I have thrown in a shot of the year to the T Mac Tees Off year-end review the last couple of years.
But in 2021, the coronavirus pandemic still hanging on, but not quite as disruptive to the golf schedule as it had been in 2020, three shots in particular stand out so much in my remembrances of 2021 that they will take up the bulk of this year in review.
I didn’t make it down to Merion Golf Club’s historic East Course for the first two days of the Pennsylvania Golf Association’s 108th Amateur Championship in late July. But I just couldn’t resist running down to the iconic Hugh Wilson design – pretty sure the East Course’s first greenkeeper, one William Flynn, had more than a little to do with the final product -- for the final round.
The East Course was part of the neighborhood where I grew up in the Ardmore section of Haverford Township in Delaware County. Used to hike four blocks up to the golf course and sneak under the fence and go sledding down the hill that started at the eighth tee and across the fourth hole down to the creek that borders the fifth green.
Ultimately, I became a Merion looper and probably walked the East Course a thousand times or so during 12 years of a caddying tenure that concluded when my bag in the 1981 U.S. Open, Scioto Country Club assistant pro Jay Cudd, failed to make the 36-hole cut.
Like I mentioned to a few people last summer, for me, a trip to Merion is like going to visit an old friend.
I knew I would be entertained. Merion has that indescribable knack of bringing the drama. Bobby Jones winning what was then considered golf’s grand slam by capturing the 1930 U.S. Amateur, Ben Hogan’s epic 1950 U.S. Open victory less than two years after nearly dying when his car hit a bus head-on on a Texas highway, Lee Trevino beating Jack Nicklaus in a playoff to win the 1971 U.S. Open. Those are just the highlights. Trust me, I could go on.
The leader after 36 holes of the Pennsylvania Amateur was Patrick Sheehan, the former Central Bucks East standout whose scholastic career I had chronicled in this blog. A junior at Penn State, Sheehan, who just kills it off the tee, had seen his three-shot lead disappear by the time I caught up with him on the eighth hole.
Another recent scholastic standout whose career I had seen a lot of, Norristown’s Josh Ryan, was also in the hunt. Even if nothing else had happened at Merion that day, it would have been a great day just because I got a chance to catch up with Sheehan’s parents and Team Ryan. It’s amazing how much stuff you can find out when you get out and just talk to people.
It looked like we were headed for a dramatic finish as I trudged up the 18th hole. Up ahead, Mark Goetz, a western Pennsylvania standout who has been West Virginia’s best player for much of his collegiate career, was in the house at 1-over 217.
Sheehan had battled back from his early struggles, delivering a brilliant 4-iron into the difficult par-3 17th hole and dropping the six-foot birdie putt that left him at 1-over going to the final hole.
Jimmy Ellis, the talented western Pennsylvania mid-amateur who had tamed Oakmont Country Club a year earlier to win the Pennsylvania Open Championship, had nearly holed an impossible chip at the 17th and he, too, was 1-over heading to the last.
John Peters, who had just graduated from Carlisle and was about to join the program at Atlantic Coast Conference power Duke, thought he had joined his playing partners at 1-over, but his birdie try at the 17th hole burned the edge of the cup, leaving him at 2-over for the tournament.
There’s a plaque in the middle of the 18th fairway at the crest of a hill about 210 yards from the middle of the green to commemorate Hogan’s 1-iron shot on the 72nd hole in that 1950 National Open that enabled him to get into the playoff with Norristown native George Fazio and Lloyd Mangrum. Hy Peskin’s photo of Hogan’s follow-through is one of golf’s truly iconic still images.
Sheehan’s approach to the 18th green looked awfully good and he had gotten a nice round of applause from the 40 to 50 spectators who were gathered near the fairly impossible back left pin position.
