125th Wisconsin State Amateur Championship: Final Report Card from West Bend CC | WSGA State Amateur - United States News Beep

Round of the day

Cody Guetzke, Hartland. The rising freshman at the University of Wisconsin did what the other 81 golfers to make the cut in the Wisconsin State Amateur could not in Thursday’s final round: Break par at West Bend Country Club.

Guetzke shot his 1-under-par 70 with the help of three birdies and one eagle and a whole lot of patience. That more than balanced the scorecard after making four bogeys and helped him move up nine spots for a share of runner-up honors at 6-over 290, three strokes off Spencer Turtz’s winning pace.

“I feel like the first three days, I don’t think I was in it, really,” said Guetzke, who shot 74-74-72 in his first three trips around West Bend CC and was six shots back when he began the final round. “I was too aggressive to pins and my wedges were not very good. (Thursday) I went out with the mindset to hit to the middle of greens and if you have the opportunity to make birdie like I had on all the par-5s today. I got on in two on all (three) par-5s.”

Guetzke made eagle on the first one, rolling in a 20-footer at No. 3 to get to 4-over, and then made birdie at the second par-5 (No. 6) to get to 3-over. After bogeys at Nos. 7 and 9 and a birdie/bogey sequence at Nos. 12 and 13, he birdied the par-5 15th hole to pull within one shot of Turtz and Ricky Kuiper.

Unfortunately for Guetzke, he missed another 20-footer for birdie at No. 18 that might have made the leaders three groups behind him take notice. But that bold effort ran out some six feet and he missed the come-backer for par.

In the end, it wouldn’t matter as Turtz made birdie at No. 15, too, and finished with three straight pars to clinch the victory. For Guetzke, it marked his second straight top-10 finish in a State Am after finishing seventh at The Lido in 2025.

“Obviously, they set it up super-hard so any under-par round is going to get you close,” he said. “I didn’t think it would be this close, but it was good.”

Start of the day

Ricky Kuiper, Racine. It started with Kuiper draining a 50-foot putt for birdie from the tippy-top of the green on the first hole, the kind of putt that might have rolled all the way to Slinger if it hadn’t hit the pin and found the bottom of the cup.

It continued at No. 2 with a scrambling par from the trees just short of the parking lot left of the fairway and at No. 3 with another after his second shot on the short par-5 ran through the green and down the embankment. After birdieing Nos. 6 and 7 to get to even-par for the week, it looked like the three-time winner of both the Racine Amateur Championship and the Racine County Open might finally have his day in the state-wide spotlight.

Unfortunately for Kuiper, one aggressive chip shot from a few feet right of the ninth green changed everything. It hustled through the green and down the hill into a bunker, leading to a double-bogey 6 that didn’t extinguish his chances of winning, but certainly put a damper on a stellar front nine.

“I had the exact same start (Wednesday) that I did today,” said Kuiper, who also birdied Nos. 1, 6 and 7 in his 3-under 68 — the low round of the week — in the third round. “But the ninth and 10th holes are what set me back today. I was still in the tournament and right there, but those were tough pills to swallow. I really had an easy chip on the ninth hole. … Just too aggressive. I hit it too hard. You just can’t do that.”

Finish of the day

Spencer Turtz, Charlotte, N.C. The former Badgers golfer bounced back from a bogey-bogey finish to the front nine Thursday with a bogey-free finish over his final nine holes to shoot 2-over 73 and rally from a three-stroke deficit after eight holes in his head-to-head battle with Kuiper to win his first Wisconsin State Amateur title by the same margin.

He made eight pars and one birdie in a 1-under 34 on the back nine. His 3-over-par total 287 was three shots better than that of Guetzke and Kuiper and matched the winning score in relation to par shot by former PGA Tour golfer J.P. Hayes of Appleton” in winning the 1986 championship the last time the State Amateur was contested at West Bend CC.

“It was definitely hard to kind of flip the switch from worrying about what he was doing to what I was doing,” Turtz said of Kuiper, who gave him an opening with that double-bogey on No. 9 and a bogey on No. 10. “I definitely had a couple of shots on the front nine where I was thinking a lot about what he was doing. Then on the back nine, I started to realize I shouldn’t change what my game-plan has been all week. I’ll definitely build off that in the future.”

His ability to stay in the moment Thursday shined brightly on No. 13 where he got up-and-down from a greenside bunker to save par and remain tied with Kuiper. Turtz’s lone birdie on the back nine — at the par-5 15th — gave him a one-stroke lead on Kuiper, who would go on to double-bogey the par-3 17th hole to give Turtz a three-shot cushion with one hole to go.

“I hit 7-iron (at No. 13) right at it and, while it’s in the air, I’m like ‘That ball could go in’ and it comes up short in the bunker,” Turtz said. “I had to be like ‘OK, I need to take a deep breath if I’m going get this up-and-down.’ I hit a good bunker shot. That moment, for me, was like ‘I’m here and I’m ready to pull off these last five (holes).”

