SAN FRANCISCO — On the eve of one of the biggest golf outings of his young career, Mason Howell, a senior at Brookwood School in Thomasville, Georgia, said, in so many words, that he slept like a champ after winning his semifinal match at the 125th U.S. Amateur Championship on Saturday.

“I slept great,” he said, “best I’ve slept all week.”

A day later, he was a champion. Howell was calm, cool, and collected in disposing of Jackson Herrington, of Dickson, Tennessee, in their scheduled 36-hole match-play final at The Olympic Club’s iconic Lake Course in front of hundreds of fans and a national television audience. Howell overcame a slow start to jump to an earlier lead and added to it over the course of the afternoon to cruise to a 7 and 6 victory Sunday.

It was the largest margin of vict

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