Ben Adelberg/Back of the Range Photo

The West won the morning fourball 5.5 points to 3.5 points, and the teams split the foursomes session at 4.5 points, giving the West squad a 10-8 lead.

Stewart Hagestad and Mike McCoy set the pace for the west, winning their morning fourball match 5 and 4. 

Hagestad is ranked No. 4 in the AmateurGolf.com Mid-Amateur Rankings, and McCoy is ranked No. 19 in the AmateurGolf.com Senior Rankings.

Brad Nurski/Brian Blanchard, Gene Elliot/Dan Sullivan, and Parker Edens/Chris Wheeler also earned full points for the West team in the morning.

Captain Brady Exber leads the West, while Captain Nathan Smith, who is also the 2025 United States Walker Cup captain, leads the East. Smith is a four-time USGA Mid-Amateur champion.

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“It's a tight match, and there is a lot of great competition out there," Brady Exber told the East West Cup. "Very few matches ended in a lopsided final. Most are very competitive, very tight. It's a lot of fun to watch. My message to the team going into the final two rounds is we dipped our foot in the pool. Now we're jumping in tomorrow, so let's play hard.”

“Hats off to our guys this morning," Nathan Smith told the East West Cup. "It could have gotten ugly there quickly. They flipped some matches and got some halves. Then they played well this afternoon. We still feel good about everything and there are lot of points still out there including 18 in the singles sessions. I don’t think there is any message, but we will get together and talk a little bit about what they saw in the course today.”

Two sessions remain: Saturday is another foursomes session, and then on Sunday, the 18 competitors will play singles matches.

The East West Matches started in 2020 and are played every two years. The three-day amateur golf competition features a Ryder Cup-style team format for American amateur, mid-amateur, and senior competitors. The competition is currently tied 1-1.

The competition's vision is “promoting the amateur game by bringing the best amateurs in the United States together for highly competitive matches and camaraderie in its purest form.”

The Mississippi River divides the East and West teams. In 2024, the teams comprised 18 players: six seniors and 12 mid-amateurs. After two college players were on the teams in 2020 and 2022, there are no college players now.

Maridoe Golf Club in Carrollton, Texas, is the bi-annual host. 

The East West Cup contributed to this report