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Thursday, October 10, 2019

Isztwan and Harvard teammate Patel punch their ticket to U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship at the Cricket Club


   With the U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship being staged in 2020 at Philadelphia Cricket Club, local players are doing their best to find a way to get into the field.
   Former Penn Charter standout and Huntingdon Valley Country Club member Brian Isztwan enlisted his Harvard teammate, Rij Patel, to join forces with him in a qualifier held Oct. 2 at Foxborough Country Club in Foxborough, Mass.
   And, not surprisingly, the Harvard teammates proved to be a pretty good team in a better-ball setting. Isztwan, a sophomore, and Patel, a senior, fired a better-ball 6-under-par 66 at Foxborough to claim medalist honors and punch their ticket to next year’s U.S. Amateur Four-Ball, which tees off May 23 at the Cricket Club’s twin courses in Whitemarsh Township.
   Pretty sure teams will play 18 holes each on the classic A.W. Tillinghast Wissahickon Course and on the newer Militia Hill layout, a more modern Michael Hurdzan-Dana Fry design that is a pretty solid course in its own right. Match play will probably be contested over the Wissahickon Course that played host to the 2016 Senior Players Championship and drew rave reviews from the PGA Tour Champions players teeing it up in one of their major championships.
   The U.S. Four-Ball has quickly become a popular event among amateur golfers since it made its debut in 2015. It has also become a tough event to qualify for.
   But Isztwan and Patel of Hunt Valley, Md. got the job done with the typical team effort that is required in these four-ball events. Playing late in the day, Iztwan and Patel both birdied the first hole. Patel made birdies at the fourth and seventh holes before the duo had to use a bogey by Isztwan on the eighth hole.
   The setback proved temporary, however, as Isztwan, the low amateur in the Pennsylvania Open at Waynesborough Country Club in the summer, went on a birdie binge, making birdies at the ninth, 11th and 17th holes to get the team to 5-under. Patel got a crucial final birdie at the last that put Team Harvard alone atop the leaderboard.
   Only two tickets to the Cricket Club were available at Foxborough and seven teams finished in a tie for second at 5-under, necessitating a 7-for-1 playoff. With daylight quickly waning, the playoff was actually held the following day.
   The other spot in the U.S. Four-Ball field went to Boston College teammates Christian Cavaliere of Katanah, N.Y. and Marc Webster of Baltimore.
   It’s the second time Cavaliere has popped up on the blog in the last two weeks because a day before the U.S. Four-Ball qualifier, he finished lighting up a tough White Manor Country Club layout to win the individual title  in the Wildcat Fall Invitational by a whopping nine shots. The guy put together back-to-back 7-under 64s in the final two rounds at White Manor.
   Cavaliere and Webster birdied the first hole of the playoff, leaving just them and the pair of Zach Garbacik of Newton, Mass. and Samuel Russell of Boston as the only two duos still alive. A par on the second hole of the playoff gave Cavaliere and Webster the final spot from the qualifier to the Cricket Club.
  The Garbacik and Russell team is the first alternate.
   The second alternate was the pair of Matt Parziale, the Brockton, Mass. firefighter who claimed the 2017 U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship, and Herbie Aikens of Kingston, Mass.
   Parziale and Aikens reached the quarterfinals of this year’s U.S. Four-Ball, which was held at the Bandon Dunes Resort in Oregon. Parziale and Aikens were ousted by the team of Vince Kwon, a clubmate of Isztwan’s at Huntingdon Valley, and Kwon’s fellow Marlton, N.J. resident Troy Vannucci, who plays out of Little Mill Country Club.
   The run to the semifinals by Kwon, who has been known to wear at caddy bib at the Cricket Club, and Vannucci earned them an exemption into the 2020 U.S. Four-Ball at the Cricket Club.
   Earlier this week, the Golf Association Philadelphia administered another U.S. Four-Ball qualifier at Chambersburg Country Club.
   With birdies as rain came down on the first hole of a three-team playoff for the only two tickets to the Cricket Club available, the teams of Adam Hofmann of Jacksonville, Fla. and Malcolm Spatz of Pittsburgh and Grayson Wotnosky of Wake Forest, N.C. and Christopher Zhang of Blacksburg, Va. got the job done.
   The two teams finished in a tie atop the leaderboard with Nicholas Barrett and Connor Flach of Ellicott City, Md., each duo carding an 8-under 65 over the 6,720-yard, par-73 Chambersburg layout.
   The 30-year-old Hofmann, the 2007 Pennsylvania Amateur champion, and the 38-year-old Spatz both learned the game growing up at Oakmont Country Club outside Pittsburgh. Hofmann’s drive on the first playoff hole, the 392-yard, par-4 first hole at Chambersburg, found a fairway bunker, but he drilled a 9-iron to 12 feet and converted the birdie try.
   While Hofmann has teed it up in USGA championships in the past, Spatz will be making his debut on the national stage at the Cricket Club.
   “I’ve played in qualifiers off and on for the past 20 years or so,” Spatz told the GAP website. “I’ve had some close calls. Now it just feels so good knowing that I will finally be in one.”
   Wotnosky, who will join the Virginia program next summer, and Zhang, who is headed for Northwestern, are junior rivals turned partners. Zhang’s approach on the first hole of the playoff finished six feet from the hole and he dropped the birdie putt to put the two youngsters in the field at the Cricket Club.
   Wotnosky’s 60-foot birdie putt on the par-3 seventh hole highlighted he and Zhang’s eight-birdie, no-bogey regulation round.
   Barrett and Flach had to settle for first-alternate status. The duo of Bryce Johnson of Oakton, Va. and Jeffrey Long of Ashburn, Va. carded a 7-under 66 and were the second alternate.
   Three other local pairs earned spots in the field at the Cricket Club in another GAP-administered qualifier month at Old York Road Country Club and yes, I did a post on it at the time.
   The medalists at Old York Road was the Cricket Club pair of Matthew Kocent and Robbie Walizer, so you know they’ll have plenty of support from their clubmates.
   Also earning spots in the Cricket Club field at Old York Road were the LuLu Country Club pair of Jon Rusk and James Sullivan and Harriton senior Andrew Wallace and Brett Benner. Wallace finished in a tie for fourth in the District One Class AAA Championship this week at Turtle Creek Golf Club.





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