If you were paying attention to the junior golf scene for the last five years or so, you saw this coming.
The Barbin gang coming out of Elkton, Md. kept popping up on leaderboards from the Philadelphia Section PGA Junior Tour and eventually starting to graduate to national events like the U.S. Junior Amateur.
Somebody got the idea to get the Barbins into the Golf Association of Philadelphia events by joining Loch Nairn Golf Club, the public course off Route 1 in Chester County’s Toughkenamon, New Garden Township.
Both Zach Barbin and younger brother Austin earned spots in the elite 32-man match-play bracket in last summer’s BMW Philadelphia Amateur Championship at Stonewall’s Old and North Courses, young Austin firing an eye-opening 5-under-par 65 on the North Course in the afternoon.
Zach Barbin finished in a tie for second place that day and that scintillating afternoon round left Austin in a tie for sixth.
That turned out to be the beginning of a red-hot stretch of junior golf for Austin Barbin, who would win the Golf Association of Philadelphia’s Junior Boys’ Championship and the Christman Cup on his way to GAP Junior Player of the Year honors.
This summer, however, has belonged to Zach Barbin, a junior on a Liberty golf team that is a player on the national scene in Division I.
Wednesday, Zach Barbin earned his way into a four-hole aggregate playoff with Pine Valley Golf Club’s Jeff Osberg, winner of six GAP major crowns and a perennial contender whenever there is a GAP major trophy on the line, and Philadelphia Cricket Club’s Gregor Orlando, the 2017 Philadelphia Amateur champion on his home course, in the 118th Joseph H. Patterson Cup at The 1912 Club.
Zach Barbin had already secured his first GAP major championship earlier this summer when he defeated former Saint Joseph’s standout Michael O’Brien in the final to capture the Philadelphia Amateur crown at Lancaster Country Club.
By the time Osberg saw a two-foot par putt lip out on the final hole of the playoff, the 450-yard, par-4 18th hole at the William Flynn design that used to be known as Plymouth Country Club, Zach Barbin was a two-time GAP major winner. He is the first player to sweep Philadelphia Amateur and Patterson Cup victories in the same year since Overbrook Golf Club’s James Kania Sr. did it in 1995.
“To say you are going to win the Philly Amateur and Patterson Cup (in the same year), that’s ridiculous,” Zach Barbin told the GAP website. “I came in second in stroke-play qualifying for the Amateur at Stonewall in 2019 and that was kind of the point I realized I could actually play with these guys. I still can’t believe (I won). I’m pretty stunned.”
The Patterson Cup was originally scheduled to be contested at Laurel Creek Country Club in Mount Laurel, N.J. But New Jersey’s insistence that visitors from Delaware quarantine for 14 days forced GAP officials to move the tournament.
The Philadelphia Open, originally scheduled to be played at Galloway National Golf Club at the Jersey Shore, had to be postponed on short notice for the same reason and has yet to be rescheduled.
The Patterson Cup, normally a 36-hole stroke-play event, was then going to be played at The 1912 Club and The Ace Club, which is also in Plymouth Township.
But in 2020, nothing seems to go according to plan, even when you’re already on Plan B. Enter Tropical Storm Isaias, which wreaked havoc on the region Tuesday and forced GAP officials to make the Patterson Cup an 18-hole event, all at The 1912 Club.
None of this had any effect on the region’s top golfers wanting to compete in a high-level event. The field that showed up Wednesday was the cream of the GAP crop.
Zach Barbin and Osberg, the defending champion who was looking for a fourth Patterson Cup win, could have won the title outright with a par at the 18th hole, but each made a bogey to finish with a 3-under 67. Orlando played the back nine of the 6,710-yard, par-70 1912 Club layout in 2-under to elbow his way into the playoff.
Osberg parred the first hole of the playoff, The 1912 Club’s 480-yard, par-4 opening hole, while Zach Barbin and Orlando made bogeys. All three players birdied the 390-yard, par-4 ninth hole and Osberg still had a one-shot edge on his fellow playoff participants.
There was plenty of drama on the 460-yard, par-4 10th hole as Zach Barbin drained an improbable big-breaking 35-footer for birdie and Osberg had to hole a chip from 30 feet away for a par that left Zach Barbin and Osberg tied with one hole to go.
Osberg hit a 6-iron into the 450-yard, par-4 18th hole and his ball spun off the front of the green, 35 feet from the hole. Zach Barbin launched a pitching wedge over a tree from 157 yards away to 20 feet. Osberg putted through the fringe and got his ball to stop two feet away. Zach Barbin was a little too aggressive and left himself a testy four-footer for par.
Zach Barbin got his putt to fall and it looked like it was going to be sudden death once Osberg cleaned up his two-footer for par. But there are no gimmes at this level and the lip spit out Osberg’s putt and Zach Barbin was the winner.
A couple of Temple players, past and present, and current clubmates at Huntingdon Valley Country Club, Andrew Mason and Conor McGrath, were two of the four players who came up a shot short of joining the playoff, each carding a 2-under 68.
Mason swept to Philadelphia Open and Patterson Cup victories in 2011 and added another Philly Open win in 2012. McGrath is a junior at Temple and had a little built-in advantage at The 1912 Club in that his coach, Brian Quinn, brought the course a couple of years ago, renamed it, made some changes and turned it into a headquarters for his Owls.
Lafayette junior Ryan Tall, a former Conestoga standout who plays out of Spring-Ford Country Club, was also part of the foursome tied for fourth place at 2-under. Tall was the 2018 GAP Junior Boys’ champion.
La Salle junior Parker Wine, who starred scholastically at Unionville, had a couple of eagles on his scorecard to round out the quartet that landed on 68. Wine plays out of Radley Run Country Club.
Another player out of the Cricket Club’s deep stable of talent, former Malvern Prep standout Marty McGuckin, shared eighth place with Monmouth senior and former North Penn star Rob Robinson, who plays out of Commonwealth National Golf Club, and Drexel head coach Ben Feld, who plays out of Green Valley Country Club, each posting a 1-under 69.
There were eight players who matched par and finished in a tie for 11th place, including a familiar name, Maryland sophomore Austin Barbin, who finished three shots behind big brother Zach Barbin in the battle for low-Barbin honors.
Another Cricket Club representative, 2009 Philadelphia Amateur champion Conrad Von Borsig, also landed on even-par.
A couple of Penn State players, sophomore Patrick Sheehan, playing out of Talamore Country Club, and senior Lukas Clark, playing out of Galloway National, also were in the group tied for 11th place. Sheehan was the 2018 District One Class AAA champion as a senior at Central Bucks East. Clark starred scholastically at Council Rock South.
Rounding out the group tied at even-par 70 were LedgeRock Golf Club’s Grant Skyllas, the runnerup to Orlando in the 2017 Philly Amateur, Trenton Country Club’s Ambrose Abbracciamento, Tanglewood Manor Golf Club’s Connor Sheehan and Merion Golf Club’s Patrick Knott.
Osberg and Zach Barbin have not seen the last of each other. The pair will meet in an 18-hole playoff to determine the winner of the Silver Cross, which goes to GAP’s stroke-play champion.
The Silver Cross is usually a 72-hole contest with the scores from 36 holes of qualifying for the Philadelphia Amateur combined with the 36 holes of the Patterson Cup. But in the crazy coronavirus summer of 2020, the Philly Amateur qualifying was reduced to 18 holes and the Patterson Cup, thanks to Tropical Storm Isaias, was only 18 holes.
Osberg, who has won the Silver Cross four times, and Zach Barbin each carded an even-par 70 at Lancaster and each returned a 3-under 67 in the Patterson Cup.
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