There are so many good players teeing it up when the Golf
Association of Philadelphia stages one of its major championships.
And Bala Golf Club’s Scott McNeil is one of those guys. The
32-year-old owns a victory in one of those GAP majors, the 2015 Middle-Amateur
Championship.
Wednesday, McNeil bombed his way to a 4-under-par 67 on the
classic Donald Ross design at Gulph Mills Golf Club to grab a one-shot lead
after the opening round of the 116th Joseph H. Patterson Cup.
Bolstered by a lesson from Bala pro Chris Barletta and the
presence of his favorite looper, 73-year-old Doug Havens, on the bag, McNeil
patiently got what he could out of the tricky 6,501-yard, par-71 Gulph Mills
layout.
“I had a lot of good looks that I wasn’t able to convert,”
McNeil told the GAP website. “The pins and greens are difficult. It is
difficult to make everything you look at because the greens break so much. I
got more looks than I have had recently and I don’t feel like there is a ton of
trouble off the tee for me.”
McNeil did get the first putt he looked at to fall, a
30-footer for birdie at the first. He overpowered the par-5 seventh hole,
firing a 7-iron from 166 yards away to three feet and making the putt for
eagle.
McNeil nearly drove the 317-yard, par-4 11th,
chipped to two-and-a-half feet and made the putt to get it to 4-under. After
dropping a shot with a bogey at the par-3 17th, McNeil reached the par-5
18th hole in two and two-putted for birdie.
One of the area’s top mid-amateur players, Yardley Country
Club’s Christopher Ault, a bomber like McNeil, heads the group of three players
a shot behind McNeil at 3-under 68.
Ault, who finished tied for third in the Patterson Cup a
year ago at Wilmington Country Club’s South Course, was one of four GAP players
who qualified for match play when the U.S. Mid-Amateur was played at Stonewall
in 2016.
Ault was joined at 3-under by Joe Tigani of Fieldstone Golf
Club and Campbell Wolf of Carlisle Country Club. Tigani of Hockessin, Del.
completed a solid college career at Hamilton College this spring. Wolf was the
runnerup in the 2016 PIAA Class AAA Championship as a senior at Cumberland
Valley. After taking a year off from school to recover from an injury, Wolf
will join the program at DePaul in a few weeks.
Conrad Von Borsig of the Philadelphia Cricket Club and
Blaine Lafferty of Little Mill Country Club are tied for fifth at 2-under 69.
I chronicled Von Borsig’s scholastic career at Strath Haven
in a previous life with the Delco Daily
Times. He won the 2009 BMW Philadelphia Amateur at Stonewall. Lafferty
completed a solid college career at Delaware this spring.
Two other guys who made the match-play bracket in the 2016
U.S. Mid-Am at Stonewall, Von Borsig’s Cricket Club clubmate Gregor Orlando and
Merion Golf Club’s Michael McDermott, head a group of six players tied for
seventh at 1-under 70, four shots out of the lead.
Orlando captured the BMW Philadelphia Amateur title on his
home course at the Cricket Club a year ago. McDermott, a three-time BMW
Philadelphia Amateur champion, captured the Patterson Cup in 2007 when he was
dominating the GAP scene.
Joining that formidable pair at 2-under are Peter Barron III
of Greate Bay Country Club, Nicky Marrollo, a sophomore at Eastern College who
plays out of Whitford Country Club, Marty McGuckin of RiverCrest Golf Club
& Preserve, who lost in the semifinals of this summer’s BMW Philadelphia
Amateur to eventual winner Jeremy Wall, and Temple senior Sam Soeth, who plays
out of The ACE Club.
Soeth, much like Von Borsig, was a player whose high school
career at Marple Newtown I chronicled in the Daily Times.
The Patterson Cup brings the added intrigue of being the
final two rounds in the competition for the Silver Cross Award, GAP’s
stroke-play championship. The two rounds of qualifying for match play in the
BMW Philadelphia Amateur and the two rounds of the Patterson Cup are combined
to determine the Silver Cross Award winner.
Wilmington College junior Ryan Rucinski, who plays out of
Fieldstone, matched par with a 71 Wednesday and leads the Silver Cross scoring
at 2-under 212. Rucinski was the qualifying medalist in the BMW Philadelphia
Amateur at Whitemarsh Valley Country Club.
Carlisle Country Club’s Wolf is a shot behind Rucinski at
213 and the Cricket Club’s Orlando is another shot behind Wolf at 214.
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