of the most unlikely champions of one of Utah’s premier amateur golf tournaments.
Ward didn’t even take up the game until he was 15 years old, never won a junior tournament and doesn’t play many tournaments these days because is married and has a full-time job.
However, Ward fired a second-round 68 Sunday afternoon at Bonneville Golf Course to finish with a two-day total of 138 and one-stroke victory over BYU golfers Peter Kim and Jackson Mauss.
“It was fun out there today,” Ward said. “I haven’t really won a big tournament, ever. This is really special.”
The 25-year-old Ward does have golf credentials – he played for Westminster College before transferring to Tarleton State in Texas. But has not played much since his collegiate career wrapped up.
He started Sunday two strokes behind teenager Will Pizza’s 68 with five players at 69 and another seven players tied with him at 70 on the crowded leaderboard.
Ward was still back in the pack when he got to the tricky downhill 191-yard par-3 with a two-level green. His 7-iron landed on the slope and rolled up into the cup for a hole-in-one, his first on a regulation course.
“I yelled out loud,” he said, after the ball rolled up the hill for the ace. “After that hole-in-one, I really kicked it into gear and started to make some birdies,” he said.
The ace vaulted Ward near the lead and he added three birdies on the back before bogeying the final hole to finish at 6-iron.
Kim and Steve Croft, who tied for fifth at 141, hurt their chances with bogeys at 17 after both were tied at 5-under. Spencer Schindler was fourth at 140.
Riley Olsen, a 29-year-old transplant from Michigan, held the lead much of the day, before making a bogey at the par-5 16th and a triple-bogey at 18. First-day leader Pizza faltered with a 77 that included two triple-bogeys.
Bauer Kuemmel won Flight 1 at 143, while Matt Stern won Flight 2 at 154.
Click Here for full results of the Richard C. Kramer Salt Lake City Amateur championship.
Feature written by Fairways Media senior writer Mike Sorensen. Photos by Fairways Media/Randy Dodson.