Jordan Less wins Illinois State Amateur despite trailing by six entering final round
Photographs by Charles Cherney
This article appeared in the August 2025 edition of Chicago District Golfer.
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Jordan Less earned the Louis L. Emmerson Trophy and a spot in the U.S. Amateur at The Olympic Club with his victory at Stonebridge Country Club.
With experience in golf comes a sense of equanimity, the realization that rushing things generally doesn’t help the cause. Jordan Less knows that now, following a 2 ½-year stint as a professional. That knowledge came in handy for the reinstated amateur from Elmhurst in the final round of the 94th Illinois State Amateur Championship July 17 at Stonebridge Country Club.
Less stepped to the first tee after lunch in a good, but hardly envious, position. He was in second place, but trailed leader Connor Hamm of Macomb by a half-dozen strokes, a huge disadvantage given Hamm’s sterling morning round of 9-under-par 63, featuring six straight birdies amid a back-nine 29.“Connor’s round was pretty incredible,” said eyewitness Less. “My motto this week was ‘nothing rushed, nothing forced.’ I wasn’t going to try to force birdies out there knowing I was 5-6-7 down at some points.”
There is no trophy for second place, no automatic invitation to the U.S. Amateur. Only the winner gets the glory and the ticket.
It ended up going to the patient Less, who birdied Stonebridge’s final two holes to catch and pass Hamm, whose afternoon round was as tumultuous as his morning venture was soothing.
“I just kept my head down and kept trucking along,” Less said.
Less won the CDGA Amateur in 2019 and had twice been runner-up in the Illinois State Amateur, including a playoff loss in 2021 at Mistwood Golf Club. He turned professional after graduating from Northern Illinois and effectively treaded water in a sea of sharks while chasing cash on the Dakotas Tour and other postcard whistle stops. But returning to amateur status – and a real job at a family-owned tool manufacturing company – has freed him of the grind of making birdies to earn a buck. Winning this year’s State Am came on the heels of his annexing the CDGA Mid-Amateur crown at Kemper Lakes Golf Club in May.
Pressure has been replaced by pleasure.
“It’s not necessarily a weight off my shoulders, but I’m not playing for my livelihood,” Less said. “And it’s the state of my game right now. I feel really confident over the ball. It’s a good place to be. And the putter – the broomstick – has been a game-changer.”
Less switched to a long putter early this year and has found the cup more often. Dropping putts from distance leads to a calm mind as well, and a belief that steady golf can pay off. It did, through his combination of solid play – punctuated by an albatross on the par-5 ninth to cap his opening round – and a collection of bad breaks inflicted upon Hamm that had to be seen to be disbelieved.
In round four (the second of a 36-hole finale), Hamm, who will be a senior at Arizona after transferring from Bradley, managed to carom his approach on the par-5 first o a cart path to near-oblivion and a bogey. He hit a tee shot toward a bunker on the par-3 third that was lost and led to a triple-bogey, and drilled his second shot on the par-4 15th barely out of bounds from a fairway bunker to trigger a double-bogey.
“Overall, I was proud of how I fought back,” Hamm said.
Properly so. Three sixes on those holes, and while no longer leading by a mile, he was still right in it with Less, who would scatter seven birdies and three bogeys across his final-round card, and with Nicolas Simon of Elk Grove Village, whose eagle on the par-5 first thrust him into the conversation as more than a lurker.
Simon would end up third, closing with a 3-under-par 69 for 14-under 274. Hamm’s 63-75 combination nudged him to 15-under 273. Less, with four rounds in the 60s, including matching 68s to close, finished at 16-under 272.
Hamm did his utmost to win, making birdie on the 346-yard 16th after driving it to the edge of the green, moving him to 15-under and a stroke ahead of Less.
But Less answered with a 10-footer for birdie at the par-3 17th and a 15-footer for birdie at the last that tumbled into the cup with its last breath. Hamm’s “It just didn’t quite fall enough,” Hamm said. “I give it up to Jordan. He putted great all day and made the two that mattered coming down the stretch.”
Hamm piled up 29 birdies across four rounds and only came away with condolences from well-wishers and hugs from his parents. Less’s 20-birdie haul was more modest, but the aforementioned albatross to close his opening round, a 200-yard 6-iron that found the cup on the par-5 ninth, was the shot heard ’round Stonebridge.
It, as much as his fast finish and Hamm’s miscues, made the difference.
Often, the man holding the Louis L. Emmerson Trophy uses the triumph as a springboard to those potentially greener pastures in the professional game. But Less, a wise man at 27, already tried to climb that mountain and found the view less fulfilling than expected.
The view from the top of the hill at Stonebridge?
“I would say, especially to the younger generation, it’s certainly admirable to put in the work to chase championships, but it’s more so enjoying the grind and putting in the work,” Less said. “Then you come out here and almost treat it like practice. It’s been a good run so far.”
Spoken like someone who’s been there and back again.
Tim Cronin has written a dozen books on golf.8-foot birdie putt to force a playoff failed to turn left and slid by the hole.