Von Borsig still has that Stonewall magic as he reaches quarterfinals of BMW Philadelphia Amateur

   EAST NANTMEAL – It was vintage Conrad Von Borsig, the kind of getting-it-up-and-down-from-anywhere game that earned him a BMW Philadelphia Amateur crown a decade ago at Stonewall’s Old Course.

   I had just caught up with Von Borsig’s second-round match with Zachary Falone of Sakima Country Club Wednesday on Stonewall’s visually spectacular, but maddening par-4 13^th hole. Von Borsig owned a 3-up lead.

   The wind had turned completely around from Tuesday’s match-play qualifying rounds and the 13^th hole was playing back into the wind and nearly every inch of its nearly 500 yards from the back tee. Von Borsig and Falone faced similar blind shots of 230 yards to one of the most deviously designed green complexes you’ll ever encounter.

   Von Borsig whistled a wood toward the hole, but the wind carried it to the left and it hit off the side of the green and bounded toward the fescue. Falone hit a brilliant long iron shot that ran out of steam just as it reached the putting surface and slowly rolled seven feet past the hole.

   Von Borsig’s shot didn’t quite reach the fescue, but he faced an uphill chip to a pin perched only a few paces from the edge of the green. Frustrated match-play opponents of Von Borsig’s over the years can guess what happened next.

   The 32-year-old Strath Haven and University of Virginia product lofted a high chip that went 15 feet past the hole. After consulting with his afternoon caddy, fellow Philadelphia Cricket Club member Marty McGuckin, who had been ousted in the opening round of match play earlier in the day, Von Borsig promptly rolled his par putt into the hole.

   The pressure firmly applied right back on him, Falone’s birdie try didn’t even get a piece of the hole. What looked like a certain win was a frustrating half.

   “I think that took a little of the wind out of his sails,” Von Borsig said afterward.

   Two holes later, including a rattled three-putt at the 14^th hole after Falone had clearly lost focus, it was over. Von Borsig’s 4 and 3 victory ran his record in match play at Stonewall to 7-0. He’s not sure why, although, as he won two matches Wednesday, the explanation started to dawn on him.

   “I’m not comfortable here,” Von Borsig said. “I hit it in the fescue non-stop. But I think it’s because this golf course is really complicated. You have to have some experience. It’s the kind of course where you really have to think your way around the golf course.

   “You get yourself in situations where you have to make a decision and the outcome of the match can depend on what you decided in that moment.”

   In his opening-round match in the morning, Von Borsig was locked in a tight struggle with Austin Barbin of the golfing Barbin family of Elkton, Md. It turned on one moment when Barbin, a Maryland recruit, got a little too aggressive with a long birdie putt to a back pin on the par-3 seventh hole, the 16^th of a match that started at the 10^th.

   “He just jammed it a little too hard and it went seven or eight feet by,” Von Borsig said. “I lagged mine up close and he missed the putt coming back.”

   Von Borsig took a 1-up lead and it held up, Barbin’s birdie try on the ninth just missing to end the match. Barbin’s obvious talent immediately got Von Borsig’s attention.

   “Even the way his practice swing looked on our first hole, I’m thinking, what a great golfer, I can’t fake it with this guy,” Von Borsig said. “We had a great match. He was so good, it made me focus more.”

   Von Borsig was the first to admit his putting improved in the afternoon against Falone with the addition of McGuckin helping him read the tricky contours of Stonewall’s greens. McGuckin, a Philly Am semifinalist a year ago at Whitemarsh Valley Country Club, was ousted in the morning with a 2 and 1 setback at the hands of Huntingdon Valley Country Club’s Vince Kwon.

   “All of a sudden I got a guy who just sees everything on the greens,” Von Borsig said. “Thank God for young eyes.”

   Two rounds of match play at the 6,676-yard, par-70 Old Course layout at Stonewall cut the match-play field from 32 players down to eight.

   Von Borsig knows he’ll have his hands full with his quarterfinal opponent, Matt Mattare, the Saucon Valley Country Club representative who had himself a summer in 2017 when he won both the Met Amateur and the Philadelphia Open, two of the biggest jewels in two of the country’s most competitive associations.

   “When you whittle this down to eight, you know you’re going to get somebody good,” said Von Borsig, who works in brand management for Johnson & Johnson.

   Mattare rolled to a 4 and 3 decision Wednesday morning over San Diego State senior Ambrose Abbracciamento of Jericho National Golf Club and then knocked off Kyle Deisher of Five Ponds Golf Club, 4 and 2, in Wednesday afternoon’s second round. Deisher defeated Austin Barbin’s older brother, Zachary Barbin, a junior at Liberty, 2-up, in the opening round.

   I spent a large part of the afternoon watching the second-round match between Patrick Sheehan, the District One Class AAA champion as a senior at Central Bucks East last fall, and Jack Wall, the youngest of the golfing Wall family of Brielle, N.J.

