Minnesota legend John Harris, the last mid-amateur to win the U.S. Amateur, dies at 73

Amateur golf has lost another one of its giants.

John Harris, who remains the last mid-amateur to win the U.S. Amateur, died Wednesday. Harris, who was 73, had been battling acute myeloid leukemia, and though his condition had improved in recent months thanks to a bone-marrow transplant, he became ill last weekend and was admitted to hospice on Tuesday.

Harris’ death comes after Jay Sigel, a five-time USGA champion and nine-time Walker Cupper, died in April from pancreatic cancer.

Harris, a good friend of Sigel, played on four Walker Cup teams of his own, helping the U.S. to wins in 1993 and 1997. He was also a member of the 2001 American squad that lost at Ocean Forest; that group remains the last U.S. team to lose a Walker Cup on home soil. At St. Andrews in 2023, Harris addressed captain Mike McCoy’s players after they fell behind following the first day of competition, borrowing the words of legendary hockey coach Herb Brooks: “I’ve been on winning teams and losing teams. If you lose, you’ll take it to your f—ing grave.”

Harris would nail the delivery for a reason. Six years before Brooks led his players to the gold medal at the 1980 Winter Olympics, he guided the University of Minnesota to the 1974 NCAA Championship. On that Gophers’ team was Harris, a senior who was the squad’s second-leading scorer that season, which also included a Big Ten individual title on the golf course.

Harris took a stab at professional hockey after graduation, though by the next year, he’d enter Q-School and secure his PGA Tour card. But after making just nine starts and earning less than $3,000 in 1976, Harris eventually decided to get his amateur status back, which he did in 1983.

While working in insurance, Harris racked up several notable victories on the amateur circuit, including four Minnesota Amateurs, five Minnesota Mid-Amateurs, two Minnesota Opens, and titles at the Porter Cup, Sunnehanna Amateur and Terra Cotta. His USGA success included being a part of the winning Minnesota squad in the 2001 USGA Men’s State Team Championship at Hazeltine National in Chaska, Minnesota, but Harris’ resumé was highlighted by his 5-and-3 victory over Danny Ellis in the final of the 1993 U.S. Amateur at Champions Golf Club in Houston. Harris was 41 years old when he captured the Havemeyer Trophy.

“It was one of the great moments in my golf career,” Harris said. “Obviously, to win the tournament was very humbling. I had my 14-year-old son [Chris] caddying for me, and that was a special bond for the two of us. When you’re in the moment, and you’re playing and competing, you don’t realize the ramifications of what it’s going to be. I do remember being at home the following week and out for a run, and thinking, ‘I can’t believe I won.’”

Harris tied for 50th at the 1994 Masters. He made three starts in the U.S. Open and one Open Championship appearance.

“Being able to play in the Masters was a dream that I couldn’t even get to,” Harris said.

In his four Walker Cup appearances, which also included the 1995 match where he teamed with Tiger Woods to go 1-1, Harris complied a 10-4 record. His six singles victories now rank fourth all-time among Americans, as Stewart Hagestad won his sixth and seventh singles matches at this year’s Walker Cup. The 1993 team that Harris was on still holds the record for margin of victory (14 points).

“It was a strong time,” Harris said in 2013 Q&A with the USGA. “Vinny Giles was our captain, and he opened the first meeting with, ‘I have the 10 best amateurs in the world on my team, and I wouldn’t take one guy off their team and put him on our team. The hardest job I am going to have this week is sitting somebody.’”

Harris turned pro again at age 50, joining the PGA Tour Champions, where he won once and logged nearly 250 starts before retiring in 2021. During his senior career, he served a stint as his alma mater’s director of golf. And more recently, Harris had become a mentor to Florida junior Noah Kent, who reached the final of the 2024 U.S. Amateur at Hazeltine while wearing a glove with Harris’ initials on it.

“I’m sitting on the edge of my chair,” Harris told Golf Channel last year. “Noah knows who he is, he understands what he’s doing, and if I’m a little motivation – I’ve said to him, ‘I’m so happy watching this golf. I’m so disappointed I’m not at Hazeltine cheering for you, but I am there.’ And he feels it.”

Harris’ father, Robert, was runner-up at the 1992 U.S. Senior Amateur, and together, the duo won a dozen state father-son titles.

Harris, who was born June 13, 1952, in Minneapolis, and named a 10-time Minnesota Player of the Year, was arguably the greatest amateur to ever come out of the state.

“He basically dominated Minnesota amateur golf from the mid-80s until 2001 before he decided to turn pro again,” Warren Ryan, communications director for the Minnesota Golf Association, told the USGA. “He beat everybody young and old. Speaking to some of his close friends, they all said the same thing – he was the consummate gentleman, on and off the golf course. He always knew the right thing to say and the right thing to do. … His reputation was huge.”

Ryan added that Harris had just played golf last Friday, shooting even-par 72 at Edina Country Club in Minnesota and breaking his age for the last time.