As for Peters …
“I was 193 yards and I hit an 8-iron,” Peters would say a few moments later. “Ever since I hit the pin at 13, I was just trying to control my distance. Normally, 193 would be a 6-iron, but I had so much adrenaline. When I hit it, I thought it was a great shot, but I probably hit it a groove thin and downwind and as fast as the greens were, I knew it was going to run out.
“It landed on and it disappeared over the mound. I was waiting for a while. They had clapped for Patrick Sheehan’s shot, so I was hoping to hear some clapping. And then …”
I was about 100 yards away from the green, near the little sawed-off tree that sits there on the right side of the hole. When Peters’ ball hit just short of the hump in the middle of the green, it popped up and settled just over the mound. “That might go in,” a prophetic spectator said when Peters’ ball cleared the mound.
It took a while, but the ball never stopped rolling. It trickled, trickled, trickled … and tumbled right in the hole. Eagle. The spectators who had clapped appreciatively for Sheehan’s shot erupted when Peters’ ball disappeared into the hole. Most of them had just witnessed the greatest golf shot they will see live in their lifetimes.
Suddenly, Peters was in at even-par, one shot better than Goetz. It was characterized by some on golf Twitter as a walkoff, but that wasn’t entirely accurate.
Sheehan had a real good look at birdie that would have tied Peters. Myers’ approach went through the green. He had a chip for birdie, although the lie looked pretty gnarly.
Myers’ chip came out hot and he missed the comebacker for a bogey that dropped him into a tie for fourth place with Josh Ryan. Sheehan, undoubtedly a little shaken by the Peters’ eagle, got a little too aggressive with his birdie putt, blowing it through the break. His par left him in a tie for second place with Goetz, a shot behind Peters.
Really, the shot didn’t get the notoriety it deserved. The PAGA guy had a nice video of Peters’ celebration when he realized he had holed out for eagle. He went nuts, as you would expect.
The Pennsylvania Am has a long and distinguished history. The incomparable Jay Sigel won the thing 10 times. Art Wall Jr., the 1959 Masters champion, won it twice in the late 1940s.
But Peters, winning the Pennsylvania Amateur by holing out for eagle from 193 yards away on the 18th hole at Merion’s East Course, put himself up there pretty high on the list when it comes to memorable editions of this great championship.
It was about 10 weeks later when Lower Merion junior Sydney Yermish sized up her second shot into the risk-reward par-5 18th hole at Turtle Creek Golf Course with the District One Class AAA championship very much on the line.
Yermish had won the District One crown as a freshman in 2019, but never got a chance to defend that title as the pandemic sowed so much confusion that the Central League didn’t hold a district qualifier in time to get its golfers eligible for the postseason. Was she frustrated? Yeah, a little.
Yermish, who plays out of Rolling Green Golf Club, arrived at the 18th hole at the Turtle tied with a couple of Ches-Mont League standouts, Downingtown East senior Ava O’Sullivan, who had captured the district title in Yermish’s absence a year earlier, and Unionville junior Mary Grace Dunigan, who had helped the Longhorns capture the 2020 PIAA Class AAA team crown.
Yermish had driven it probably 20 yards farther than her playing partners. O’Sullivan and Dunigan had to lay up short of the pond that fronts the green.
Yermish’s range-finder told her she was 193 yards from the stick. It didn’t escape me that that was the exact same number Peters said he had into the 18th hole at Merion in the Pennsylvania Amateur.
It struck me as Yermish figured out the shot that all eyes were on her. Certainly, her playing partners were very interested. Everybody knew what was at stake. Yermish had been fighting a balky putter all day, but if she could reach the green at the par-5 18th in two, she might only need to two-putt for birdie. There was never a doubt she was going for it.
Yermish figured she needed 180 yards to clear the water. Her 5-iron shot landed about eight yards farther than that and took a nice bounce onto the green, about 20 feet from the stick. When she absolutely needed a shot to win the tournament, Yermish had executed perfectly.
It proved to be the winning difference when O’Sullivan and Dunigan couldn’t get their approaches inside of Yermish, who watched them miss their birdie putts and then two-putted for birdie and the district title.
