The first time I interviewed Billy Stewart was at the course
he grew up on, Llanerch Country Club, the week following his surprising victory
in the 2002 BMW Philadelphia Amateur Championship.
He had just graduated from Malvern Prep, where he was a
pretty darn good tennis player, too. So he would always be Billy the Kid in my
mind.
He’s no kid anymore. He’s 34 and an assistant pro at The ACE
Club, doing what he knows he was meant to do, promoting and playing the game he
has always loved. But hey, he doesn’t look 34 and he approaches the game with
the same passion he did as a youngster, so Billy the Kid it is.
Stewart, so often at his best in the big moments, fired the
best round of the day, a sparkling 4-under 66 over the 6,500-yard, par-70
Donald Ross design at St. Davids Golf Club Thursday that got him into a
four-hole aggregate playoff with 2016 champion Jeff Osberg of Huntingdon Valley
Country Club and Radley Run Country Club assistant pro Brett Melton.
And Stewart prevailed, shooting 2-under 14 in the playoff to
capture the Golf Association of Philadelphia’s 114th Open
Championship and the $6,000 top prize that goes with it. The three playoff
participants all finished 36 holes of regulation at 5-under 135.
The 44-year-old Melton had grabbed a tenuous one-shot lead
with a 4-under 66 in Wednesday’s opening round and added a 1-under 69 Thursday.
The 34-year-old Osberg, the region’s best mid-amateur, added a 2-under 68 to
his opening-round 67.
Stewart had an outstanding college career at Saint Joseph’s
and spent a decade on the Florida mini-tours. Not long after he returned and
started working in the pro shop at The ACE Club, he cashed in at what is now
called the Haverford Philadelphia PGA Classic at Sunnybrook Golf Club. These
days the Haverford Trust Company puts up a $100,000 jackpot to the winner, but
when Stewart won it, it was only $50
grand, a nice little windfall nonetheless.
He lost to former Temple standout Brandon Matthews in a
playoff for the Philadelphia Open title on a
100-degree day Waynesborough Country Club in 2013. He won the 2015
Pennsylvania Open at Rolling Green Golf Club. Stewart missed most of 2016 while
rehabbing from surgery.
After all those years playing on Bermuda grass in Florida,
Stewart loves playing the Donald Ross-type, the William Flynn-type, the A.W.
Tillinghast-type classic courses he grew up playing. Stewart’s not a big guy,
but he is athletic and he knows how to get the ball in the hole in as few
strokes as possible, especially on a golf course where par matters.
Stewart got a late start on competing at the national level
with his fellow club pros, but you can expect him to catch up quickly. He
surged to a tie for fifth in the National Car Rental Assistant PGA Professional
Championship last fall at the PGA Golf Club’s Wanamaker Course in Port St.
Lucie, Fla.
He made his debut in the PGA Professional Championship,
presented by Club Car and Omega, at the Bayonet and Black Horse Courses on
northern California’s Monterey Peninsula last month. After a solid 71 in the
second round, Stewart fell back in the final two rounds, but he made two cuts
and played all four rounds.
In many ways, putting his name on the John J. McDermott Open
Trophy that goes to the Philadelphia Open winner represents a natural progression for
Billy The Kid. He made it clear it’s a title he’s always coveted.
“I’ve been wanting to win this tournament for a long time,
back to when I was at Saint Joseph’s,” Stewart told the GAP website. “All the
great club pros in the Philadelphia area have gotten their names on this
trophy. It’s a tournament that you just want to be part of the history of.”
It was Stewart’s putter that made the difference in the
four-hole playoff.
After all four players made par on the first hole at St.
Davids, the scene shifted to the fourth. Stewart’s approach left him 20 feet
above the hole and he rolled it right in the cup for a birdie that gave him a
one-shot edge on Osberg and a two-shot lead over Melton, who made bogey after
bunkering his approach.
The par-5 eighth hole became a three-shotter for Stewart
after his drive found a bunker. Bombers Osberg and Melton were on the green in
two. But Stewart wedged his approach to 10 feet and made the putt to keep his
one-shot advantage on Osberg, who had a two-putt birdie.
When Osberg came up short on his tee shot at the par-3
ninth, Stewart just needed to lag his 20-foot birdie putt to the cup for a
winning tap-in par.
Osberg, who won this title in 2016 in a playoff at The Ridge
at Back Brook, was trying to make it nine straight amateur winners of the
Philadelphia Open, but came up just short.
Melton, the Philadelphia Section PGA’s 2017 Omega Player of
the Year, was the second-lowest finisher among the pros. Melton was the top
finisher among the five Philadelphia Section pros who played all four rounds
last month at Bayonet and Black Horse, ending up tied for 25th.
Amateur Stephen Dressel, the reigning club champion at St.
Davids, briefly had a two-shot lead when he chipped in for eagle from behind
the green at the par-5 11th. But Dressel faltered a little down the
stretch and missed the playoff by a shot at 4-under 136 after adding a 67 to
his opening-round 69.
Sharing fourth with Dressel was Philmont Country Club pro
David Quinn, the reigning Philadelphia Senior PGA Professional Championship
winner. Quinn added a 69 to his opening-round 67.
Two of the other three pros besides Stewart and Melton who
played four rounds at Bayonet and Black Horse, Applebrook Golf Club head pro
Dave McNabb and Bethlehem Golf Club assistant pro Alex Knoll, headed a group of
five players tied for sixth at 3-under 137.
McNabb fired a 3-under 67 Thursday after opening with a 70
and Knoll added a 69 to his opening-round 68.
Waynesborough assistant pro Zac Oakley, like Knoll, went
69-68 and was also in the group at 137. Two amateurs, Vincent Kwon of Little
Mill Country Club and Alex Mulrooney of DuPont Country Club, rounded out the
quintet at 137. Kwon added a 68 to his opening-round 69 while Mulrooney fired a
67 Thursday after matching par in the opening round with a 70.
Shawnee Country Club assistant pro Brian Bergstol and
another DuPont amateur, Matthew Finger, finished in a tie for 11th
at 2-under 138, each carding a second straight 1-under 69.
Four more players finished in a tie for 13th at
even-par 140, headed by Whitemarsh Valley Country Club head pro David Pagett,
who added a 1-over 71 to his opening-round 69.
Three amateurs joined Pagett at even-par 140, Sakima Country
Club’s Zachary Falone, who added a 2-under 68 to his opening-round 72,
Huntingdon Valley’s Benjamin Smith, who added a 1-under 69 to an opening-round
71, and Aronimink Golf Club’s Max Siegfried, who carded a second straight 70.
Siegfried, a former Haverford School standout who is a
sophomore at Virginia, was coming off a solid showing in the Pennsylvania Golf
Association’s R. Jay Sigel Match Play Championship last week. I haven’t gotten around to
putting together a post on the event because there has just been so much going
on.
Siegfried got to the final at Schuylkill Country Club before
falling to Pennsylvania’s master of match play Nathan Smith, who won the R. Jay
Sigel Match Play Championship for the second year in a row and the sixth time
overall with a 3 and 2 decision.
Smith is a four-time U.S. Mid-Amateur champion.
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