Is the Myrtle Beach World Am golf's greatest tournament?

SUNSET BEACH, N.C. - "I'll never miss it," Scott Collette said, trying to keep his emotions in check. "As long as I'm able, I'll be here."

A definitive statement from a newly-minted golf legend.

Collette, 52, from Knoxville, Tennessee, had just become golf's newest World Champion. He took down a field of nearly 2,900 others over the course of five grueling days. Now, at Thistle Golf Club, first-time host of the Myrtle Beach World Amateur's 18-hole grand finale, he wiped sweat from his brow, his tinted sunglasses only barely concealing the tears trying to well up.

It was a cathartic end to a day that was thrilling even relative to some of the best moments in professional golf in 2025. Sure, Rory McIlroy capturing the career Grand Slam at the Masters was bigger, but Collette's triumph echoed it. His own quest to win a World Am had begun in 2012, just one year after McIlroy's first Masters and a year before the Northern Irishman's first attempt to become golf's sixth career Grand Slam champion.

"My dreams never got this far," Collette said, echoing the sentiments of Masters champion Bubba Watson 15 years earlier.

When it was over, on the second hole of a three-hole aggregate playoff, after Doug Harvey of Zebulon, N.C., conceded to Collette, Collette's long embrace with his wife looked for all the world like that of a journeyman pro who had just taken down his first title, rather than a 6-handicapper capturing a net event. But the relief and sense of accomplishment were 100% authentic. The exhaustion of the week lifted, leaving only joy behind.

This moving moment got straight to the heart of why the Myrtle Beach World Amateur is one of the greatest events in golf. However we idolize the pros, our favorite golfers will always be ourselves. Our triumphs are always the most meaningful. For 41 years, the World Am has minted big, emotional moments for everyman (and everywoman) golfers. Its organizers, Golf Tourism Solutions, run a seemingly too-big-to-succeed behemoth of a golf tournament with long-practiced resolve. Dozens of area courses host rounds, thousands of scorecards flood a starkly-lit room each afternoon and a battalion of organizers and volunteers help everything unfold smoothly.

On top of the challenge of running a 3,000-person golf tournament, there's a nightly shindig at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center: The World's Largest 19th Hole. Local restaurants serve food, open bars pour drinks and golfers and their guests get together to laugh and commiserate over the day's birdies and bogeys. A smattering of kitschy golf apparel and accessory brands hawk their wares. Random drawings deal out prizes to a handful of golfers each night. There's a long-putt contest. There's a contest where golfers hit foam balls to a replica of the 17th green at TPC Sawgrass. SiriusXM radio golf hosts Brian Katrek and John Maginnes conduct their weekly show. This year, the Bryan Bros. and comedy troupe St. Andre Golf made appearances. It all adds up to one big golf after-party that manages to live just this side of chaos.

The 2025 World Am welcomed one esteemed first-time observer: United States Golf Association CEO Mike Whan. He minced no words when asked what stood out to him about the event. "The amount of coordination that's happening here," Whan said. "They feel like this is important to their DNA. They want to be known as the [golf] hub, and so they're all in it together."

"Come As You Are. Leave As A Legend." was the 2025 World Am's slogan; it works as an ethos for the entire event every single year. Every golfer is welcome, and a stunningly low entry fee, given all that it entails, keeps things affordable. Thousands of participants are sorted into dozens of flights, mostly bracketed by handicaps but also including Gross Divisions for scratch-event players. Each flight plays a particular rotation of four area courses, spread across the geographic and price spectrum of the Myrtle Beach area. Count on playing one of the area's premier courses, two mid-range and one budget-friendly layout in the main 72-hole portion of the event. It's a charming part of the World Am to essentially be taken on a tour of the Myrtle Beach area over four days. Every golfer, from 17 to 92 years old (the age range of this year's event), men and women, from better-than-scratch to 30-plus handicaps, has a chance to leave Myrtle Beach on Friday with the World Champion tag.

The World Am may be the largest annual event in golf, but its magic is in its convivial feel. Lifelong friendships form at the World's Largest 19th Hole, making the golf world ever smaller.

Once you take the World Am plunge, you tend to stick. Of the 2,889 golfers who began the 2025 event, a stunning 2,233 (or 77% percent) had played in at least one prior edition. Many golfers turn it into their annual buddies trip.

A large percentage of World Am players hail from the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida, but plenty of contestants make a pilgrimage to Myrtle Beach, too. All but 3 states were represented in 2025, and players from 18 countries outside the U.S. showed up as well. The climax of the event involved one of them, Hillary Langat of Kenya, who arrived at the final hole on Friday with a one-stroke lead, needing a bogey (net par) to claim the World Championship. But a lost ball and an errant bunker shot on the closing par 5 led to a disastrous triple-bogey 8, causing Langat to miss the playoff Collette would ultimately win.

Surely such a brutal defeat would be enough to make any golfer swear off the World Am - and perhaps even golf itself - forever.

Wrong.

"I will for sure!" Langat replied when I asked if he plans to make the 8,000-mile journey back to South Carolina in 2026. "See you next year."

Golf lays us on the mat repeatedly. Getting back up is the biggest triumph. Although there is only one World Champion each year, the week's competitive rounds provide countless opportunities for the rest of us to harden our own resolve for next time. Any true golfer is grateful for the opportunity to take another round of punches because the camaraderie of an event like the World Am is so deeply rewarding in other ways.

After our fourth and final round (we were nowhere near the lead of the Gross Division) I asked my cart-partner, Thomas Meadows of Danville, Va., if he planned to return in 2026 himself. He had just finished four rounds of dismal golf by his standards - 72 holes without carding a single birdie.

“Long as I’m livin’," he said, "I’ll be there."