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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