There are exactly 27 golf holes on the Cayman Islands, and Justin Hastings has mastered all of them. At North Sound Golf Club, which comprises 18 of the British territory’s 27 holes, he once shot 57.

But Hastings doesn’t bask too much in the accomplishment.

“You play the same golf course every day of your life, you get pretty good at it,” he said.

He saw Oakmont Country Club for the first time this week, but he hasn’t done too bad there, either.

Hastings shot back-to-back 73s to sit at 6-over-par for the tournament, a score that likely will make the cut on the number. On Friday, he followed a double bogey on No. 4 — his 13th hole of the day — with back-to-back birdies, then followed another double bogey on his penultimate hole with a clutch par on No. 9.

The projected cut when Hastings finished was 7-over.

“I’d be lying if I told you no,” Hastings said when asked if the cut line was on his mind during his round. “You try not to think about it. It’s just one of those things that’s really hard to get out of your mind.

“You want to set your standards and your expectations higher than just making a two-day total.”

Hastings, who went 4-0 for Team International in its Palmer Cup victory this month, arrived at Oakmont as something of a golfing unicorn. The only other notable golfer to hail from the Cayman Islands is Aaron Jarvis, who, like Hastings this year, won the Latin American Amateur Championship (2022) and qualified for the Masters and U.S. and British opens.

Hastings, whose parents originally are from Canada, also played in-line hockey, which, he said, isn’t very popular in the Cayman Islands either.

“For whatever reasons, I just decided to choose two very unpopular sports on Island,” he said with a grin.

Unpopular, perhaps. But one of those sports could be his ticket to stardom.

At San Diego State, he broke Xander Schauffele’s career scoring average record — he and Schauffele are acquainted and sometimes practice together in San Diego — and won the 2025 Mountain West Conference title.

On the strength of that Latin American Amateur win, he made his major championship debut at the Masters in April, missing the cut after rounds of 76 and 72. But he will leave Oakmont as the low amateur of the tournament.

Jackson Koivun, the world’s No. 1-ranked amateur, Lance Simpson, Michael La Sasso and Mason Howell also were in contention for the honor but missed the cut.

While Hastings said Augusta National and Oakmont Country Club couldn’t be more different in terms of their setup and how they need to be approached, he was able to gain other valuable experience at the Masters. It helped him learn how to handle the pressure of playing in a major and in front of large galleries.

Now he can put that knowledge to use on the weekend in a major.

“I have believed for a little while now that I can play out here,” he said. “So just the reassurance of that is the big thing. I’ve still got a lot of things, a lot of process-based things that I want to work on, hopefully, in the next couple of days and in the future.”

Hastings has a tentative plan for that future: keep his amateur status at least through the Open Championship at Royal Portrush next month, then turn pro and take his status on the PGA Tour Americas.

But for a young man who often has taken the road less traveled as an athlete, his plans are fluid.

“It’s something we’re playing by ear,” he said. “Subject to change.”

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