Yermish had claimed medalist honors at the Turtle in the Central League Championship a week before districts. Two weeks after capturing the district title, Yermish would make it a postseason sweep by capturing the PIAA Class AAA crown at the Heritage Hills Golf Resort in York County that eluded her as a freshman in 2019 when she lost in a playoff.
There was another reason the birdie that won her the district title at the Turtle meant so much to Yermish. The previous summer, one of Yermish’s fellow volunteer firefighters at the Penn Wynne-Overbrook Hills Fire Station #21, Sean DeMuynck, had died in the line of duty.
Yermish had sought pledges for a fund-raising campaign for the postseason, “Birdies for the Fallen,” she called it. Her postseason birdies would raise money from her pledges for a donation to the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial in Emmitsburg, Md. in DeMuynck’s name.
The birdie to win the district title was one of 16 Yermish had in the postseason along with an eagle she posted in that final round at Turtle Creek that counted double. Yermish would raise more than $18,000 toward the contribution she made to the National Fallen Firefighters Memorial to honor her friend’s courage.
Yermish’s effort was recognized by the American Junior Golf Association (AJGA) when it gave her its Jerry Cole Sportsmanship Award during its Rolex Junior All-America Virtual Awards Banquet earlier this month.
It was a pretty good fall for Yermish, who also announced she plans to join the program at Michigan in the summer of 2023. And it was fun to be there when she gave it her best shot on the 18th hole at Turtle Creek.
The Fall Scramble at Stonewall, an open tournament that draws teams of low-handicap players, is usually held the final weekend in October, but didn’t go until the second weekend in November this year.
I’ve looped in six Fall Scrambles at Stonewall and for the third time I carried for the central Pennsylvania pair of Jeff Frazier and Brent Will. Frazier won the Golf Association of Philadelphia’s Brewer Cup, a match-play event for senior players, for the second year in a row last summer.
At 57, the left-handed Frazier remains a wizard on the golf course. He can move the ball right-to-left, left-to-right, loves him some driver off the deck. Will brings the power and the big guy can absolutely kill it off the tee, long and straight, so much so that Frazier won’t even try to top his partner in the scramble format when Will unleashes one of his patented bombs.
Bottom line: I love the way these two guys compete. It really is fun to watch.
The weather was OK for Day 1 on the Old Course. It was a frustrating 3-under 67 for my guys, playing at some pins that weren’t so hard to get close to, but were really hard to putt at. Still, we were in the hunt.
The forecast for Day 2 at the North Course was not good. We were going to get a couple hours of decent weather and then it was going to fall apart in a big way. A big wind was going to usher in colder weather.
We knew it was coming, but that knowledge couldn’t possibly prepare us for it. We were on the tee at the 160-yard, par-3 ninth hole at the North Course. The wind was absolutely howling, a little in from the left and rain, with an occasional ice pellet mixed in just for good measure, was coming down sideways.
Will figured he could get a 200-yard shot there, but his ball got up in that wind and was a good 30 yards short.
On the short, par-4 10th hole, Will killed his drive. The range-finder, despite moving around in my shivering fingers, read 148 yards. We were dead into a 40 mph wind. Will wasn’t going to be short this time. He pulled out a 5-iron, which I’m sure he can hit 210, 215 in calm conditions, and hit one of the most magnificent shots I’ve ever seen live.
It was struck so purely it just pierced the howling wind. The pin was in the tiny back ledge, a hard hole location to get close to on a normal day. The ball landed next to the hole and settled five feet past the stick. He converted the putt for a nearly miraculous birdie.
Will seemed to thrive in the truly awful conditions. With the wind at his back on the par-4 11th hole, he had a little over 100 yards left, hit it close and made the putt. On the short par-4 12th hole, Will made an impossible 35-foot birdie putt from just short of the green. Will always putts first so Frazier, the better putter, can get the line, but Frazier never got a chance to putt in the team’s three straight birdies.
