Talamore Country Club’s Ron Robinson got his putter to turn
as hot as the steamy July weather Monday at Sandy Run Country Club just in time
to not only earn him a victory in the Golf Association of Philadelphia’s 32nd
Jock MacKenzie Memorial, but also to nail down the Harry Hammond Award.
Robinson, a senior at North Penn, closed with a rush, making
birdies at 14, 15 16 and 18 -- he drained a 25-footer at the last and
punctuated it with a fist pump that would have made Tiger Woods proud – for a
1-under 71 over the 6,370-yard, par-72 Sandy Run layout.
He needed every one of those birdies to match Woodcrest
Country Club’s Noah Schwartz, who struggled a little down the stretch with
bogeys at 14, 16 and 17 around a birdie at the 15th to also card a
71 and force a playoff.
Robinson kept his hopes alive when his 12-foot birdie try on
the second playoff hole, the short par-4 ninth at Sandy Run, just tumbled in
the hole to match the birdie already posted by Schwartz, a Cherry Hill, N.J.
resident and a junior at Penn Charter.
Schwartz’s approach at the third playoff hole, the par-4
first hole, sailed over the green and led to a bogey, allowing Robinson to take
two putts from 25 feet for a par that gave him the title.
Robinson’s birdie binge on the back nine also enabled him to
separate from RiverCrest Golf Club & Preserve’s Marty McGuckin for the
Harry Hammond Award, which goes to the player with the low total from the GAP
Junior Boys’ Championship, the Christman Cup, which McGuckin won last week, and
the Jock MacKenzie.
“I wanted to win the tournament and also win the Harry Hammond
Award,” Robinson, a Hatfield resident, told the GAP website. “That was
important to me. I felt like if I could make a couple of birdies, I could win
this award.”
Jacob Hanzel of Running Deer Golf Club and Stephen Lorenzo
of Manufacturers Golf & Country Club both matched par with 72s to finish in
a tie for third. Billy Civitella of Radnor Valley Country Club and Buddy Hansen
IV of Blue Bell Country Club shared fifth place, each carding a 1-over 73.
Wills Montgomery of Whitford Country Club was alone in seventh place at 74.
Overbrook Golf Club’s Andrew Curran, a sophomore at Malvern
Prep, and Thomas Lewis of Commonwealth National Golf Club finished in a tie for
eighth at 75. Four players – Billy Matthews of North Hills Country Club,
Nicholas Scott of the GAP Junior Players Club, Samuel Walker of St. Davids Golf
Club and Tyler Roland of Overbrook – rounded out the top 10 as they were tied
for 10th at 76.
Huntingdon Valley Country Club’s Patrick Isztwan, an
eighth-grader at Penn Charter, captured the Jock MacKenzie Junior-Junior title
with a 5-over 40.
Huntingdon Valley’s Brett McGrath, with whom Isztwan teamed
to win the Francis X. Hussey Junior-Junior title, and Talamore’s Daren Nolan
finished in a tie for second, each carding a 43. Andrew Damico of McCall Golf
& Country Club and Andrew McCook of Applecross Country Club shared fourth
place at 45.
Carly Dorminy of Bellewood Country Club is the leader in the
clubhouse in the Junior Girls division after she carded a 7-over 79.
But Agnes Irwin junior Meghan Fahey, who plays out of Overbrook
and Merion Golf Club, was also at 7-over with a hole to play when lightning in
the area halted play. Fahey, coming off a trip to the U.S. Girls’ Junior at
Ridgewood Country Club last week, will return to Sandy Run Tuesday morning to
play her final hole.
Sunshine Gu of Yardley Country Club carded a 42 to edge
Merion’s Lauren Jones by a shot to take the Junior-Junior Girls division.
No comments:
Post a Comment