If you’re a golf fan from the Philadelphia area, you have
somebody to root for if you happen to be in front of a TV screen – or your
phone or your I-Pad or whatever else people watch TV on these days – at 8
o’clock Sunday morning when The Golf Channel broadcasts the 2019 Drive, Chip
& Putt National Finals from Augusta National Golf Club, you know that
Alistar MacKenzie masterpiece where that little tournament will be staged later in the week.
Yeah, the Drive, Chip & Putt National Finals has gained
its little niche as the kickoff to Masters week as it offers a glimpse at the
stars of the future.
And that star of the future in the Philadelphia area is
13-year-old Sydney Yermish, an eighth-grader at Bala Cynwyd Middle School who
will be competing in the Girls 12-13 age group Sunday morning.
I did a couple of posts last summer on Yermish, who, as a
12-year-old, qualified for the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship at Poppy Hills
Golf Course on northern California’s Monterey Peninsula. She struggled a little
in her debut on the biggest stage in junior golf, but heck the kid was playing
with the nine-holers in Philadelphia Section PGA Junior Tour events just a year
earlier.
It was Sept. 9 when Yermish, who had turned 13 since the
U.S. Girls’ Junior in July, took top honors in a Drive, Chip & Putt
Regional at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, Md. She topped the
competition in the driving portion and finished third in chipping to punch her
ticket to Augusta National.
Sydney Yermish’s mother Dana was the general co-chair for
the 2016 U.S. Women’s Amateur Rolling Green Club. Fortunately, I still had Dana
Yermish’s e-mail address from 2016 and she’s been gracious enough to keep me
updated on Sydney’s progress.
It was at that U.S. Women’s Amateur at Rolling Green that
Sydney Yermish found herself rubbing shoulders with some of the top women
amateurs in the game. By the end of the week, she decided, with plenty of
encouragement from her new friends, that she wanted to try to reach their
level.
A recent Google search revealed a typically well-done
feature on Sydney Yermish from the U.S. Girls’ Junior Championship by David
Shefter, a senior staff writer for the USGA, that chronicles her sudden
emergence on the golf course, including a well-deserved shout-out to her coach,
Mark Sheftic, the head of instruction at Merion Golf Club.
Yermish got in a couple of trips to warmer climes in
preparation for her appearance at Augusta National.
In February, Yermish fired a pair of 1-over-par73s to win
the 13-14 age group by five shots in the U.S. Kids Golf Desert Shootout at the
Wigwam Golf Resort & Spa in Litchfield Park, Ariz.
Last month, Yermish teed it up in the Peggy Kirk Bell Girls’
Golf Tour’s Tar Heel Classic at the University of North Carolina’s Finley Golf
Course in Chapel Hill, N.C. And she came out on top in the Bell National
division, beating Caroline Curtis, a high school senior who is an Alabama
recruit, on the second hole of a playoff.
In the opening round, Yermish fired a 3-under 69 – her first
competitive round in the 60s, her mom reports – before following it up with a
4-over 76 for a 1-over 145 total.
Curtis only trailed Yermish by a shot after her opening
round of 2-under 70 and had actually overtaken Yermish on the back nine. But
there was a two-shot swing on the 16th hole when Yermish made birdie
and Curtis bogeyed the hole and that enabled Yermish to catch Curtis and force
the playoff.
Another local player, Matthew Vital of Bethlehem, will be
competing in the Boys 12-13 division in the Drive, Chip & Putt National
Finals Sunday as well.
I wasn’t paying as close attention to the Drive, Chip &
Putt competition this time last year, but a couple of local youngsters made it
to Augusta National and just being there proved to be a launching pad to a very
successful summer.
Nicholas Gross of Downingtown finished third in the Boys
10-11 division a year ago. He proceeded to absolutely dominate the Philadelphia
Junior Tour’s 12-and-under coed division, which plays nine-hole events.
Gross was the Graham Company Player of the Year and the Sam
Penecale Scoring Average Leader for the wraparound 2017-’18 season among the
nine-holers. He also played on the Delaware 1 team that earned a trip to the
PGA Junior League Championship at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz. last
fall.
Sawyer Brockstedt of Rehoboth Beach, Del. finished in a tie
for fourth in the Girls 10-11 division in last year’s Drive, Chip & Putt
National Finals and also appeared on leaderboards in the Philadelphia Junior
Tour’s 12-and-under coed division, particularly in the events played in
Delaware.
Brockstedt competed against Yermish in the Girls 12-13
division in the regional at Congressional last September and came up just short
of a return trip to Augusta National.
Do I think that Sunday’s Drive, Chip & Putt National
Finals might be the start of something big for Sydney Yermish in 2019? Yes I do
and you can watch it unfold on live TV. It might even get you psyched to get
out there and hit the ball around.
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