Somehow in the middle of the absolutely worst of the conditions, the three consecutive birdies got Will and Frazier to 5-under for the round and 8-under for the tournament. Surely, nobody else was going to be able to as well in what looked like the worst British Open day you ever saw on TV.
Somebody’s shaky video made it on golf Twitter that day with a “worst conditions I’ve ever played in” comment. Some comments I’ve heard since then echoed that sentiment and from some very good players who have played in some big-time events. I’ve heard it compared to Bandon Dunes, where, I’m told, things can get pretty nasty along the rugged Pacific coast.
By the time we got to the 15th hole, the sun actually came out. The worst of it was over, but we were cold and wet. Cold is one thing. Cold and wet is another matter entirely. Will and Frazier made a couple of bogeys on the way in at the 16th and 17th holes and we failed to birdie the eminently gettable par-5 18th.
Still, I thought 6-under had a chance. Until I heard that Conrad Von Borsig and Brendan Mahoney, the Philadelphia Cricket Club pair who had won the Fall Scramble the previous two years, had made it three in a row by firing a 7-under 63 in that awful weather. Near as I can tell, that gave them the victory with an 8-under total, the same number Will and Frazier had reached with their consecutive birdies at 10, 11 and 12.
Much of my T Mac Tees Off year-ender in 2019 was dedicated to Von Borsig, whom I had covered during his scholastic career at Strath Haven during a previous life with the Delaware County Daily Times. I’m never surprised when Von Borsig does amazing things on the golf course. He is particularly tough at Stonewall. Von Borsig has played in two BMW Philadelphia Amateurs at the ’Wall, winning it in 2009 and reaching the semifinals in 2019.
It’s not like the Fall Scramble results are published anywhere, but I think Will and Frazier finished in second place two shots behind Von Borsig and Mahoney. But that shot by Will, that 148-yard 5-iron, that’s what I’ll remember from a round played in absolutely brutal conditions.
Managed to sneak down to Philadelphia Cricket Club’s Wissahickon Course, an A.W. Tillinghast masterpiece, for the final round of the Pennsylvania Open on a hot, hot day in early August.
It wasn’t quite the hole-out for eagle that Peters authored a few weeks earlier at Merion, but Alex Blickle’s 7-iron to two feet to beat Jeff Osberg, one of the region’s top mid-ams and a two-time Philadelphia Open champion, on the fourth hole of a playoff was another stroke of brilliance I got a chance to witness in 2021.
Blickle, a 29-year-old pro who spends a lot of time playing mini-tours and state Opens, had to birdie the tough finishing hole at the Cricket Club to get into the playoff. Blickle's home base in the summer of 2021 was an Airbnb off the seventh fairway at LedgeRock Golf Club in Berks County. Osberg’s ball-striking was typically on point, but his putter wasn’t cooperating.
In the playoff, they played the 18th hole, the equally challenging par-4 first hole and the 18th again before arriving back at the first again. Blickle, with 206 yards to the back right pin, drilled his 7-iron and just stuck it for the win.
While I was following Yermish in the final round of the District One Championship at Turtle Creek, Downingtown West sophomore Nick Gross was involved in a playoff with Holy Ghost Prep senior Calen Sanderson for the Class AAA boys title.
A year ago, Gross had edged Sanderson to win the district title as a freshman at Turtle Creek, although Sanderson turned the tables on Gross to win the PIAA Class AAA crown at Heritage Hills.
Sanderson prevailed in the playoff with Gross this year to win the District One Class AAA crown, but Gross turned the tables on Sanderson by becoming Downingtown West’s first state champion at Heritage Hills in a playoff with Billy Pabst of North Pocono, Sanderson a shot out of the playoff in third place.
