A high school teacher at the US Open? His dream week is almost ready

PINEHURST, NC – Colin Prater started warming up to biology as a freshman at Palmer High School in Colorado Springs, Colo. His teacher, Mr Lewis – Geoffrey to the friends and family of Mr Lewis – had a knack for making things fun and enjoyable.

Three years later, as a senior, Colin enrolled in one of Mr. Lewis’s classes, AP Biology, a demanding course that asks students to master basic scientific principles, theories and processes. The curriculum was “really tough,” Prater, now 29, told me Tuesday after Pinehurst No. 2’s 18th green. “I was the only student who got an A. I was very proud of that.”

Prater had just completed a practice round for the 124th US Open. We were talking about biology because, well, Prater is the only high school biology teacher this week and, it’s probably safe to say, the first high school biology teacher, period, to play in the US Open.

Prater’s unlikely path to Pinehurst came through the Open’s massive and democratic qualifying program, which this year whittled 9,522 hopefuls down to just 73. (For those of you doing the math at home, that’s a scary .007% acceptance rate.) Prater punched his ticket earlier this month in Bend. Ore., the final player, where he shot 68-73 to earn one of the two coveted spots available in the 44-player field.

How Prater, who teaches at Cheyenne Mountain High in Colorado Springs, keeps his game US Open-ready between grading homework and overseeing lab tests — not to mention coaching the school’s golf team — is a matter of clinical excellence, especially during the year. of school. , he said. Now that school is out for the summer, Prater has more time to work on his game but said he still tries to focus on his family. While she and Madi’s 20-month-old daughter, Blake, are still napping, Prater might be out and about for an hour exercising. “My philosophy is to keep the basics sharp,” he said. “I spend a lot of time filming and putting.”

Those skills will be needed this week on Pinehurst’s mind-bending saucer greens, which are about as simple as a granite countertop. Ask Prater, who played the 2019 US Amateur at Pinehurst No. 2 and 4 but failed to advance to play the same. “It ate my lunch,” Prater said of No.

Prater will tell you he’s a better, mentally tougher player today than he was five years ago, and the expert guidance he’s been getting this week should give him plenty of encouragement. On Tuesday, Prater played fellow Coloradan and defending US Open champion Wyndham Clark. (“He has a lot of confidence,” Prater said when asked what he likes most about Clark. “He believes he’s the best player in the world.”) After the round, Prater’s caddy, Cole Anderson, a Cheyenne Mountain assistant golfer. coach, also returned to the field to pick up information from Jordan Spieth’s veteran, Michael Greller.

More teaching is expected on Wednesday. Prater is scheduled to play the undisputed best player in the world, Scottie Scheffler, who is guaranteed to be a master of ball striking, game management and other golfing goodies. How Scheffler’s name ended up on the sheet next to Prater’s remains a mystery, but Prater thinks it may have something to do with Anderson meeting Scheffler’s caddy, Ted Scott, earlier in the week.

“I try to appreciate every moment,” Prater said of his open experience, which will include his parents, grandparents and other golfers on his high school team cheering him off the tee. “I feel like my game is in a really good place, and I hit the ball really hard today. It inspired me a lot.”

You have a right to feel cheap.

This may be Prater’s first US Open but from his days as a young golfer – when his grandfather took him to Colorado Springs’ famous Broadmoor resort to watch PGA Championship winner Dow Finsterwald hit balls on the range – to his years in the spotlight as a Colorado . Springs high school golf in his Div. II Days of America’s First Team at the University of Colorado-Colorado Springs, Prater remains a force in Colorado’s beginner golf scene. In 2020, he became just the second player in nearly 40 years to win the Colorado Golf Association’s Amateur and Match Play in the same year. “I want to be the best player to ever come out of the state of Colorado,” he said.

Prater has long had visions of making a mark in the pro game but, as he puts it, “the pieces of the puzzle just didn’t fit.” He loved living in Colorado Springs and that other bug that bit him all those years ago – biology! – he was still pulling. So, Prater decided to put his travel dreams on hold, stay at home and devote himself to teaching.

Sometimes, Prater said, he will combine his interests, bringing golf or other sports references into the classroom. “But at the same time,” he added, “I want to give children the opportunity to make their own connections.” I think that’s the most important part: nurturing their passions, their interests and giving them the freedom to do that. “

Look where that formula took their teacher.

Alan Bastable

Golf.com Editor

As editor-in-chief of GOLF.com, Bastable is responsible for the editorial direction and voice of one of the game’s most respected and heavily trafficked news and services outlets. He wears many hats – editing, writing, imagining, developing, dreaming up one day he breaks 80 – and feels privileged to work with an insanely smart and hard-working team of writers, editors and producers. Before taking over GOLF.com, he was the features editor at GOLF Magazine. A graduate of the University of Richmond and the Columbia School of Journalism, he lives in New Jersey with his wife and four children.