Listen: Road to Hoylake continues with Phillips, Smalley

One of the biggest amateur tournaments of the summer, the Western Amateur, went down this week in Benton, Mich., and the U.S. Amateur is coming up this month. This is what Ben Adelberg, host of The Back of the Range podcast, calls “The Road to Hoylake.”

As the U.S. Walker Cup team fills out for the Sept. 7-8 matches at Royal Liverpool in Hoylake, England, half the fun is getting to know the players in consideration for a team pick. The Back of the Range podcast is telling those stories, two by two.

This week, Adelberg features two men who have been in the Walker Cup conversation all summer.

Alex Smalley, who graduated from Duke in the spring, is a two-time Sunnehanna Amateur champion. When he defended his title at the prestigious amateur event in June, he became one of just fifth man to ever do that. The last one, Rickie Fowler, played in two Walker Cups.

As for Chandler Phillips, a recent Texas A&M graduate, a trip to the Sweet 16 of the Western Amateur this week went a long way in boosting his stock.

Hear what both men had to say in this week’s latest episode.