Philadelphia amateur star Michael McDermott, pride of St. Joseph’s, plays in the Masters. Sort of.

AUGUSTA, Ga. — If you’re a Philadelphia sports fan, the name Michael McDermott probably rings a bell. If you’re a Philadelphia golf fan, the name Michael McDermott rings a loud gong.

He’ll make even bigger noise when he gets back to Philly next week, now that he has played in the Masters. Kind of.

McDermott played Friday as a “marker,” alongside Mike Weir, whose playing partner, Kevin Na, withdrew after nine holes Thursday due to illness. A “marker” is a player who isn’t playing in a competition who plays alongside a competitor to provide a more normal pace of play than if that player had to play alone. Usually, the marker is a member of the host club. McDermott has been a member at Augusta National for six years. He has been on-call as the club’s marker for the past two years, but this was the first time he was pressed into service.

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A three-time Philadelphia Amateur champion, McDermott, 48, didn’t matter officially Friday, he mattered to some people. A whole lot. After he smacked a drive off the 18th tee he veered over to the ropes to share a final in-round moment with two of his sons, who trotted along every step of the way Friday, sharing the family’s moment in the sun. As he left a par putt a few inches short on the 18th green, his parents and his sons, standing behind the green, beamed with emotion.

Tournament officials did not allow McDermott to talk about his round, and his parents declined, but, on his way to the veranda to have lunch with his family, two green-jacketed peers asked McDermott how things had gone.

“I played pretty well,” replied McDermott, who carded four birdies. “It was fun.”

It was historic, really. Historic, for a kid who grew up as a middle-school pitching phenom and a sharpshooting basketball player at Haverford High before starring as a golfer at St. Joseph’s University. Augusta National is protective of its genteel image. McDermott’s makeup, as much as his plus-1.8 handicap, earned him the opportunity to hit his first tee shot 40 yards past Weir’s.

McDermott, long and lanky with a lagging, languid swing, towered over Weir. He wore an Augusta National polo, striped mint green and white, that still had new-shirt creases on the torso, like he’d snatched it off a pro shop shelf before he warmed up. He had on a dark blue Augusta National hat, matching pants, and white shoes with black saddles.

He looked every bit like a Main Line golf rat who woke up Friday, blinked, looked around, and somehow found himself playing in golf’s brightest spotlight.

“It’s unbelievable. We’re just kids from Havertown,” his brother, Kevin McDermott, told the Inquirer by phone Friday evening.

Kevin followed Michael to play at St. Joseph’s two years later. Brian, the youngest brother, went there, too. Both aspired to match Michael’s ability, and his character.

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“It’s no secret that Michael is a great player. He’s done great things at the local and national level,” Kevin said. “But playing today is so much more about the type of person he is, even more than the type of player.”

He is still quite the player. McDermott birded Nos. 9, 10, 13, and 15, but he recorded no official score. He was there to set the pace, not to set the course record. Weir was impressed.

“Mike was great. He’s a got a nice game. A very powerful game,” Weir said, then excused McDermott’s inconsistency: “He’s from Pennsylvania, so I don’t think he’s played a lot of golf lately.”

That’s truer than he knows.

McDermott is CEO of a Wayne, Pa. financial planning firm who lives in Bryn Mawr. He belongs to both historic Merion Golf Club, the Main Line course that hosted the 2013 U.S. Open, and Pine Valley Golf Club, the South Jersey track largely considered to be the best in the world, where he has twice won the prestigious Crump Cup, a jewel of the amateur circuit. McDermott reached the quarterfinals of the 2016 U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship, whose winner gets a spot at that year’s Masters.

And then, said Kevin, more important things took precedence; family, work, life. Since those 2016 achievements, Michael McDermott hasn’t played much high-level competitive golf. Seven years later, when he teed off at 10:36 a.m. Friday, McDermott finally got to hit a shot in the most famous tournament on the planet. He didn’t log a score, and he wasn’t on television, but now will forever be part of Masters lore — just like his predecessor.

In 2022 McDermott replaced legendary Masters marker Jeff Knox, who served as the tournament’s designated marker for 20 years. Known as an otherworldly putter, Knox is one of the most famous Masters members: In the third round of the 2014 Masters, Knox, an Augusta resident, “beat” Rory McIlroy by a stroke, then “beat” Larry Mize the next day.

Weir began the day at even-par but shot 4-over Friday and is almost certain to miss the cut, which sat at 2-over when play was suspended a few minutes after the pair finished Friday afternoon. So yes, there’s a chance that, had he putted out every hole, McDermott might have beaten Weir.

None of the Havertown McDermotts cared about that at all.

Least of all, not big Mike McDermott.