By Michael Roach, USAG Stuttgart Public Affairs

Capt. Brandon Mai, a dentist with Stuttgart Dental Clinic, is heading to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in September to compete for a spot on the All-Army Golf Team.

Mai will represent Installation Management Command Europe as the only Soldier selected from the region. Twelve athletes were selected for the men’s training camp after applying, and they will compete for the six available slots to play in the Armed Forces Golf Championship Sept. 15 to 19.

“I know a lot of the other guys are probably West Point players and have competed in the Army,” Mai said when discussing the trial camp. “I’m not too sure what to expect. I am just going to go in and try to do my best.”

Originally from Poway, Calif., Mai started playing golf at 6 years old. By the time he was 8, practice, parental support, talent and enthusiasm helped him take fourth place in the Junior Worlds tournament and events sponsored by Calloway—a brand synonymous with the sport.

Mai’s love for the game has followed him his entire life.

“Playing golf, you don’t get to win a lot,” Mai said. “It is one of those sports where it feels like you know you’re losing more than you’re winning, so when you do win it feels much more special just because it is part of a comeback.”

Mai eventually earned a spot on the University of California Los Angeles Bruins, playing in NCAA tournaments and championships throughout his undergraduate years. Humble about these accomplishments, Mai contends that in recent years he doesn’t so much as keep up with his handicap, saying that it usually hovers around scratch.

After moving across town to University of Southern California and completing dental school, Mai joined the Army and was commissioned as a second lieutenant using the Health Professionals Sponsorship Program.

U.S. Army Garrison Stuttgart is Mai’s first duty station, and after learning about a colleague who competed for the Army in CrossFit a coworker showed him how to apply so he could represent the Army in golf. This process has created an intersection for two different elements of his life.

“Golf is such an individual sport, but I feel like it is such an interesting situation,” he said. “I am going and everyone at my clinic and at my command knows, and I feel like I have a team behind me and it is really cool.”

After arriving in the summer of 2025, Mai hadn’t spent much time playing golf in Europe. Like many personnel stationed in the region he has been focused on traveling. However, he couldn’t stay away for long and is currently the Stuttgart Golf Course Club Champion after a recent tournament.

“I didn’t really play this last year,” Mai said. “It was really earlier this summer that I played a couple of events, and I got back into it. Every time I get back into golf, I have the itch to compete.”

Breaking the cliché of a dentist who becomes an avid golfer by inverting it, Mai prefers the purpose that dentistry gives him over what he could pursue on the greens. The one common thing he finds is the approach he uses for both the sport and his profession.

“I think they both give perspective,” Mai said. “On a golf course or when I am working on a procedure with a patient the pressure that I put on myself is the hardest thing. When I am on a golf course it doesn’t matter if I am playing club championship, an NCAA championship or PGA tournament—I’ve always got that internal pressure, and nothing is going to be greater than that.”

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