There are so many good players at Overbrook Golf Club, you
sometimes forget about Oscar Mestre.
The 58-year-old Newtown Square resident found a swing
thought in a quick practice session at Overbrook after struggling to an 82 in
the U.S. Senior Open qualifier at Indian Valley Country Club Monday.
It worked well enough to enable Mestre to put together a
1-under-par 70 over the 6,563-yard, par-71 Commonwealth National Golf Club
layout Wednesday and earn a three-shot victory in the Golf Association of
Philadelphia’s Frank H. Chapman Memorial Cup (Gross), his first individual win
in a GAP senior event.
One of Mestre’s fellow Overbrook senior standouts who has
made a habit of hoarding GAP senior trophies over the years, Ray Thompson, was
one of four players who finished tied for second at 2-over 73.
Glenn Smeraglio of LuLu Country Club, who captured the first
GAP senior major of the season in the Warner Cup at Concord Country Club, was
also in group tied for second at 73. Two members of Little Mill Country Club’s
talented bunch, Thomas Hyland and Joseph Roeder, rounded out the foursome tied
for second.
Mestre’s round began quietly enough as he hit a 9-iron to
three feet at the 142-yard, par-3 fourth and converted the birdie. Another
9-iron from a bunker 145 yards away at the par-5 11th finished 12
feet from the hole and he made the putt to get it to 2-under.
But he yanked a short par putt for bogey at the 12th
and had trouble putting it behind him. His ball twice caromed off trees on the
par-4 13th and he had to gather himself enough to save double bogey.
Despite those two disastrous holes, he was still only 1-over.
Back-to-back birdies at 14 and 15 – 7-irons in both cases,
to 12 feet on 14 and eight feet on 15 – righted the ship. A bogey at the par-3
16th dropped Mestre back to even-par, but a wedge from 100 yards
finished six feet from the hole on 17 and he converted the birdie try to get
back under par.
Four more players – Joe Campisano of Five Ponds Golf Club,
Joseph Russo of Running Deer Golf Club, Alan Wagenschnur of Loch Nairn Golf
Club and Steven Walczak of Wilmington Country Club – were another shot behind
the quartet tied for second as each posted a 3-over 74.
Another foursome rounded out the top 10 as they finished
tied for 10th at 4-over 75. Included in that group were Brian Corbett
of the Country Club of Scranton, Gary Daniels of Applebrook Golf Club, Craig Kliewer
of Honeybrook Golf Club and David West of the Philadelphia Publinks Golf
Association.
Another longtime fixture on the GAP senior circuit, Lookaway
Golf Club’s Roc Irey, earned his first GAP individual title by winning the
Chapman Cup Super-Senior division with a 1-under 70 over a Commonwealth
National layout that played to 6,071 yards for the older guys.
More unbelievable than the fact that it was the first
individual win for the 65-year-old Irey was the circumstances under which he
did it. You see, Irey has had two surgeries for prostate cancer in the last
four months and recently found out he’ll have to undergo radiation therapy,
which starts in two months.
So what does the guy do? Goes out and shoots 1-under and
beats Buck Jones, a Philadelphia Publinks entry, by a shot. Jones, the winner
of the Super-Senior Silver Cross Award last year, matched par with his 71.
“What else can you do? You go out and play golf,” Irey, a Furlong
resident, told the GAP website. “The doctors have told me to take it easy and
not to pick up a club at times. But I come out here and play with my buddies.
In the Warner Cup, I wasn’t allowed to play, but I came out anyway. I was just
chipping and bumping the ball around. That’s all.”
Yeah, he chipped and bumped it to a 4-over 75 at Concord to
finish tied for second.
An original member for four years when Commonwealth National
first opened in 1990, Irey used his local knowledge to hit 17 greens in
regulation.
Irey was 1-over for his round when he hit an 8-iron to 20
feet on the 159-yard, par-3 16th and saw the birdie putt drop and
then wedged his approach from 80 yards away at the short par-4 17th
to eight feet and knocked that putt in to get it in red figures. A winner? I’d
say so, on quite a few levels.
A couple of other tough customers in the deep GAP Super-Senior
division, Rolling Green Golf Club’s Robert Billings and Saucon Valley Country
Club’s Robin McCool shared third place, each posting a 2-over 73.
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