   I still get out on the Pennsylvania scholastic postseason trail and have seen Sheehan, who is headed for Penn State, develop from a big guy who can hit it a mile into a more complete player. Wall, a South Carolina recruit, earned a berth in match play in last month’s U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship at the Bandon Dunes Resort while playing with his Christian Brothers Academy teammate, Brendan Hansen.

   I missed the first two holes and that might have been when Wall won the match by grabbing a 2-up lead. Sheehan cut his deficit in half when Wall missed the green at the par-3 15^th hole, the match having started at the 10^th hole.

   But Sheehan never could even things up. He missed an opportunity at the next hole when a three-foot par putt wouldn’t fall.

   An errant drive at the second hole by Sheehan enabled Wall to regain his 2-up advantage. He increased it to 3-up by winning the par-5 third hole with a par, although Sheehan nearly salvaged a half when his chip from off the green banged the stick, but wouldn’t fall.

   Wall was so solid and there was no way he was going to let a 3-up advantage get away. He drilled his tee shot at the tough par-3 fifth to 12 feet to keep the pressure on. Then he applied the dagger two holes later at the par-3 seventh as he knocked his tee shot seven feet below the hole and sank the birdie putt to close out Sheehan, 4 and 2.

   It didn’t hurt that Wall had the caddy who helped Stewart Hagestad rally from 4-down with five holes to go to win the 2016 U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship at Stonewall on the bag. I didn’t get his name, poor reporting on my part, but I’ve heard he’s one of the top bag-toters in the Met Association.

   It was the second straight year that Sheehan reached the second round of the Philly Am. He pulled out a 1-up win over Merion Golf Club’s Patrick Knott in Wednesday’s opening round. Jack Wall ousted Saint Joseph’s senior Michael O’Brien, 2 and 1, in his opening-round match.

   The possibility of an all-Wall final is still very much alive as Jack Wall’s older brother Jeremy Wall, who claimed the BMW Philadelphia Amateur title a year ago at Whitemarsh Valley, reached the quarterfinals with a 2 and 1 victory over Virginia junior Max Siegfried, a former Haverford School standout who plays out of Aronimink Golf Club. The Walls play out of the Manasquan River Golf Club.

   Jeremy Wall survived an upset bid in Wednesday morning’s opening round as he had to go 19 holes to edge Eric Williams of Honesdale Golf Club. Siegfried knocked off Mariano Medico of Fox Hill Country Club, 4 and 2, in the opening round.

   Jack Wall, however, faces a tough test in the quarterfinals as he’ll take on Pine Valley Golf Club’s Jeff Osberg, the 2014 BMW Philadelphia Amateur champion.

   Osberg, who was the only player under par in two rounds of qualifying at Stonewall’s Old Course and North Course in earning medalist honors Tuesday, reached the quarterfinals with a 2 and 1 victory over Merion Golf Club’s Peter Bradbeer, a Bucknell senior and the 2017 Patterson Cup winner.

   Osberg opened match play by coming on strong to eliminate former Radnor High standout Carey Bina, 4 and 3. Bradbeer reached the second round with a 4 and 2 victory over Little Mill Country Club’s Troy Vannucci, who was coming off a run to the semifinals of the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball at Bandon Dunes along with Kwon, a fellow Marlton, N.J. resident, last month.

   Jeremy Wall will square off against a surprise quarterfinalist in Andrew Cornish, a transplanted Californian who is a senior at Penn State Berks. Cornish, who plays out of RiverCrest Golf Club & Preserve, claimed a 2 and 1 victory over Drexel golf coach Ben Feld, who plays out of Green Valley Country Club.

   Cornish edged William Mirams, who captured the PIAA Class AA title as a senior at Notre Dame of East Stroudsburg last fall, 1-up, in Wednesday morning’s opening round. Feld reached the second round with a 5 and 4 victory over Dan Close of Wooldcrest Country Club.

   After eliminating McGuckin in the morning, Kwon reached the quarterfinals with a 2 and 1 victory over Kevin Scherr, a Youngstown State junior and the 2016 PIAA Class AAA champion as a senior at Nazareth Area.

   Scherr stunned Yardley Country Club’s Chris Ault, 2 and 1, in the opening round. Ault had qualified for match play when the U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship was staged at Stonewall in 2016.

    Kwon’s quarterfinal opponent will be Danny Harcourt of Mercer Oaks Golf Course, who ousted
David Hicks of The Shore Club, 4 and 3, in Wednesday afternoon’s second round.

   Harcourt took out 2015 BMW Philadelphia Amateur champion Cole Berman of Philadelphia Cricket Club, 6 and 5, in Wednesday morning’s opening round. Hicks, who completed an outstanding college career at William & Mary this spring, reached the second round with a 5 and 4 win over Adam Sutovich of Brookside Country Club of Allentown.