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Jordan Spieth will tee off with the afternoon group at the 2024 U.S. Open at Pinehurst Course No. 2. The former U.S. Open champion had a great practice session a few days before the tournament.
Spieth was paired with Sam Burns and Colin Prater during one of the practice rounds. The latter is an amateur golfer, a high school science teacher, and a golf coach.
Prater qualified for the event by competing in the final qualifying round on Golf's Longest Day. The high school science teacher then got to practice with Jordan Spieth before the Major.
"The dots don't normally connect," Prater said via the PGA Tour. "Right? It's that holy crap moment. Did I just accomplish what I think I did?" he added.
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Prater is also a golf coach who made it into the qualifiers as an amateur with a handicap index of 0.4 or better. According to the USGA, any golfer with a handicap index of 0.4 or better can register for the local qualifiers.
Prater made it through the 18-hole local qualifier and the 36-hole final qualifying round to qualify for the 2024 U.S. Open. He had a practice session with Will Zalatoris on Monday, defending champion Wyndham Clark on Tuesday, and Jordan Spieth on Wednesday.
Spieth claimed he had a great time practicing with Colin Prater. He said via the PGA Tour:
"We had a great time today, finding out where he's from and what he does. And I had no idea he coaches boys and girls golf there, and he said a lot of the guys are coming out today and stuff."
Jordan Spieth reveals his caddie had a little back and forth with Colin Prater
Jordan Spieth's caddie, Michael Greller, was a math teacher for the fifth and sixth grades in Washington before joining Spieth as a caddie in 2011. Spieth claimed Michael had a great conversation with Colin Prater, a high school biology teacher.
With two teachers in the group during practice, Jordan Spieth said they had a little back and forth.
"Michael said he wasn't smart enough to teach science. And Michael was a math teacher. So they had a little back and forth on that," Spieth said (via the PGA Tour).
The 2015 U.S. Open champion further spoke about how this makes the U.S. Open unique:
"But it's super cool. I mean, that's what's unique about the US Open, right? And it's the only tournament, really, in the world, where you see stuff similar to that every single year," Spieth said.
For round one, Jordan Spieth will tee off at 1:36 PM EST with Hideki Matsuyama and Jackson Suber, while Colin Prater will tee off at 8:57 am with Charlie Reiter and Carson Schaake.
