After a long day of matches in the 120th BMW
Philadelphia Amateur Championship Tuesday at Lancaster Country Club, there was
really only one conclusion: The Hawk will never die.
Something has to give when Saint Joseph’s teammates Richard
Riva, playing out of Bent Creek Country Club, and Michael O’Brien, playing out
of Makefield Highlands Golf Club, meet in the quarterfinals Wednesday morning.
But the Hawks certainly shook things up Tuesday on the 6,629-yard, par-70
William Flynn design in Manheim Township.
For Riva, it was a particularly long day because he was one
of the nine players who showed up at the break of dawn for a playoff to fill
the last four spots in the match-play bracket. And he was the last one to get
in, holing a dramatic 35-foot birdie putt on the third hole of the playoff to
grab the final ticket to match play.
It probably helped a little that Riva is a Lancaster guy, a
scholastic standout at Lancaster Catholic, so the early wakeup call was a
little more manageable.
His reward was an opening-round match with Whitemarsh Valley
Country Club’s Will Davenport, whose 1-under 69 in Monday’s qualifying earned
him co-medalist honors with Five Ponds Golf Club’s Jalen Griffin.
Riva, however, stared down the Golf Association of
Philadelphia Middle-Amateur champion in 2019 with a 2 and 1 victory. Davenport
had evened the match by winning the 10th hole, but Riva won the next
two holes to grab a 2-up lead and then showed some match-play grit by halving
the next five holes, Davenport simply running out of holes after they halved
the 17th.
It’s counterintuitive that the last survivor of a playoff
like that would knock off a qualifying co-medalist, but it happens all the
time.
Riva then carried the momentum of the victory over Davenport
into the round of 16 as he won three of the first four holes on his way to a 5
and 3 victory over Elkview Country Club’s Chris Cerminaro.
Riva and O’Brien were in the midst of their senior seasons
on Hawk Hill when the coronavirus pandemic hit and the college golf season was
suddenly over.
It was certainly a season that held promise for O’Brien, a
native of West Chester, Ohio who had played some seriously good golf during the
fall portion of the ill-fated 2019-2020 season.
In one scintillating stretch in October, O’Brien fired a
final round of 10-under 61 at Kilmarlic Golf Club in Powel’s Point, N.C. to
capture the individual title in the Old Dominion/Outer Banks Invitational and
then lost in a playoff for the individual crown in the Homewood/Hilton Garden
Airport Classic hosted by Florida Gulf Coast at Old Corkscrew Golf Club in
Estero, Fla.
O’Brien had his hands full in his afternoon match Tuesday,
reaching the quarterfinals by edging Temple senior Dawson Anders, the 2017 GAP
Junior Boys’ champion out of Indian Valley Country Club, in 20 holes in the
match of the day.
It was many miles from 54th and City Line or
North Broad Street, but this one had all the twists and turns of an
old-fashioned Big Five basketball thriller, right down to the overtime session.
O’Brien won the ninth hole to take a 2-up advantage to the
back nine, but Anders, who starred scholastically at Souderton, ripped off wins
at the 10th, 11th and 13th holes to take a
1-up lead.
O’Brien got a win at the 14th hole to even the
match. And that’s the way it stayed for four more holes of the regulation 18
holes and the first extra hole before O’Brien finally booked his quarterfinal
berth by taking the 20th hole.
O’Brien’s day began with a 3 and 2 victory over Patrick
Knott of Merion Golf Club in an opening-round match.
Two former champions, one perhaps a little unexpectedly, the
other not so much, will meet in a quarterfinal match Wednesday morning.
It’s been 19 years since St. Davids Golf Club’s Brian
Gillespie etched his name on the J. Wood Platt Trophy. But Gillespie played
spectacular golf Tuesday in dispatching two of the top contenders at Lancaster.
