The Can’t-Miss Kid Became the Comeback Kid

Ryan Ruffels was supposed to arrive a long time ago. You might remember that he won the 2014 Junior World Championship at Torrey Pines. By all accounts, he was the can’t-miss kid.

He won back-to-back Australian Boys’ Amateur titles, finished one shot short of a Masters invitation at the Asia-Pacific Amateur, turned down Phil Mickelson’s courtship, and turned pro at 17. At 18, playing alongside Jason Day, he recorded a T20 finish at the Zurich Classic.

Then life happened. He made 20 PGA Tour starts and 51 Korn Ferry Tour starts. He also held a 54-hole lead at the 2020 Pinnacle Bank Championship, only to lose by one shot. By 2022, his Korn Ferry Tour card was gone.

But Ruffels built another path.

He pointed a camera at himself in late 2023. That eventually became The Lads, the YouTube group he launched with former world No. 1, 13-time PGA Tour winner, and 2018 Zurich Classic partner Jason Day. It kept him in the game.

This past April, Ruffels defeated Grant Horvat to win The Q, earning his way into the Myrtle Beach Classic and making his first PGA Tour cut since 2022.

Oh, and he also became the No. 1 player in the Grass League.

Last fall, Ruffels and his sister Gabriela won the Grass League Championship in dramatic fashion.

Now he returns to Southern California, where he made his professional debut, as the comeback kid. For reference, Ryan Ruffels is 28 years old and seemingly on top of a different golf pinnacle. I’m 38, and what I can tell you is that a lot can happen in 10 years.

The New Kids on the Block

Austin Quick and Tyler Weworski have been part of the Grass League and Phoenix United since the league’s beginning. In fact, Quick made a 25-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole at the 2024 Grass Clippings Open to force a playoff, which Drew Kittleson and the Muskies eventually won.

The Grass League is very much a “what have you done for me lately?” type of league, and Quick and Weworski know this all too well. If you were at the Summer Grind last year, you might have mistaken Weworski and Quick for caddies instead of players.

They return this year as the premier pairing entering the Summer Grind. Ranked No. 2 and No. 3 in the world, Quick and Weworski are fresh off a historic performance at the Grass Clippings Open, where they ran away from the field with a six-shot victory. It was a performance that seemed as unlikely as it now feels believable.

The pair have Phoenix United sitting atop the Par 3 Cup standings, and Austin Quick has a chance to replace Ryan Ruffels as the top player in the world.

Everything comes to a head at 2:30 p.m. Saturday.

All Those Résumés, One Small Hill

Seven USGA champions are in this field.

Jennifer Song won the U.S. Women’s Amateur and the U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links in the same 2009 season, becoming one of only three women ever to claim two USGA titles in a single year. Byron Meth won the final U.S. Amateur Public Links ever contested, becoming the last champion in the event’s 92-year history. Ty Strafaci won the 2020 U.S. Amateur at Bandon Dunes. Sam Engel became the first left-hander to win the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball, and he brought his winning partner, Brian Blanchard, with him. TJ Vogel won a Public Links final, 12 and 10. Scott Harvey owns two USGA titles and is one of only two men ever to win both the U.S. Mid-Amateur and the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball.

Major championship experience is here in bulk. John Mallinger has played in seven majors, with his best finish being a T22 at Pebble Beach in the 2010 U.S. Open, and has made 187 PGA Tour starts. Jesse Mueller eagled his opening hole at the 2022 PGA Championship from 102 yards. Willy Wilcox played in the 2011 U.S. Open, made 72 PGA Tour starts, earned a Korn Ferry Tour victory, and recorded the only hole-in-one at TPC Sawgrass’ 17th hole during a 14-year span. Manav Shah qualified for Shinnecock this June.

Then there is the tier nobody scouts. A dozen men in this field currently work as caddies on tour. Ricky Romano is on Rickie Fowler’s bag. Wilcox caddies full time for Sungjae Im. Corby Segal has been inside the ropes since 2000. These are people who make a living watching the best players in the world make decisions. This week, they get to make their own.

Add all the state open and state amateur champions, then place them on a par-3 layout at Goat Hill Park. It’s the Summer Grind, and the trophy is up for grabs.

Five Franchises, Zero Titles

Five franchises have never won a Grass League tournament: the Scottsdale Strikers, the Hollywood Hitters, the Dallas Horsemen, the Las Vegas Action, and the San Diego Munis.

It’s worth noting that the San Diego Munis won the 2025 Par 3 Cup, the season-long points race. They are owned by U.S. Open champion Wyndham Clark. They have collected more points across a season than anyone else, but they have never had a two-person team handed a trophy on the 18th green. A franchise points title and a tournament victory are different animals here, and San Diego has one but not the other.

Now they enter their home county with five teams featuring captain Matt Ryan, Hayden Wood, Kevin Lucas, Ricky Romano, and the pairing of John Chin and Grant Hirschman.

The other four franchises are chasing their first victory in different ways. Scottsdale signed Brady Calkins, a nine-time Dakotas Tour winner whose game is tailor-made for the Grass League. Hollywood has been the punchline for two seasons, but it arrives with arguably the best roster in the tournament. Dallas brought two sets of brothers. Las Vegas is an expansion team that probably would not be on this list if it had joined the league earlier.

A 36-hole, par-3 scramble featuring five teams per franchise is unique. There is no doubt about that. Regardless of the mechanics, it’s a stage. As a wise man once said,

“The grandest of stages is in the moment. It’s the stage you’re standing on.”

Protect the Hill

Golf Channel is coming to Goat Hill Park. If you had said that in 2014, folks in Oceanside would have thought you were crazy. Well, it’s true, and the local players in the field are tasked with protecting the hill.

The property opened in 1952 as the Oceanside-Carlsbad Country Club, one of the first courses in San Diego County. In the early 1990s, designer Ludwig Keehn rebuilt it into the 18-hole course locals nicknamed the Goat. Keehn died in 2004, management deteriorated, and a drought and recession compounded the course’s problems. By the middle of the last decade, the city was considering redevelopment proposals for land the community had fought to preserve for public use in the 1980s.

Then the town showed up.

They called it the People’s Park of Oceanside and refused to let it go. On July 1, 2014, a group led by John Ashworth took over operations, and the place came back to life. It gained a free three-hole course for kids called the Playground, a dogs-welcome policy, no dress code, and a motto that became part of the entire operation: “World Class / Working Class.”

It is a city-owned course with ocean air moving across it and a hill that gives you a downhill flip wedge before making you hit a 200-yard 3-iron from the next tee. We did not choose it because it was convenient. We chose it because the venue already believed what the league believes: golf is better when everybody is invited.

On Sunday, the Goat gets a national broadcast, and several players in the field call it home. Alex Chiarella and his partner, Colin Featherstone, come to mind. If you know anything about the community at Goat Hill Park, there is no doubt that the locals are counting on them to protect the hill.