CRESWELL – Not many people would have expected Calvin Green to play in multiple USGA national championships when he arrived at Thurston High School.
The Springfield native played basketball and soccer in elementary school before trying out golf in middle school. He started off taking weekly lessons every few months and then signed up for summer golf camps at Totakee Golf Club.
“Golf didn’t really click for me until I was in high school,” Green said. “I made varsity as a freshman, but I was shooting in the 100s. I got it down to the 70s as a sophomore and then made all-league as a junior. I got the bug for golf.”
Green tied for 19th at the OSAA Class 5A tournament as a senior in 2009 by shooting a two-day total of 165 at Emerald Valley Golf Club. He was also all-league in basketball and soccer for the Colts.
Green went to University of Oregon for a year before transferring to Northwest Christian University where he played four years of golf, averaging a career-best 79.5 as a senior.
Green returned to NCU (now Bushnell University) as an assistant golf coach before taking a job just over three years ago at L.A.B. Golf in Creswell where he is the director of the fitting department for the company.
Now 35, Green is preparing for his second USGA national championship when he teams up with Cade Stubbs – a Sheldon High graduate who Green coached at Bushnell – in the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championships at Desert Mountain Club in Scottsdale, Ariz. on May 16-20.
“It has been almost a decade since I played in a USGA event, so this is something I have been looking forward to,” Green said. “It is right around the corner so I am excited. We are kicking it into gear.”
Clutch qualification
Green and Stubbs won a qualifier for the Four-Ball championship by shooting 9-under par 63 at Willamette Valley Country Club in Canby on Sept. 8. Only the top two teams qualified for the national event and Green and Stubbs went to the 18th hole at 8-under par, confident they were close to qualifying but unsure of their spot on the leaderboard.
That’s when Green hit his approach shot to within one foot of the cup, leaving a short birdie putt that moved them into the national event.
“I got a good number and hit my knockdown shot,” Green recalled. “It was a relief that I didn’t have to knock in a 10-footer, nice to have a tap in.” Green and Stubbs were close to qualifying for the 2025 Four-Ball Championships, but their 6-under par 65 at Arrowhead Golf Club in Molalla left them two strokes out of qualifying. They erased that memory by finishing one shot ahead of the runner-up team one year later.
Green will be making his second trip to a USGA national championship while Stubbs will be making his debut. Green qualified for the 2017 U.S. Amateur, but did not advance to match play.
“This was nice to get back in the saddle and know I am going to play in a national event again,” he said. “It was an amazing experience the first time but now to do it as a team will make it more fun that we get to do it together.”
Green and Stubbs both work at L.A.B., a fast-growing putter manufacturer that is providing putters for amateurs and pros alike. The company is located at Emerald Valley Golf Club.
“The people at L.A.B. are always pushing us as long as we get our work done to get out and practice and play whenever we can, they have been super generous to us for flexibility,” Green said.
Green and Stubbs play together a few times a week and will head to Arizona soon to check out Desert Mountain in preparation for the national championship, which is the rare USGA event that leaves eight months between the qualifier and event.
“The timing works out nicely because the qualifier was toward the end of the season so it will be nice to reset for the USGA event,” Green said. “We will gear up for a few tournaments before it to make sure we are sharp and ready to go because that is going to be a different part of the season than when we usually play tournaments.”
In Four-Ball, both players play their own ball and the best score on each hole is counted for the team score. It is a relatively new format for the USGA, which began hosting the national championship in 2015.
“I think our dynamic is unique because a lot of teams go out and each player is trying to make the best score they can and that is the same for us, but the way I play is erratic and aggressive and go for everything while Calvin is much more conservative,” Stubbs said. “If you look at our scorecards from Four-Ball, I will have six holes I don’t finish and six or seven birdies and Calvin will finish every hole with a par and then have two or three birdies. He’s the perfect partner for me because he frees me up to go for everything and be super aggressive and make as many birdies as I can.”
Green agreed that their different styles play well in Four-Ball competitions.
“You have to make a bunch of birdies in Four-Ball,” he said. “If you have two guys who go out and both shoot 69 but both made birdies on the same holes, that doesn’t do anything for you. For me, having somebody that has the natural inclination to go fire at everything and then if he’s out of position, I make sure to steady the ship so the way we mentally approach golf really balances each other out.”
