The Philadelphia area was going to be the center of the universe for men’s four-ball golf beginning the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend in 2020.
The U.S. Men’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship was going to be played at Philadelphia Cricket Club’s Wissahickon and Militia Hill courses with match play being contested over the Wissahickon, an A.W. Tillinghast original.
Several local pairs had earned their way into the tournament, led by the duo of Huntingdon Valley Country Club’s Vince Kwon, who has looped at the Cricket Club in the past, and Little Mill Country Club’s Troy Vannucci. The pair was exempt because of their dramatic run to the semifinals of the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball at Bandon Dunes in the spring of 2019.
Alas, the coronavirus pandemic put an end to the 2020 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball, which was a real shame, an emotion we’ve experienced with each canceled event this year. Better ball of partners is just fun golf, which is one of the reasons the United States Golf Association added the Four-Ball event to its roster of national championships in 2015.
Take, for example, the Golf Association of Philadelphia’s 46th Four-Ball Championship, which was held Monday at Indian Valley Country Club where Montgomery County meets Bucks County in Telford.
Alexander Maguire and Brad Sokol have been playing golf together since they were kids growing up at Brookside Country Club in Pottstown. Heck, I’m fairly certain they showed up in an earlier version of this blog, “From Tee to Green,” the weekly golf column I used to pump out at The Mercury in Pottstown in the 1980s and early 90s, at least a couple of times. That was back in the days when you could still find local golf in the newspaper.
Fast forward to 2020 with the 45-year-old Maguire, still playing out of Brookside, and the 43-year-old Sokol, a Wayne resident who plays out of Green Valley Country Club, teaming up to fire a 6-under-par 66 over the 6,505-yard, par-72 Indian Valley layout to edge six teams by a shot and capture the victory.
After teaming up in countless better-balls, coming close many times, the partnership born at Brookside three decades or so ago finally produced a trophy.
“We were at Brookside every day,” Sokol told the GAP website, fondly recalling the summer days when he and Maguire honed their games at the course that sits adjacent to The Hill School right in the middle of Pottstown. “We’re pretty comfortable together. I know what he’s going to do, he knows what I’m going to do.”
The Maguire-Sokol pairing needed a couple of late birdies to vault its way past all those teams at 5-under 67 and they got them.
Sokol’s wedge into the 119-yard, par-3 16th hole finished 12 feet from the hole and he converted the birdie try.
Maguire then finished the job with an adventurous birdie at the 385-yard, par-4 17th hole. He bombed his drive way right on the dogleg-left hole, then launched a lob wedge 80 yards over some trees onto the green, 40 feet from the hole. And he got that birdie bomb to fall to get the team to 6-under.
Maguire had the highlight-reel stuff while Sokol got the key par-saving putts to drop. When it’s going right, that’s how four-ball golf works.
Maguire hit 8-iron 30 yards over the green for his second shot at the 484-yard, par-5 third hole, then flopped it back to three feet and made the putt.
Sokol lagged his birdie putt from just off the green at the 362-yard, par-4 ninth hole to within tap-in range. His partner in for par, Maguire, from nearly the same spot, decided to chip it and chipped it right in the hole for a birdie.
Maguire’s length was on display at the 478-yard, par-5 12th hole as he reached the green in two and two-putted for birdie.
Maguire then sent a wedge into the 362-yard, par-4 14th hole from 140 yards away to 15 feet and rolled that birdie putt in to get the team to 5-under.
As a guy who likes to cover high school golf, my favorite team of the six that finished in a tie for second, a shot behind Maguire and Sokol at 5-under 67 was the tandem comprised of Holy Ghost Prep’s two recent PIAA Class AAA champions, Liam Hart of Spring Mill Country Club and Stephen Cerbara of Huntingdon Valley Country Club.
Cerbara, the 2015 state champion, and Hart, the 2017 state champion, are teammates at Drexel. Cerbara is a senior and Hart is about to join the Dragons, although there might not be a whole lot of college golf in the fall portion of the wraparound 2020-2021 season.
Also coming in at 5-under were the Cricket Club pair of Dan Agoglia and Patrick Dougherty, Andrew Plaszay of Chester Valley Golf Club and Scott Ehrlich of Waynesborough Country Club, Tony Peressini of Lookaway Golf Club and Phil Bartholomew of the Cricket Club, Adam Thieme of Green Pond Country Club and Luke Smith of Northampton Country Club and Kyle Ginty of Talamore Country Club and Michael Fireman of the Cricket Club.
Another Cricket Club pair, Brendan Mahoney and Matthew Kocent, was one of three teams tied for eighth place at 3-under 68. Kocent had earned a ticket to the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball on his home course with clubmate Robbie Walizer and it’s hard to imagine there were two guys who were more disappointed to see the event victimized by the pandemic.
Joining Mahoney and Kocent at 3-under were the Concord Country Club duo of Larry Bendetto and Jim Allen and the Running Deer Golf Club pair of Stephen Barry and Andy Kerestesy.
Heading the group of six teams tied for 11th place at 1-under 69 was the Commonwealth National Golf Club tandem of Nick Hano, the runnerup to Josh Ryan in GAP’s Junior Boys’ Championship earlier this summer at The 1912 Club, and Luke Marvin.
Hano was a junior on La Salle’s undefeated Catholic League championship team last fall that finished in third place in the PIAA Class AAA team chase. Marvin captured the Bert Linton Inter-Ac League individual championship as a junior at Germantown Academy last fall at Gulph Mills Golf Club.
Their respective leagues have announced in the last week that there will no scholastic golf this fall with vague hopes of play in the spring. Once more, the coronavirus delivers disappointment.
Joining Hano and Marvin at 1-under were Griffin Smith of Jericho National Golf Club and David Robbins of Trenton Country Club, Nicholas Lukow of Woodstone Country Club & Lodge and Kyle Hutnick of Green Pond, the Lancaster Country Club duo of Brian Groft and John Barry, Colin Smith of Bidermann Golf Club and Sam Pancoast of Radley Run Country Club and Thomas Coleman of Glen Brook Country Club and Mike Manci of Wemberly Hills Golf Club.
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