WSJ: "Low Amateur at the Masters Lines Up His Next Shot: Business School"

While these stories could come off to the unsuspecting as extreme first world tales, having seen Stewart Hagestad up close last week and watching him handle his Masters "wild ride" with aplomb, his is another great 2017 Masters memory.

Brian Costa and Rebecca Davis O’Brien file for the Wall Street Journal on Hagestad's time in New York and the unusual golf life he lived in the city.

During the day, Hagestad helped put valuations on commercial properties. Most weeknights, Hagestad would head to Golf & Body NYC, a specialized golf gym in an office building off Herald Square. The gym, which has just under 200 members, charges a $10,000 initiation fee and $7,500 in annual dues.

He spent hours there, trainers at the club said—a routine in the weight room, putting on a turf green, practicing drives in a simulator—sometimes closing the club on weeknights at 10pm. One Saturday morning, Bradley Borne, the club’s director of sports medicine, arrived to find Stewart sitting behind the golf desk, “like he worked there,” Borne said.

Tim Rosaforte for Golf World on Hagestad's week that started with nerves, bad signs for his game and ended with a made cut, not to mention the joy of seeing Jimmy Dunne on the range. Hagestad had interviewed with Dunne for a job (unsuccessfully).

And there was this:

From the most nervous he’d ever been in that practice round with Spieth and Kuchar, to fairly relaxed as a Masters rookie, Hagestad made the cut and turned the competition for low amateur with U.S. Amateur champion Curtis Luck into a story line. After making the turn on Sunday, Hagestad’s caddie asked if he wanted to know what Luck posted.

“I told him honestly it’s not going to have any effect on how well I want to play on this back nine,” Hagestad said. “It’s a beautiful Sunday, the day before my birthday, on the most special place on earth. Let’s go enjoy the walk and do the best I can.”

Hagestad talked to Shane Bacon on The Clubhouse podcast this week and back in December, appeared on Andy Johnson's Fried Egg podcast.

He also was begged to turn pro on CNBC this week by Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leery, notes GolfDigest.com's Alex Myers.