​ARDMORE, Pa. – It’s not often Ryder Cowan is the underdog.The Oklahoma standout, ranked eighth in the world amateur rankings, is coming off earning first-team All-America honors as a junior and earlier this summer was co-low amateur at the U.S. Open with recent PGA Tour winner Jackson Koivun.But Miles Russell isn’t your typical 17-year-old.“He’s a guy that you want to beat because he’s so good,” Cowan said of Russell, who is ranked fourth in the world and has widely been heralded as the best high-schooler since Tiger Woods.“I wouldn’t say I felt like the underdog from the perspective of golf, but I felt like the underdog out there because you’ve got all these people, Miles is – I don’t know what the word is – a figure for golf right now, and you’ve got all these people rooting for him. I’m just out there, I’ve got a couple people.”That was all he needed.Cowan took control of their first-round U.S. Amateur matchup Wednesday afternoon around Merion Golf Club’s turn, then closed out the teen phenom with some clutch par saves, none bigger than his chip-in par at the par-3 17th hole.In shades of Dillon Dougherty, who famously chipped in on Merion’s 17th in his 2005 U.S. Amateur semifinal victory over J.C. Deacon, Cowan needed two chips on the penultimate hole. He flubbed the first from the left rough some 15 feet from the hole, his club sliding right under the ball, before redeeming himself with the second, which popped up perfectly before running into the hole.If at first you don’t succeed… pic.twitter.com/wbSx7LgCP5— USGA (@USGA) August 12, 2026“The first one was, I don’t want to say impossible, but it was probably a 10 out of 10 difficulty,” Cowan said. “Literally my lie was terrible, and I had a lot of grass behind the ball. I could barely get to it. … The second one, it was still really hard because that green is straight downhill all the way, but I pretty much was trying to hit the same shot. Fortunately, I hit it different.”Russell had a chance to send the match to No. 18, but his 8-footer slid by right.“Those days happen,” said Russell, who hasn’t had many of those this summer, tying for 39th at the U.S. Open, making the final of the U.S. Junior Amateur and reaching the semifinals of the Western Amateur.“Didn’t have my best stuff and kind of needed it, you know? It’s the way it goes in match play, usually sometimes when if you’re not playing great, you can still kind of scrape it around, and I hung around there for a long time.”Cowan was blown away by Russell’s wedge game, especially on the par-4 fifth hole, where Russell missed the green right before chipping down the severe slope to gimme range to remain 1 up.But Russell began missing fairways, including at the par-4 eighth, where he went bunker to bunker to lose the hole with bogey as Cowan took his first lead. Cowan then won the next after another Russell bogey, after which Russell took a seat on a nearby chair and gave himself a pep ta