Michael Madrid-Imagn Images
Brandon Holtz is one of the six amateur golfers in the field at The Masters in 2026, and there aren’t many competitors with a more compelling story. The man who works as a real estate agent punched his ticket to the major with a win at the U.S Mid-Am, and his decision to donate the driver he used during that tournament to a museum ended up causing an issue that was thankfully solved with some help from UPS.
The vast majority of the people who are invited to compete in The Masters are professional golfers who’ve qualified due to their spot in the world rankings, performance in other majors, or the lifetime exemption that comes with winning a green jacket at Augusta National.
However, organizers also reserve space for up to seven amateurs who can earn a spot via a number of different pathways, including one for the reigning NCAA Division I individual champion and a couple that are set aside for the top two finishers as the U.S. Amateur.
There is also one up for grabs at the U.S. Mid-Am, as the winner of the annual competition limited to players who are 25 or older earns the right to play at least two official rounds on the hallowed grounds of Augusta National.
This year, that honor went to Brandon Holtz, a 39-year-old from Illinois who works as a real estate agent but will be competing at The Masters with his dad as his caddie after topping the rest of the field when the U.S. Mid-Am was held at Troon Country Club in Arizona last year.
He’ll be doing so with the driver he used to win that tournament, which ended up arriving in Augusta the day before the major kicked off due to an ultimately short-sighted decision he made in the wake of his victory.
Brandon Holtz had to get the driver he donated to the USGA Museum shipped to The Masters overnight after deciding he wanted to play with it at Augusta National
Holtz sort of came out of nowhere to win the U.S. Mid-Am in September. He clinched his spot at The Masters with a 3&2 victory over Jeg Coughlin III in his debut appearance at the championship tournament, and he headed to Augusta as the 3,267th-ranked amateur in the USGA standings.
The father of two came in 81st place in the Jones Cup Invitational in January and 18th at the Gasparilla Invitational the following month while competing without the driver he’d used to win at Troon, as he donated the club to the USGA Golf Museum in New Jersey after his unlikely victory.
According to Golf‘s Jack Hirsh, Holtz decided that particular club could come in handy while tuning up for The Masters after arriving at Augusta National, a decision he made on Tuesday after he was unable to find someone able to build him a driver meeting his specifications.
That sparked a bit of a saga, as his request was relayed to the USGA before someone tracked down the driver on Tuesday evening and got it to a UPS store in the nick of time for overnight delivery. It arrived in Augusta on Wednesday, and Holtz was officially reunited with it less than 16 hours before his tee time on Thursday morning after it was cleared by compliance officials.
I chatted with USGA Director of Player Relations Scott Langley Wednesday night to find out more about U.S. Mid-Am champ Brandon Holtz’s driver went from the USGA Museum to The Masters in less than 24 hours.
“I would venture a guess that neither Brandon nor us as the USGA had… pic.twitter.com/OSCfkX10oM
— Jack Hirsh (@JR_HIRSHey) April 9, 2026
I guess we’ll have to wait and see if it was worth the trouble.