Couldn’t resist five years ago wandering over to Coatesville Country Club, close to home for me, to watch Patrick Sheehan and Austin Barbin battle it out for the title in the Golf Association of Philadelphia (GAP) Junior Boys’ Championship.
My most vivid memory was that Coatesville, while a neat little golf course, was just too short for these two bombers. Austin Barbin erupted by going 6-under par over a six-hole stretch to claim a 5 and 4 victory over Sheehan and the title.
Though barely out of high school, both had qualified for match play a week earlier when the BMW Philadelphia Amateur was played at Stonewall.
Five years later, Sheehan, who recently completed a standout five-year career at Penn State, and Barbin, whose career at Liberty concluded in the NCAA’s Stanford Regional last month, are one win away from a rematch of their GAP Junior Boys’ final in the 124th BMW Philadelphia Amateur at Whitemarsh Valley Country Club, the George Thomas classic a couple of miles from the Philadelphia border just off Germantown Pike.
Sheehan, playing out of Talamore Country Club, and Barbin, playing out of Chesapeake Bay Golf Club, each won two matches Wednesday, Sheehan rallying to fend off an upset bid by Austin Barbin’s younger brother Evan on the 19th hole in the opening round in the morning, to earn spots in Thursday morning’s quarterfinals.
It was a relatively easy day for Austin Barbin, whose older brother Zach won this championship four years ago in the pandemic summer of 2020 at Lancaster Country Club.
Austin Barbin rolled to a 6 and 5 decision over LedgeRock Golf Club’s Grant Skylass, who lost in the 2017 Philly Am final to Gregor Orlando on Orlando’s home course at Philadelphia Cricket Club, in Wednesday’s opening round of match play.
Austin Barbin then claimed a 3 and 2 victory over Lancaster Country Club’s Craig Hornberger, a reinstated amateur after a brief pro career, in Wednesday afternoon’s round of 16.
Sheehan was 2-down to Evan Barbin, the youngest of the golfing Barbins of Elkton, Md., with two holes to play in the opening round. But Sheehan won the last two holes of regulation to send the match to extra holes and then pulled out the victory on the 19th hole.
In the afternoon, Sheehan found himself 4-down after six holes against Saucon Valley Country Club’s Thomas Young, a recent Moravian Academy graduate, before battling back to pull out a 1-up victory.
Sheehan’s quarterfinal opponent is Temple junior Jake Haberstumpf, who claimed a 4 and 2 victory over Huntingdon Valley Country Club’s Andy Butler, a former Villanova standout, in the round of 16 Wednesday afternoon.
Haberstumpf, part of a talented group at LedgeRock these days, started his college career at Moravian after starring scholastically at Bethlehem’s Freedom High.
Barbin gets another Saucon Valley guy, Evan Eichenlaub, a sophomore at Babson College in Massachusetts who was a two-time PIAA Class AA qualifier at Moravian Academy, in his quarterfinal match. Eichenlaub pulled out a 1-up victory over another of Brian Quinn’s Temple guys, Andrew Curran, who was representing Philadelphia Cricket Club in a round of 16 match Wednesday afternoon.
On the other side of the bracket, a couple of talented veterans, LuLu’s Michael R. Brown Jr. and Will Davenport of the host club, look like they’re headed for a semifinal showdown.
The 51-year-old Brown, a Maple Shade, N.J., survived a playoff among 11 players for the final nine spots in the match-play bracket and emerged with the 32nd seed. He promptly went out Wednesday morning and grinded out a 2-up victory over Huntingdon Valley Country Club’s Patrick Isztwan, who had earned medalist honors in qualifying Tuesday with a 9-under 134 total at nearby North Hills Country Club and Whitemarsh Valley.
As Alex Seelig, a LedgeRock guy who finished three shots out of the playoff that Brown was involved in in Tuesday’s qualifying, reminded me in the Stonewall caddy yard Wednesday morning, Isztwan had pulled off the exact same feat a year ago, surviving a playoff to get into match play and then knocking off qualifying medalist Troy Vannucci in the opening round.
Isztwan, a senior at Richmond who starred scholastically at Penn Charter, carried the momentum from that win all the way to the final on his home course at Huntingdon Valley.
When Brown captured the Philly Am title two years ago at Philadelphia Country Club to complete the GAP career grand slam, he said that his age and experience were what he leaned on against the talented youngsters he faced.
After getting past Isztwan in the morning, Brown squared off against Hayden Moffat, a Philadelphia Publinks Golf Association entry. Moffat had been a scholastic standout at Hatboro-Horsham before a solid college career at Division III Gettysburg.
Brown was 1-down to Moffat with seven holes to go in their round of 16 match, which had started on the back nine at Whitemarsh Valley. That’s when Brown’s experience pulled him through.
He stuck his approach from 109 yards to the par-5 third hole to 12 feet with a pitching wedge and converted the birdie putt to draw even with Moffat.
At the tough par-3 fourth hole, Brown holed a critical 15-footer for par to get a half.
Brown needed just an 8-iron to reach the green in two at the 507-yard, par-5 fifth hole. His 20-footer for eagle found the bottom of the cup, although birdie would have done the job. He was 1-up.
Routine pars at the sixth and eight holes were good enough to enable Brown to close out Moffat in a 2 and 1 victory.
Brown will get a familiar face in the quarterfinals in former Drexel standout Aaron Fricke, who rolled to a 5 and 4 victory over Llanerch Country Club’s John Lalley, who made a second straight strong run in the Philly Am, having reached the semifinals a year ago at Huntingdon Valley.
Brown and Fricke were a formidable duo in LuLu’s run to the BMW GAP Team Matches crown this spring.
This might be Davenport’s Philly Am to lose. The 31-year-old is a Floridian these days, but he came back to the Philadelphia area a couple of weeks ago to tee it up in the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship at the Cricket Club and its classic A.W. Tillinghast Wissahickon Course.
Davenport of Palm City and his Sunshine State pal Mike Smith of Ponte Vedra Beach made it to the semifinals before falling to the eventual champions, Brian Blanchard and Sam Engel of Scottsdale, Ariz.
With the Philly Am being played at his Philadelphia base at Whitemarsh Valley, Davenport hung around for a chance to add a second GAP major to the GAP Middle-Amateur he won in 2019 at Rolling Green Golf Club. You get the sense that Davenport enjoys what has always been a vibrant amateur golf scene in the Philadelphia area.
Davenport rolled to a 5 and 3 victory over David Mecca of Wemberly Hills Golf Club in the opening round Wednesday morning. Davenport then reached the quarterfinals with a 4 and 2 decision over the defending champion, Briarwood Golf Club’s Mike Crowley, a Loyola of Maryland standout.
Davenport will get one of the Cricket Club’s many talented veterans, 38-year-old Mark Miller, in Thursday morning’s quarterfinals. Miller pulled out a 1-up victory over Tanglewood Manor Golf Club’s Connor Sheehan, who was a standout at Millersville, in his round of 16 match Wednesday afternoon.
The winners of Thursday morning’s quarterfinal matches will meet in the semifinals in the afternoon. The semifinal winners will square off in a scheduled 36-hole final Saturday at Whitemarsh Valley.
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