Oscar Mestre and Carl Everett probably ceased being amazed a
long time ago.
But the exploits of their playing partners in Thursday’s
Golf Association of Philadelphia Senior Four-Ball Stroke Play Championship are
just as amazing now as they have been for so many years, maybe moreso because,
let’s face it, these guys aren’t getting any younger.
Mestre has been teaming with fellow Overbrook Golf Club
member Ray Thompson in these kinds of events for years and winning them for
years. Mestre watched the 65-year-old Thompson reel off seven birdies, five on
the front nine, as the duo claimed the senior division title with a 7-under-par
64 at Laurel Creek Country Club in Mount Laurel, N.J.
Everett of Merion Golf Club watched his partner, 69-year-old
Don Donatoni of White Manor Country Club,
make three birdies on the front nine as the pair won the super-senior
division for the third straight year with a 6-under 65.
About the only thing that threatened either team’s chances
for victory was the weather. Play was completed after a two-hour delay for a
thunderstorm. Donatoni would have been unable to return for a Friday completion
of play.
Thompson, who has made several deep runs in the U.S. Senior
Amateur in recent years, birdied the first, fourth, fifth, sixth and ninth
holes over a Laurel Creek layout that measured 6,449 yards for the senior
division competitors.
Mestre and Thompson piled up 13 GAP Team Championship
titles, so the 57-year-old Mestre has seen it all before.
“We know each other’s game,” Mestre, the secretary of GAP’s
executive committee, told the GAP website. “Our chemistry is great out there.
In the Team Championships, we would usually partner up. We’ve got experience
together, definitely.”
The formidable duo of Thomas Bartoloacci Jr. of Huntingdon
Valley Country Club and Glenn Smeraglio of Lu Lu Country Club shared runnerup
honors behind Mestre and Thompson with the Little Mill Country Club pair of
Joseph Roeder and Bill Gregor, each team posting a 3-under 68.
Michael Tash of Tavistock Country Club and Chris Lange,
another player from Overbrook’s deep stable of talent, and the Hartefeld
National Golf Club team of Chris Smedley and Paul Hess shared fourth place at
2-under 69.
Bill Charpek, who punched his ticket to the U.S. Senior
Amateur later this month at The Minikahda Club in Minneapolis at a local qualifier
three days earlier at LedgeRock Golf Club, and fellow Merion Golf Club member
J. Kirk Luntey headed a group of three teams tied for sixth at 1-under 70.
Also at 1-under 70 were the Commonwealth National Golf Club
team of John Alterman and Scott Carney and the pair of Steven Lucas of
Wilmington Country Club and Michael Quinn of the Philadelphia Publinks Golf
Association.
Eight teams finished tied for ninth at even-par 71, one a
particularly odd golf partnership just because of their last names and one
particularly onerous golf colloquialism. That would be the Wilmington Country
Club pair of Robert Hackett Jr. and Joseph Hacker, whose tie for ninth would
indicate they are, in fact, not hackers.
Joining Hackett and Hacker at 1-over 71 were: The Running
Deer Golf Club pair of Thomas Alestock and Norman Charlesworth; the team of
Robert Wurtz Jr. of Philadelphia Cricket Club and Gary Smith of Pine Valley
Golf Club; the Greate Bay Country Club pair of John Ward and Archie Struthers;
the Lancaster Country Club duo of Kenneth Phillips and Bob Beck; the Merion
pair of Gordon Jamieson and Robert Wagner; Drew Panebianco of Five Ponds Golf
Club and Craig Kliewer of Honeybrook Golf Club; and the Yardley Country Club
team of Gregory Buliga and Paul Dunsbury.
Like Charpek, Donatoni was coming off a strong showing in
the Senior Amateur qualifier at LedgeRock as the four-time reigning GAP
Super-Senior Player of the Year also earned one of the five available tickets
to Minikahda, making the U.S. Senior Amateur for the fourth time.
He made birdies at three, five and nine and Everett dropped
in a 25-foot birdie try from the front fringe at the eighth and the pair was
well on its way to a three-shot victory and a third straight victory in the
Four-Ball Stroke Play.
“We don’t have to communicate a lot out there,” Donatoni
told the GAP website. “It’s like we know what’s going on in each other’s mind.
It’s get up, hit it, go find it and put it in the hole and it’s just worked out
for us lately.”
The Whitemarsh Valley Country Club pair of Frank Polizzi and
Bernie Zbrzeznj were three shots back of Donatoni and Everett in second with a
3-under 68 over a Laurel Creek layout that measured 5,963 yards for the
super-seniors.
The Rolling Green Golf Club duo of Robert Billings and James
Coleman finished third, another shot behind Polizzi and Zbrzeznj with a 2-under
69.
Dave Jacobson of Medford Village Country Club and Jon Mabry
of the Moorestown Field Club shared fourth place with the Woodstone Country
Club pair of Mike Tomasic and David Brackenbury, each team posting a 1-under
70.
The Bent Creek
Country Club pair of Alan Over and Ronald Yarnell finished alone in
sixth at even-par 71.
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