Ryder Cowan peeked at the leaderboard on the 16th hole Thursday at Shinnecock Hills before making his way to the 17th, which he birdied to get to 3-under.
The amateur from Edmond was the solo leader at the U.S. Open. And he knew it.
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“No way,” he thought to himself. “That’s pretty sick, actually.”
But there was plenty of golf still to play.
“I tried to stay calm, stay focused and keep grinding away,” Cowan told The Oklahoman. “It was tough out there, man. That course is really hard. It mentally beats you down.”
Amateur Ryder Cowan of the United States acknowledges the crowd on the second green during the final round of the 126th U.S. OPEN at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club on June 21, 2026 in Southampton, New York.
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Cowan, a rising senior at Oklahoma, shot an opening round 68 — followed by rounds of 72-72-73 — to finish 5-over and in a tie for 23rd at his first-ever major tournament. He tied Auburn’s Jackson Koivun for low-amateur honors.
After he finished his first round at Shinnecock, Cowan said he opened his phone to 270 unread text messages. A two-time Oklahoma high school state champion from Oklahoma Christian School, he had plenty of support back home, and he was even greeted by a few “Boomers” by the Long Island crowd.
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“It was pretty insane, I can’t lie,” Cowan said of the overall experience. “Being out there with guys I watched and looked up to growing up — playing against them and trying to beat them — it was pretty surreal.”
Cowan warmed up on the range next to Rory McIlroy. He played a practice round with Collin Morikawa. On Sunday he was grouped with Alex Fitzpatrick, a PGA Tour winner and the younger brother of world No. 4 Matt Fitzpatrick.
“He was the best,” Cowan said of Alex Fitzpatrick. “He treated me so good. We talked pretty much the whole round.”
The par-3 17th was Cowan’s favorite hole at Shinnecock, and it’s also where Cowan took the lead on Thursday, and where he made birdie Sunday to tie Koivun as the low amateur.
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Before the tournament, a lot of people, his mom among them, asked Cowan what his goal was.
“I told her that I was going to win the golf tournament,” he said. “I wasn’t going there to just make the cut, I was going there to try to win a golf tournament. I gave it my best.”
Cowan, the 15th-ranked amateur in the world, survived a playoff at BallenIsles Country Club in Florida to qualify for the U.S. Open. He was coming off a second-team All-American season at Oklahoma in which he won two events. Cowan, even with the departure of men’s golf coach Ryan Hybl, plans to return to OU for his senior season to play for coach Jonathan Moore.
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: U.S. Open low amateur Ryder Cowan on his week at Shinnecock: ‘Pretty insane’
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