There’s a couple of pretty nice profiles authored by Neil Geoghegan, a former colleague of mine, on Gross and Downingtown East’s O’Sullivan, who led the Cougars to the PIAA Class AAA team crown at Heritage Hills, as they were named the respective Male and Female Players of the Year for Chester County by the Daily Local News. Chester County has been producing a ton of golf talent in the last few years.
Snuck in one more trip to a scholastic championship when I was on hand for the Bert Linton Inter-Ac League individual championship at Bluestone Country Club.
And I got to see yet another big shot when Episcopal Academy sophomore Hunter Stetson, a product of the junior program at Aronimink Golf Club, just buried a 25-foot birdie putt to beat Germantown Academy sophomore Will Irons in a playoff.
Germantown Academy, though, finally broke the stranglehold Episcopal, The Haverford School and Malvern Prep, had had on the Inter-Ac championship as the Patriots swept to the league crown and added a team win in the Pennsylvania Independent Schools Athletic Association Championship (PAISAA) at the Golf Course at Glen Mills.
Sophomore Ajeet Bagga, medalist in the PAISSA Championship, led the way all season for Germantown Academy, but the Patriots got contributions from seniors Jack Luviano, Luke Marvin and Seth Roth, Irons, and Bagga’s sisters, Serena, a junior, and Kiran, a freshman, in claiming their first Inter-Ac title since 1995.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the passing in May of one of the legendary loopers at Stonewall, Donald E. Cavallo Sr., who I knew only as Tapper.
When I showed up at Stonewall in the spring of 2016 at age 61, I wondered if I could still handle the physical challenge of carrying two bags six miles or so up and down the hills of the former dairy farm in northwestern Chester County.
At some point that spring I was introduced to Tapper, a piece of work in all the best ways. There was talk that he had caddied for Hogan at Berkshire Country Club in Reading in the 1950s. He had forgotten more about golf than I’ll ever know. I mean, how old was this guy? When I found out he was 86, I figured, OK, I might be able to do this for a few more years.
I guess it was 2018 when navigating the Old Course at Stonewall finally was getting to be too much for Tapper. He could barely see, but he could still read the tricky Old Course putting surfaces. He was 90 when he died this year. Stonewall’s only been around for less than 30 years, but Tapper absolutely left his mark in the caddyshack and on all the Stonewall partners who knew him.
Joe Burkhardt, who runs Tri-State Golfer, sent me out to do stories on several public courses in the region in 2021, including Inniscrone in southern Chester County, Kimberton, an old haunt of mine near Phoenixville, Turtle Creek, Landis Creek and Linfield National in western Montgomery County and Neshaminy Valley in Bucks County and everywhere the story was the same. Golf is booming in the wake of a pandemic during which the game quickly established itself as something that you could do safely.
It looks like it will be more of the same in 2022. And the year ahead will bring some big events to the area.
I’ve always been a fan of the Curtis Cup and the biennial matches between teams of women from the United States and Great Britain & Ireland will be staged at my very favorite golf course, the East Course at Merion in June. The countdown to Day 1 of the Curtis Cup Match will be 161 days on New Year’s Day. Not that I’m counting … well, yeah, I am counting.
If it’s anything like the Walker Cup Match in 2009, admission will be free and you can basically walk the fairways at the iconic East Course while watching players you’ll be seeing on TV on the LPGA Tour in a few years. And, like I said at the beginning of this post, Merion has a knack for bringing the drama.
The U.S. Senior Open will return to the Old Course at Saucon Valley Country Club in Bethlehem for a third time. I covered Hale Irwin’s victory in the 2000 U.S. Senior Open at Saucon Valley for the Daily Times and it was really a great event.
The PGA Tour’s BMW Championship, the penultimate event in the FedEx Cup Playoffs, will be staged at Wilmington Country Club’s South Course in August. The BMW Championship was hosted by Aronimink in 2018. The field of 70 will be trying to be among the 30 top finishers who qualify for the Tour Championship. You will be seeing the best of the best at Wilmington South.
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