Luke List of Ringgold almost fulfilled his longtime dream of winning the U.S. Amateur Sunday at Winged Foot Golf Club in Mamaroneck, N.Y.

The 19-year-old Vanderbilt University golfer lead 27 of the first 32 holes, before finishing second to Ryan Moore, 21, of Puyallup, Wash. He took the championship on the last four holes with three birdies to finish 2 up over List.

“This is not the way you want to lose,” he told a U.S. Amateur Golf report. “You know, you’d like to say, ‘Oh, I hung in there,’ but I was up the whole time.”

List took the lead on the seventh hole of the 36-hole final before Moore turned a 2-hole deficit into a championship victory on the stretch.

“I didn’t give it to him completely,” List said. “He earned it in my opinion. But definitely, it hurts to know that I was up.”

Moore, the 2004 NCAA Division I championship winner, has also won the U.S. Amateur Public Links and the Western Amateur this summer. He is the fifth to win two USGA titles in the same year.

He also qualified for the 2002 U.S. Open and made the cut at the 2003 Masters Tournament.

Tiger Woods was the last two stroke play medalists to win the Amateur in 1996.

As the runner-up List earned a full exemption to the 2005 U.S. Open and the Masters. He competed in his first U.S. Open in 2003.

“It was a great week,” List said. “I’ll remember this tournament forever.