When Drake Harvey walked off the course after carding a 64 at historic Merion Golf Club during the qualifying stroke play portion of the 2026 U.S. Amateur, he was not aware he had tied the record for the lowest USGA round in the history of the course.
“That was cool, but I didn’t know it was a record until the next day,” Harvey said. “They had a physio there, and when I was checking in, he asked my name, and I said, ‘Drake Harvey.’ He said, ‘Oh, you’re the kid who shot 64 and tied the record yesterday.’ I was like, ‘Record?’ I didn’t know that was a record. I ended up as the No. 3 seed, which is pretty good in a tournament with 312 players. It was cool and definitely something I’ll remember for a while.”
He joined Lee Mackey Jr. (1950 U.S. Open) and Ben Crenshaw (1981 U.S. Open) as the only players to card rounds of 64 at Merion.
Harvey is a Nevada Golf member, an alum of the Southern Nevada Junior Golf Association and a rising BYU freshman. He parlayed the hot start into a run to the round of 16 before losing a tense match with Michael Lugiano, 1 down.
“That was a fun week, but it’s unfortunate that I didn’t play as well in the round of 16. But if they had the cameras on me the first three rounds I played Merion, that would’ve been great,” Harvey said. “I played so well those first three rounds out there. That final match was against a kid who was kind of a hometown player, and he had this huge crowd of people. I felt like I was at a Philadelphia Eagles game as an away fan. It was ridiculous with the heckling and some of the stuff they were saying. I felt like I handled it fairly well. I definitely had to deal with a lot of adversity during that round. I’ve dealt with some difficult parents before. That’s something I’ve dealt with as a junior golfer, but this was on a different level. We had a pretty huge crowd, probably more than 100 people, and I’d say at least 50 of them were people he knew. We got security involved and had some police out there, but there’s only so much they can do. As the round went on, it got slightly better, but those first eight holes were just insane.”
Despite the loss in the round of 16, the week was a net positive for Harvey.
“It was really just crazy being at a course that has so much history and being there with both my BYU coaches,” Harvey said. “We also got to play Pine Valley, and it was just a sweet experience. Not many people can have a better golf week than I just had, playing those two courses. They’re both top five in the country, so I was super lucky to have a week like that. And to play well was nice. I feel like Merion played harder for most of the players in the field, but with the way I was hitting my driver and just hitting the ball overall, it definitely played easier for me than I would have expected.”
Now Harvey looks ahead to his freshman season at BYU.
“The first thing that comes to mind is the coaches I’m going to play for,” Harvey said. “Both of them (Todd Miller and Spencer Dunaway) were out there at the tournament this week, and it was super fun to have them help me get ready for the course and for match play. Now I’ll have them at every tournament and almost every practice. I’m just happy to be part of the team and see how they can help me get a little better each day.”