Shot of the day

Ricky Kuiper, Racine. For the third day in a row, there was an eagle on a par-4 (we see you Jonah Curtis of Green Lake and the 2 you made on the 356-yard 14th hole). But it’s hard to ignore the 50-foot putt Kuiper made for birdie on the very first hole to get the final group started on a spirited note.

“To win a golf tournament like this, you need a break or two here and there,” Kuiper said. “That putt to go in (on No. 1) … if that putt didn’t hit the hole, I thought I hit it pretty well and it just gained speed going down the hill. It hit the hole and went in. It could just have easily gone off the green.”

Shot of the day (photo)

Members of the University of Wisconsin golf team swarm Spencer Turtz after the former Badger won the 2026 Wisconsin State Amateur Championship at West Bend Country Club. From left, Will Harned, Vijay Kumar, Jacob Beckman, Jason Shwartz, Drew Sacia and Charlie Erlandson get in on the celebration.

Wisconsin.Golf photo / ROB HERNANDEZ

Past champion tracker

There were nine former Wisconsin State Amateur champions in this year’s field. Here is how that group fared:

Vince Sigl, Seymour (T-8): The 2025 champion began the day four strokes off the lead and came knocking on the door with an eagle at the par-5 third hole, but it was all pars (10) and bogeys (seven) the rest of the way. His closing 76 gave him a 10-over-par 294 total, leaving him seven strokes behind winner Spencer Turtz as the top past champion in the field.Garrett Jones, Madison (T-10): The 2024 champion improved five spots with a final-round 74 that gave him a 72-hole total of 11-over 295. He finished eight shots back.Bob Gregorski, Menasha (24th): The two-time champion (1998, 1995) finished off his best State Am finish in nearly a decade after his closing 74 gave him a 17-over 301 total. It was his best finish in this event since a T-23 at the 2018 State Am at Minocqua CC.Mike McDonald, Slinger (T-59): The 2011 champion made the cut for only the second time in his last seven State Am starts, moving up three spots despite a closing 80 and finishing at 29-over 313. Not bad for a golfer whose only WSGA starts over the last six years have come in the Wisconsin State Amateur.Others: Mequon’s Nick Nelson, the 2016 champion, shot 77-82 and, at 17-over 159, missed the cut by two strokes. … Two-time champion Ryan Quinn of Bloomington, Ill., shot 82-78 and, at 18-over 160, came up three strokes shy of making the cut. Quinn won his titles in 2001 and 2002. … River Falls’ Travis Meyer, the 2007 champion, shot 78-83 and, at 19-over 161, missed the cut by four strokes. … Two-time champion Pat Boyle of Greendaleshot 84-87 and, at 29-over 171, missed the cut by 14 strokes. … Whitefish Bay’s Jack Schultz, the 2023 champion, withdrew from the championship Monday, citing a back injury.

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#1 | Spencer Turtz

#2 | Cody Guetzke

#3 | Ricky Kuiper

#4 | Preston Dembowiak

#5 | Danny Behm

#6 | Brandon Cloete

#7 | Garrett Schultz

#9 | Vince Sigl

#10 | Ryan Banas

#12 | Charlie Erlandson

#13 | Vijay Kumar

#14 | Griffin Pohl

#15 | Jason Shwartz

#16 | Will Harned

#17 | Will Schlitz

#18 | Elliot Skinner

SWEET SPOT AT THE STATE OPENBefore he became a State Am champ, Spencer Turtz was UW’s ‘director of morale’

So The Sweet Spot wanted to know: Just what kind of teammate was newly minted Wisconsin State Amateur champion Spencer Turtz?

In short, he was “The best,” as it turns out.

Celebrating with your teammates>>>

Congratulations to Spencer for his WI State Am win! 🏆 pic.twitter.com/6GABBRG80U

— Wisconsin Men’s Golf (@BadgerMGolf) July 23, 2026

“He was my roommate two of the last three years I was there,” Middleton’s Jacob Beckman said of his former University of Wisconsin men’s golf teammate after Turtz won the 2026 State Am by three strokes. “I mean, the best teammate I’ve ever had, hands down. We always called him ‘the director of morale.’ He kept everybody in good spirits, kept everybody in a good mood. He was always there to pick you up when you were down.

“He worked his ass off. Weight room. On the course. Anything. He was always there for you. He was always there for everybody. That’s what he lived by. That was definitely what he did for us as a program and us as a team. I know he passed that on to a lot of the younger guys to be able to get that to continue in our program. If you were ever looking for someone to pick you up when you were down, Spencer was your guy to go to.”

Beckman and Turtz shared an apartment at The Palisade Apartments between the Nitty Gritty — Madison’s famous birthday bar on the UW campus — and the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel. There was competition there, too, Beckman said.

“It was competition between me and him to see who could make the biggest mess,” Beckman joked. “Naw, he was a great roommate, great teammate and great guy.”

Indeed, Turtz came a long way during his four years with the Badgers.

After logging just five rounds as a freshman in 2022-23, Turtz went on to play 81 more rounds over three years and compile a 74.15 career scoring average. His scoring average last season (73.1) was more than 2½ strokes lower per round than it was that first season as the new kid from Charlotte, N.C.

