Mason, Wall will battle it out for BMW Philadelphia Amateur title

   Now that Andrew Mason has resumed his amateur career, it seems to be a good time to fill in one of the few missing items on his local amateur resume.

   After surviving a 21-hole marathon with Aronimink Golf Club’s Michael Davis in Thursday morning’s quarterfinals, Huntingdon Valley Country Club’s Mason claimed a 3 and 2 victory over Spring-Ford Country Club’s Ryan Tall, a recent Conestoga High graduate, to reach the final of the BMW Philadelphia Amateur Championship at Whitemarsh Valley Country Club.

   Mason’s opponent in Saturday’s scheduled 36-hole final at the 6,789-yard, par-72 Whitemarsh Valley layout will be Manasquan River Golf Club’s Jeremy Wall, who recently completed his college career at Loyola of Maryland.

   Wall absolutely dismantled the reigning Philadelphia Open and Met Amateur champion Matt Mattare of Saucon Valley Country Club in a stunner of an 8 and 7 victory in the quarterfinals before getting past Marty McGuckin, a former Malvern Prep standout out of RiverCrest Golf Club & Preserve, with a 4 and 3 decision in the semifinals.

   Mason, a former Temple standout, was the best amateur golfer in Pennsylvania in 2011 and 2012. He won back-to-back Philadelphia Open and Pennsylvania Amateur crowns in those two years and threw in a Patterson Cup victory as well in 2011 when he was the Golf Association of Philadelphia’s William Hyndman III Player of the Year.

   Mason decided to turn pro and well, you know, it is a measure of how difficult the professional golf thing is that a guy as good as Mason can’t quite make it happen. The 29-year-old Mason regained his amateur status last year and here he is, battling for a chance to add his name to the J. Wood Platt Trophy.

   “I wasn’t expecting to be here by any stretch of the imagination,” Mason told the GAP website. “It’s been fun. There have been a few other Huntingdon Valley members to have won it here and some other great players to win at Whitemarsh, like Michael McDermott.  It would be nice to add my name to that list.”

   There is always at least one match in the wild and crazy four-matches-in-two-days Philly Am schedule like the one Mason survived against Davis, the 2015 Philly Am runnerup to his Inter-Ac League rival Cole Berman at Llanerch Country Club who recently completed an outstanding career at Princeton.

   Seven springs ago I was at White Manor Country Club for the last Bert Linton Inter-Ac League Championship held in the spring and Davis, a freshman at Malvern Prep, birdied the last three holes to capture the title. He’s always been a good player.

   Davis was 2-down to Mason with three holes to play when he rolled in a long birdie putt at 16 and took a conceded birdie at 17 when Mason made a bit of a mess of the hole.

   The match went to the 21^st hole when neither player drove it well. But Mason ultimately got the job done with an approach to six feet and a par putt that won the hole. Survive and advance. It’s the name of the game in the Philadelphia Amateur.

   There is nothing worse in match play than to catch a good player who gets on a roll. Such was the fate of Mattare, the reigning GAP William Hyndman III Player of the Year. Wall holed out from a greenside bunker for birdie on the second hole and went off.

   He birdied the next two holes and the ninth and it was over by 11^th hole. Wall was 4-under through 11.

   Mason’s surprise semifinal opponent was Tall, who won the Central League title as a junior and finished third at Turtle Creek last fall. Tall, who is headed for Lafayette, cruised to a 5 and 4 win over Peter Barron III of Greate Bay Country Club in his morning quarterfinal match.

   Mason took control of the match by winning seven, eight and 10 with pars to take a 3-up lead. Tall battled back by winning the par-5 11^th with a birdie, but Mason restored his 3-up lead by taking the par-3 12^th with a par.

   It was really a tremendous showing for Tall and a testament to the outstanding junior program that  head pro Rich Steinmetz has going at Spring-Ford.

   There was another Bert Linton Inter-Ac League champion from Malvern Prep in the final eight in McGuckin, who won the title as a senior in the fall of 2015. He battled past Drexel golf coach Ben Feld, another Huntingdon Valley guy, 2 and 1, to earn a semifinal meeting with Wall.

   Wall’s younger brother Jack, the last of the four Wall brothers to star at Christian Brothers Academy in Monmouth County, made some noise this spring by finishing just two shots shy of a trip to the U.S. Open in a strong showing in the sectional qualifier at Canoe Brook Country Club in Summit, N.J. Jack Wall, who still has a year of high school left, has committed to play college golf at South Carolina.

   But it turned out that U.S. Open week belonged to big brother Jeremy and McGuckin couldn’t quite cool him off in their semifinal match.

   Wall had a 2-up lead after they halved the seventh with bogeys. Wall then ripped off eight straight pars, the last at the 15^th to finish off his 4 and 3 victory.