Rancho Santa Fe-raised golfer Ryan Burgess wins Trans-Miss Mid-Am title on home course

Swinging free on the home course he grew up playing, Ryan Burgess won the 2025 Trans-Mississippi Mid-Master and Mid-Amateur Championship at the Rancho Santa Fe Golf Club held Sept. 7-10. Burgess won both the Mid-Amateur flight and medaled with the tournament’s lowest score of 9 under par. Burgess won the title in front of a home crowd that included his mom Mickey (herself a many-time women’s club champion), wife Greer and grandfather Gerry Wenz, a longtime Rancho Santa Fe resident and former golf club member.

“I thought it was really fun to come and play a tournament at Rancho and to do it so many years later was really a treat,” said Burgess, 30. “And to win it was the cherry on top.”

Burgess played alongside fellow homegrown Rancho Santa Fe product Will Appleby, who tied for ninth. This year, Appleby qualified for the 2025 U.S. Mid-Amateur Tournament, played the following weekend at Troon Country Club in Scottsdale, Ariz. It was Appleby’s second time qualifying for the U.S. Mid Am.

Rancho Santa Fe’s Trae Cassell also finished third in the Mid-Master division.

Burgess first started playing golf when he was a toddler. The family moved to Rancho Santa Fe from New Jersey in 2004 when he was just a nine-year-old junior player and ever since they moved, he was playing and practicing at the club.

A Torrey Pines High School graduate, he was part of three straight league and county championship teams and helped lead the Falcons to the California State Championship in 2011. His senior year he was named Player of the Year in the district and won the individual 2012 San Diego County Championship and the 2012 AJGA Under Armour/Hunter Mahan Championship.

He played college golf at Southern Methodist University and ended up never leaving the Dallas area, meeting his future wife Greer at school. His post-college golf career included stints on the PGA Tour Latin America and PGA Tour Canada.

In Dallas, he works for real estate developer PMB Capitol Investments.

“My golf is mostly weekends and playing a few tournaments in the summer months,” Burgess said.

The win in Rancho Santa Fe ranks up there in one of the top wins of his amateur career, on the heels of last year’s victory at the Dallas Amateur Championship.

During the tournament, he shot a 69 in the first round and a 70 in the second. Going into the final day, he was tied for the lead and said he was fortunate to have a nice final day among the field of talented players, shooting a 68 and winning by a few strokes.

“I hit a lot of good drives and my ball striking was very good. Over the three days, I was quite patient and accepting of anything,” Burgess said. “Maybe it was a comfort level of being at Rancho and being at home. It was a fun tournament and I was in a good mood most of the time.”