“Pretty high up,” UW associate head coach Ross Thomson said when The Sweet Spot asked him to rank Turtz among the half-dozen or so Badgers in the field when it came to most likely to win the State Amateur. “I just think he’s been exposed to a lot of hard golf courses in college. He had a decent season last year. He never really got it going, but had a lot of rounds around par on hard golf courses. I thought, this week, that’s what you really needed to do.”

Turtz is the third former UW golfer in five years to win the Wisconsin State Amateur, joining Garrett Jones (2024) and Tyler Obermueller (2022). There had been a seven-year gap between Obermueller’s win and that of Eddie Wajda III of Brookfield (2015), the last active Badger to win a State Am title.

Former Badgers golfers Cameron Huss of Kenosha, left, and Spencer Turtz of Charlotte, N.C., walk off the 18th green after Turtz won the 2026 Wisconsin State Amateur Championship at West Bend CC.

Wisconsin.Golf photo / ROB HERNANDEZ

Cameron Huss finds himself in the loop, again, as caddie to State Am champion

The Sweet Spot keeps running into Cameron Huss where we least expect it.

In May, the former Wisconsin State Open champion from Kenosha was caddying for former Badgers teammate Ryan Smith in the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship at Desert Mountain GC in Scottsdale, Ariz. In June, we ran into him at the Legend at Bergamont GC in Oregon where he offered to caddie in the U.S. Senior Open Final Qualifier and drew the bag of Iowa’s Sean McCarty.

This week, Huss drove up to West Bend CC and hopped on the bag of Turtz, another former UW teammate who wound up winning the State Amateur by three strokes. Huss was hoping to play in this week’s Evans Scholar Invitational on the Korn Ferry Tour, but he missed a 5-for-3 playoff for the final spots despite a 4-under 68 at the Monday qualifier in Grayslake, Ill.

“It was fun and, obviously, I was glad he got it done,” said Huss, who had four top-10 finishes in seven State Am appearances himself with his best showing a runner-up finish to Jack Schultz in 2023 at Erin Hills. “It was awesome to be on the other side of the bag with one of my best friends. He played great. He deserves all of it.”

Huss, who missed advancing out of the second stage of PGA Tour Qualifying School last fall by one stroke, won an event on the Men’s All-Pro Tour last month in Metamora, Ill., by shooting 65-66-66-67. He told The Sweet Spot he has enjoyed picking up caddie gigs in and around competing in Men’s APT events and Monday qualifiers on the Korn Ferry Tour.

“A little bit of both,” Huss said when asked if looping for other golfers is a welcome distraction from his own competitive calendar and/or helps him see the game from a unique perspective. “It kind of takes my mind off the stress I have of, basically, trying to go get a job. Also, when you are on the other side of the bag, you kind of see shots a little differently vs. when you are playing because you’re not hitting the shot. You kind of see it from a different angle.”

Quotable

Huss, who has never played West Bend CC before offering to caddie Wednesday and Thursday for champion Spencer Turtz, was asked for his impressions of the Langford and Moreau layout and how WSGA director of rules and competitions Geoff Pirkl had it set up.

“Those first few pins on (Nos.) 1, 2 and 3!” said Huss, a former Wisconsin State Open champion who has turned professional and recently won a Men’s All-Pro Tour event in Illinois. “I’m like ‘I miss Geoff Pirkl.'”

Crossing the tees

The most eye-popping statistic of Thursday final round was the 78.96 scoring average among the 82 golfers to make the cut. That was not only three shots more than Wednesday’s round (75.88), but also slightly higher than Monday (78.72) and Tuesday (78.63) — rounds played in extreme wind and with a full complement of 156 golfers. … Alistair Demko of Kingsland, Ga., a caddie at Sand Valley Golf Resort near Nekoosa, has a 2027 Wisconsin State Amateur exemption waiting for him next summer if he continues his looping gig. Demo made four birdies in a six-hole stretch of the front nine starting at No. 2 late in his round Thursday to shoot 1-over 72 and vault 20 spots into a tie for 25th place. The top 25 golfers plus ties are exempt from qualifying for the 2027 State Amateur at the Club at Lac la Belle in Oconomowoc. Cedarburg’s Sam Enea also got there the hard way, making 10 bogeys, five birdies and three pars in a 5-over 76 that helped him join Demko and Middleton’s Jacob Beckman, who is already exempt for 2027 for playing in a USGA championship in 2026. … Huburtus’ Danny Behm, who earned a spot in the State Am at a qualifier at Reedsburg CC, won’t have to worry about doing that in 2027. He shot 1-over 72 for a career-best T-4 finish at 7-over 291. Not bad for a golfer who hadn’t played in a State Am since 2012 and had only made the cut once (in 2007, when he finished T-64). … There were 10 current or former UW golfers plus current associate head coach Ross Thomson among the top 25 finishers.

IN THEIR WORDS

Wisconsin.Golf’s Rob Hernandez and Gary D’Amato talk with defending State Amateur champion Vince Sigl of Seymour after the final round of the 2026 Wisconsin State Amateur Championship:

125th Wisconsin State Amateur Championship: Final Report Card from West Bend CC | WSGA State Amateur

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