Overbrook Golf Club’s senior standouts, Oscar Mestre and Ray
Thompson, drove away from a U.S. Senior Amateur qualifier at Tavistock Country
Club early last week disappointed.
Trying to get into a USGA championship is never easy. There
are a ton of good players vying for a very limited amount of spots in the
championship. Still, both Mestre and Thompson didn’t feel like they gave it
their best shot.
As a team three days later, though, they were pretty
formidable as Mestre and Thompson fired a 7-under-par 64 Thursday at Penn Oaks
Golf Club where Chester County meets Delaware County to repeat as the winners
of the Golf Association of Philadelphia’s Senior Four-Ball Stroke Play Championship.
“I played well on the back nine, Oscar played well on the
front nine,” the 66-year-old Thompson, a Drexel Hill resident, told the GAP
website. “It was a very good ham-and-egg show.”
Mestre, a 58-year-old Berwyn resident, and Thompson gave
themselves a ton of opportunities, cashing in for eight birdies against a lone
bogey.
On both par-5s on the front side at the 6,260-yard, par-71
Penn Oaks layout, Nos. 3 and 9, Mestre hit the green in two, but couldn’t
convert his eagle bids. But, in both cases, he could go for his putt because
Thompson was already in the hole with birdie, both times getting it up-and-down
from greenside bunkers.
Mestre also made a birdie on the fifth, dropping in a
25-foot bomb. So the Overbrook pair made the turn at 3-under.
Thompson got it going on the back. He got it close at the
short par-4 11th with a three-quarters wedge from 100 yards away and
made birdie and added another birdie at the par-5 13th. The day’s
only hiccup came at the 14th where neither could do better than bogey.
But, with Mestre calling clubs for him, Thompson went 9-iron
to four feet at the 152-yard, par-3 15 and 9-iron again from 155 yards out at
17 to four feet. Mestre then used his 9-iron from 155 yards out at the par-4
closing hole to get it to six feet and buried the birdie try for the team’s
eighth birdie of the day.
The Wilmington Country Club pair of Steven Walczak and Randy
Mitchell fired a 5-under 66 to claim runnerup honors.
Three teams shared third at 3-under 68, including Craig
Kliewer of Honeybrook Golf Club and Christopher Fieger Sr., a Philadelphia
Publinks Golf Association entry, a formidable LuLu Country Club pair of Chris
Clauson and Glenn Smergalio, and Mark Walker of Laurel Creek Country Club and
Joseph Russo of Running Deer Golf Club.
Charles Dowds III of Applebrook Golf Club and Wayne
Bartolacci of LuLu finished alone in sixth place with a 2-under 69.
Bob Arthur of Tavistock Country Club and Thomas Hyland of
Little Mill Country Club and Team Owsik, Michael Owsik of Cobbs Creek Golf Club
and the proprietor of the M Golf Range in Newtown Square and Joseph Owsik of
Hershey’s Mill Golf Club, shared seventh place, each team posting a 1-under 71.
Rounding out the top 10 were three teams tied for ninth at
even-par 71. They were: Brian Trymbiski of Doylestown Country Club and Mark
Monkhouse of Makefield Highlands Golf Club; Kenneth Phillips of Lancaster
Country Club and Bob Beck of Lehigh Country Club; and Gregory Buliga of Yardley
Country Club and Michael Quinn, another Philadelphia Publinks entry.
The Super-Senior division title went to the Spring-Ford
Country Club pair of Steve Tagert and James Prendergast, who teamed up for a
4-under 67.
The 68-year-old Tagert of Collegeville and the 66-year-old
Prendergast of Limerick closed with a back-nine 32 to finish the job.
They finished a shot ahead of two groups that carded a
3-under 68, the Rolling Green Golf Club tandem of Robert Billings and Craig
Aronchick and Robin McCool of Saucon Valley Country Club and Craig Scott of
Great Bear Golf Club.
Thomas Mallouk of Lookaway Golf Club teamed with Tom DiCinti
of Mercer Oaks Golf Course to finish alone in fourth at 2-under 69 and Michael
Nilon of Philadelphia Country Club and Buck Jones, a Philadelphia Publinks
entry, took fifth with a 1-under 70.
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