Michael McDermott, fresh off a dramatic Crump Cup victory at Pine Valley Golf Club, heads a strong Golf Association of Philadelphia contingent that will compete in the U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship, which tees off Saturday at the Capital City Club’s Crabapple Course in Atlanta and the nearby Atlanta National Golf Club in Milton, Ga.
The U.S. Mid-Am is a month later than last year when it was
staged in our area at Stonewall, Tom Doak’s twin gems where East Nantmeal
Township meets Warwick Township in northwestern Chester County.
As a first-year looper at Stonewall at age 61, it was a
thrill to get a bag in a USGA event, my first since what I had thought was my
caddying swan song in the 1981 U.S. Open at Merion Golf Club’s East Course in
the Ardmore section of Haverford Township.
When my man, Michael Mitani of Irvine, Calif., failed to
make match play (hey, I didn’t say he had the best caddy at Stonewall), I
grabbed my clipboard and reported on several of the matches for this blog. I
watched two of McDermott’s matches as he battled his way to the quarterfinals,
earning an exemption from qualifying for this year’s Mid-Am at the Capital City
Club. And I watched Stewart Hagestad’s dramatic comeback from 4-down with five
holes to play to defeat Scott Harvey on the 37th hole of the final.
It was great golf at a great venue.
As usual, I’ll be paying special attention to the GAP group
when qualifying gets under way Saturday. But there will be a lot of familiar
names from a year ago, I’ll be watching, too.
Hagestad earned a ticket to the Masters and made the most of
it, becoming the first mid-am to make the cut at Augusta National and getting a
seat in Butler Cabin for Sergio Garcia’s green jacket ceremony as the low
amateur.
Hagestad also played on the U.S. team at the course he played
growing up, Los Angeles Country Club’s North Course, in a resounding Walker Cup
victory over Great Britain & Ireland.
Hagestad and Harvey both grinded it out to earn berths in
the U.S. Open at Erin Hills in sectional qualifying.
I spent the first two days of match play at Stonewall watching McDermott
manage to make his way past three reinstated amateurs, guys who were once pro
golfers.
He gutted out a 20-hole win over Joseph Ida in the first
round, and held off Joe Alfieri of Lutz, Fla., 1-up. Then McDermott pulled out
a 1-up win over Derek Busby of Ruston, La., as good a ball-striker as you’ll
see anywhere, when Busby missed a two-footer for par on the 18th
hole.
Bottom line is, if McDermott, a 42-year-old investment
adviser, is still alive when the U.S. Mid-Am shifts to match play beginning
Monday at the Capital City Club, he will be a tough customer. It is the ninth U.S. Mid-Am for the Haverford
High and Saint Joseph’s University product. He has won three BMW Philadelphia
Amateur championships, including an epic victory over his good friend Jeff
Osberg on the 36th hole at Merion’s famed East Course in 2016.
He proved it again a couple of weekends ago when he won the
Crump Cup for a second time at the legendary Pine Valley layout carved out of
the pine barrens of South Jersey.
McDermott earned a spot in the final with a 2 and 1 victory
over Jamie Miller of Silver Creek, N.Y. in the semifinals.
McDermott’s opponent in the final, Bill Williamson of
Cincinnati, had survived a murderer’s row of Hagestad (4 and 2) in the opening
round, defending champion Jeff Knox (6 and 5) of Atlanta in the second round and
two-time Crump Cup winner Michael Muehr (2-up) of Potomac Falls, Va., one of
the three qualifying co-medalists in the Mid-Am at Stonewall last year, in the
semifinals to reach the final.
McDermott was 1-down heading to the par-4 17th
hole. He needed something special. Is a hole-out for eagle from 125 yards away
with a gap wedge special enough for you? I thought so. He closed it out by
winning the 18th with a par.
Osberg, the 2014 BMW Philadelphia Amateur champion, was a
frustrated alternate at Stonewall when a spot in the field never opened for
him. But he survived a 5-for-4 playoff at White Manor Country Club in late
August to earn a ticket to the Capital City Club.
If you asked McDermott, he’d tell you Osberg is the best
mid-am player in the Philadelphia area. Much like McDermott, if Osberg, an Owen
J. Roberts product who was part of an NCAA Division III championship team at Guilford,
can work his way into match play, he will be a very tough out.
The rest of the group that qualified at White Manor is
capable of making some noise in Atlanta.
Gregor Orlando won the BMW Philadelphia Amateur this summer
on his home course at Philadelphia Cricket Club. I watched his 2 and 1 win over
McDermott in the semifinals and it's never an easy task to take out McDermott in the Philly Amateur.
The 2007 PIAA champion at Erie Cathedral Prep, Orlando
reached the second round of match play at Stonewall last year before falling, 2
and 1, to Muehr.
Matthew Finger of DuPont Country Club was the qualifying
medalist at White Manor. Peter Barron III of Stone Harbor Golf Club has been a
consistent GAP player for a while.
The other survivors of the playoff along with Osberg were
Llanerch Country Club’s Joseph Kerrigan Jr., Michael R. Brown of Lu Lu Country
Club and Ryan Gelrod, Orlando's clubmate at the Cricket Club.
Another Cricket Club member got into the U.S. Mid-Am in a
qualifier at Arcola Country Club in Paramus, N.J. That would be 2009 BMW
Philadelphia Amateur champion Conrad Von Borsig. I chronicled Von Borsig’s
scholastic career at Strath Haven a decade or so ago during my days at the Delco Daily Times, including a runnerup finish in
the PIAA Championship. I can’t help but root for Conrad a little.
The western part of the state is certainly well-represented
by Nathan Smith, a four-time U.S.
Mid-Amateur champion. Smith won the Pennsylvania Golf Association’s R. Jay
Sigel Match Play championship for the fifth time this summer. He’s represented
in the United States in the Walker Cup Match three times. Guy gets the
match-play thing.
Smith will be joined in the field by his buddy and rival Sean
Knapp, who credited all his match-play confrontations with Smith with helping
him capture the U.S. Senior Amateur championship at The Minikahda Club in late
August.
There is one more player I’ll be keeping an eye on at the
Capital City Club. That would be Jeff Frazier, a left-hander from Carlisle.
I had never heard of the guy when I drew him and his partner
Brett Will for the Fall Scramble, an annual event at Stonewall. Frazier is as
good an amateur player as I’ve ever seen. He can move the ball right to left,
left to right. He loves hitting driver off the deck. Will always putted first
and when Frazier got the line, he was deadly.
He said that weekend he has played in six Mid-Ams, but was
disappointed not to make it to Stonewall. Well, he made it this year. If he
gets it going in Atlanta, I’m sure it will be a surprise to a lot of people. I
will not be surprised a little bit.
So yeah, I’m looking forward to this year’s U.S. Mid-Am …
almost as much as last year’s Mid-Am.
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