In the morning, Gillespie rolled to a 4 and 3 victory over
two-time defending champion Jeremy Wall of the Manasquan River Club. Wall had
been such a tenacious match-play combatant in going back-to-back at Whitemarsh
Valley and Stonewall, but he was no match for the veteran Gillespie on this
day.
It was more of the same in the afternoon as Gillespie
finished off Griffin, the co-medalist, on the 15th hole with another
4 and 3 victory.
Not that it gets any easier in the quarterfinals. Gillespie
knows exactly what he’s up against in 2014 champion Jeff Osberg, who plays out
of Pine Valley Golf Club.
Osberg opened his day with a 4 and 2 victory over Overbrook
Golf Club’s Oscar Mestre in a meeting of GAP’s 2019 William Hyndman III Player
of the Year in Osberg and Senior Player of the Year in Mestre.
Osberg had his hands full in the afternoon against Penn
State sophomore Patrick Sheehan, a guy who I watched play a lot of golf when he
contended in the high school postseason for Central Bucks East, winning a
District One Class AAA crown in 2018.
If you wanted to see a couple of guys who can bomb it, this
was your match, although you don’t get to this level without some touch around
the greens. Sheehan was 3-down before winning the 11th, 13th
and 15th holes to even the match. Osberg, owner of six wins in GAP
major championships, won the 16th hole, but Sheehan answered with a
win at the 17th that sent the match to the 18th tee all
square.
Osberg won the hole to claim a 1-up victory, his experience
edge probably helping him in the end. It was Sheehan’s third appearance in the
match-play bracket at the Philly Amateur, so the kid is starting to build up
some scar tissue.
There will be a Penn State player in the quarterfinals as Lukas
Clark, who was having a very good junior
season when the pandemic put a stop to the season, rolled to a 5 and 4
decision over Aronimink Golf Club’s Cory Siegfried, the 2010 Pennsylvania
Amateur champion, in the round of 16.
Earlier in the day, Clark, a scholastic standout at Council
Rock South playing out of Galloway National Golf Club, finished off LedgeRock
Golf Club’s Grant Skyllas, the runnerup to Gregor Orlando in the 2017 Philly
Amateur, on the 15th hole with a 4 and 3 decision.
Clark’s quarterfinal opponent will be another college
standout, Loch Nairn Golf Club’s Zachary Barbin, the oldest of the golfing
Barbins of Elkton, Md. whose junior season at powerful Liberty was curtailed by
the pandemic.
Barbin reached the quarterfinals with a surgical 6 and 4
victory over former La Salle standout P.J. Acierno after claiming a 2 and 1
victory over Jericho National Golf Club’s Calen Sanderson, who finished in a
tie for second in the District One Class AAA Championship as a sophomore at
Holy Ghost Prep last fall.
Maybe the most talented player alive in the tournament is
Saucon Valley Country Club’s Matt Mattare, who survived quite a gauntlet to
earn his quarterfinal matchup with veteran Peter Barron III of Galloway
National.
Mattare claimed a 1-up decision over Huntingdon Valley
Country Club’s Andrew Mason, the runnerup to Wall two years ago at Whitemarsh
Valley, in the morning and then pulled out another 1-up victory over
LedgeRock’s Nate Menon, a member of Stanford’s 2019 NCAA championship team and
the 2015 PIAA Class AA champion as a junior at Wyomissing, in the round of 16.
Three summers ago, Mattare pulled off a remarkable double
when he won the Met Amateur crown and the Philadelphia Open. He also has a GAP
Middle-Amateur victory on his resume, so a third GAP major for Mattare would
not be a huge surprise.
Barron reached the quarterfinals with a 3 and 2 victory over
another of GAP’s talented mid-ams, DuPont Country Club’s Matthew Finger, after
cruising to a 5 and 4 decision over Moselem Springs Golf Club’s Nicholas
Vecellio in the opening round.
Wednesday morning’s quarterfinal winners will advance to the
afternoon semifinals. By the time the sun goes down on Lancaster Country Club, weather
permitting, of course, the Philly Amateur finalists will be set.
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