If one of the goals of junior golf is learning to play
competitive golf under all kinds of circumstances, consider the Philadelphia
Section PGA Junior Tour stop at Foxchase Golf Club in Stevens, Lancaster County
Saturday a challenging test in playing in cold weather.
There’s a pretty good chance that the 19 golfers who braved
Saturday’s brutal cold and wind will never, in the rest of their lives, play in
colder weather than they did at Foxchase. And yet many of them not only
survived, they thrived.
Calen Sanderson of Skillman, N.J. took top honors in the
13-to-15 division with a 2-over-par 74 over the 6,421-yard, par-72 Foxchase
layout. Two-over with wind chills in the 20s. Think about that. Sanderson had
back-to-back birdies on the sixth and seventh holes on his way to the victory.
Jun Lee of York was the runnerup with a 3-over 75 that
featured a birdie on the second hole. Logan Paczewski of Dallas took third with
a 76. That’s some pretty good playing by the top three in the younger boys
division in that weather.
Stephane de Brechard of Brooklyn, N.Y. finished fourth with
an 81 that included an eagle on the par-4 15th. Hamilton McNaughton
of Lancaster placed fifth with an 83, Keller Mulhern of Exton was sixth with an
86, Samuel Mitchell of Pottstown was seventh with an 87 and Henry Stone of
Kennett Square was eighth with an 88.
Grey Carta of Hummelstown finished in ninth place with a 91 and
another of the de Brechards of Brooklyn, Julien, rounded out the top 10 with a
94.
No way I’m cutting it off at the top 10 in this instance,
though. Not on a day when finishing the round was a feat in itself. And Clay
Breidenstine of Hummelstown and James DiDomenico got it to the house, finishing
11th and 12th with respective scores of 100 and 101.
In the 16-to-18 division, Stephen Lorenzo of Lower Gwynedd
and Logan Hess of Willow Street each carded a 79 with the victory going to
Lorenzo in a match of cards. Lorenzo edged Hess, a PIAA Class AAA East Regional
qualifier as a junior at Penn Manor this fall, by a shot on the back nine to
gain the tiebreaker edge.
Shaun Fedor of Lancaster and Mason Wills of Lititz, a PIAA
Class AAA Championship qualifier in his senior season at Warwick this fall, shared
third place, each carding an 81. Logan Snyder of Dover finished fifth with an
85.
The most impressive round of the day might have belonged to
Megan Adelman of Bryn Mawr, who was one of only two girls who made the trek to Lancaster
County and won the 13-to-15 title – her first of the wraparound 2017-’18 season
– with an 83. Adelman has shown steady improvement as a Junior Tour regular
throughout 2017, but an 83 in those conditions is a real bustout round.
The only other girl in the field was Alyson Rentschler, a
PIAA Class AA Championship qualifier as a junior at Hamburg this fall. Rentschler
carded a 96 to claim a win in the 16-to-18 division, her first victory in 2017.
You think those wins by Adelman and Rentschler are tainted
because they were unopposed? No, I think Mother Nature provided some pretty
stiff opposition on this day.
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