Rivals can be friends. Take Michael McDermott and Jeff
Osberg, the two best amateur players in the Philadelphia area.
They are friends. They teamed up to qualify for last month’s
U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship at Winged Foot, although they were unable
to advance to match play.
But Saturday on one of the world’s very best layouts, Merion
Golf Club’s East Course, McDermott and Osberg will square off in a scheduled
36-hole match for the J. Wood Platt Trophy, which goes to the winner of the BMW
Philadelphia Amateur.
McDermott, 41, a Merion member, was the dominant amateur
player in the Philadelphia area a decade ago after an outstanding collegiate
career at Saint Joseph’s. Osberg, 31, of Huntingdon Valley Country Club,
arrived on the scene after helping Guilford College (N.C.) claim a Division III
national championship. They are sons of familiar faces on the golf scene, Neil
McDermott, a past president of the Golf Association of Philadelphia, and Rick
Osberg, the former longtime head pro at Waynesborough Country Club.
They met on familiar territory in the second round of the
Philly Amateur at Llanerch Country Club a year ago, a course McDermott grew up
playing and where Osberg first started making waves on the GAP circuit. A
birdie barrage ensued and when the smoke cleared, McDermott had a 2-up victory.
It will be tough to top that match, but with the title on the line this time in
a 36-hole final on one of the game’s grandest stages, well, they’ve got a
pretty good shot at doing their Llanerch meeting one better.
It’s tough to get the matchup you want in a Philly Amateur final.
The brackets are determined in qualifying and sometimes they create bigger
matches earlier in the draw. And, as the late, great Chris Fuga reminded me a
year ago at Llanerch, “1 to 32, anybody who makes match play in this can beat
anybody else.”
McDermott, who won this title in 2008 at Whitemarsh Valley
Country Club and again in 2013 at another of his home courses, Aronimink Golf
Club, survived a nail-biter in Wednesday morning’s quarterfinals, ousting Scott
Ehrlich of Five Ponds Golf Club in 20 holes.
It didn’t get any easier for McDermott in the semifinals as
he built an early lead and held on for a 2 and 1 victory over Aronimink’s
Michael Davis, a junior at Princeton who knocked off McDermott in 20 holes in
the quarterfinals a year ago on his way to a loss to Cole Berman in the final.
“We’ve referenced this a lot,” McDermott told the GAP
website. “Jeff has become a good friend of mine over the last couple of years.
When we played at Llanerch last year, I said before the match and after the
match that Jeff is the best player in Philadelphia.
“He is. He was then. He is today. And he will be on
Saturday. That doesn’t mean I can’t win. I have to be ready to win it. I will
have my hands full.”
Osberg, who won the Philly Amateur in 2014 at White Manor
Country Club, got by Gregor Orlando of Philadelphia Cricket Club, 3 and 1, in Wednesday's quarterfinals and then ousted an old friend from his Llanerch days,
Stephen Seiden, 5 and 3, in the semifinals in the afternoon.
“We’ve talked a lot for the last year about how much fun it
would have been to have 36 holes last year,” Osberg told the GAP website. “We
have what we wished for.”
Seiden might have been softened up by needing 21 holes to
emerge from the quarterfinals with a victory over Jay Whitby of Wild Quail Golf
& Country Club. Plus, Osberg knew better than to underestimate a guy who
has qualified for the U.S. Amateur twice and once beat him in a Llanerch club
championship match.
Davis, who won an Inter-Ac League individual title during an
outstanding scholastic career at Malvern Prep, reached his semifinal matchup
with a 4 and 2 victory over Applecross Country Club’s R.J. Wren, a recent Twin
Valley graduate who finished in a tie for seventh in the PIAA Class AAA
Championship at the Heritage Hills Resort last fall.
But it was all prelude to what followers of the local golf
scene wanted to see: The Bash Brothers battling for the BMW Philadelphia
Amateur title on the first tee at Merion East Saturday morning.
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