Jackson conquers Sheehan again in final of R. Jay Sigel Match Play Championship

    I knew I was watching a couple of future stars when I followed the final group in the 2018 PIAA Class AAA Championship at the Heritage Hills Golf Resort.

   Patrick Sheehan, who had won the District One Class AAA crown as a senior at Central Bucks East a few weeks earlier, and Palmer Jackson, a senior at Franklin Regional who was playing in the state championship for a fourth time, shared the lead following the opening round at Heritage Hills.

   Jackson went on a scintillating run of six birdies in seven holes from the fourth to the 10^th holes at Heritage Hills to become the first state champion in the history of Franklin Regional. Sheehan made a little bit of a run with four straight birdies on the back nine, but settled for a tie for third place.

   Jackson, playing out of Hannastown Golf Club, and Sheehan, representing Talamore Country Club, met again last week in the final of the Pennsylvania Golf Association’s 18^th R. Jay Sigel Match Play Championship, presented by Dick’s Sporting Goods, at Sewickley Heights Golf Club in the Pittsburgh suburbs. And Jackson used a similar birdie burst to claim a hard-fought 2 and 1 decision.

   Sheehan, coming off a solid sophomore spring at Penn State, evened the match when he won the seventh hole. But Jackson, coming off an ultimately disappointing sophomore season at Notre Dame, grabbed a 3-up lead by winning the ninth, 10^th and 11^th holes with birdies.

   Sheehan cut into the lead by winning the 13^th hole, but Jackson restored his 3-up advantage by taking the 15^th hole with a par.

   Sheehan wasn’t going quietly, though, as he rammed home a 25-footer for birdie at the 16^th hole to keep the match alive and forced Jackson to match his birdie at the 17^th hole to finally put Sheehan away.

   “Patrick is a great player,” Jackson told the PAGA website. “I played with him in the state championship in high school and I knew he was going to be a great player. I am fortunate to have had enough to win today.”

   A little less than a year after that PIAA Championship at Heritage Hills, I was watching Jackson on television playing in the quarterfinals of the 2019 U.S. Amateur at the Pinehurst Resort & Golf Club in Pinehurst Village, N.C.

   He headed for Notre Dame for the fall portion of the ill-fated 2019-2020 season and the Fighting Irish had the best stretch of golf in the history of the program. They were No. 20 in the Golfstat rankings when the coronavirus shut down college golf in the spring of 2020.

   Notre Dame was unable to recapture the magic of the fall of 2019 as the Fighting Irish were not allowed to compete in the fall of 2020. Still, they were seeded fifth in the NCAA Stillwater Regional last month at the Karsten Creek Golf Club. Notre Dame just couldn’t get it going and failed to advance to the NCAA Championship, although Jackson was solid, finishing in a tie for 12^th place in the individual standings.

   Sheehan had just broken into the starting lineup at Penn State as a freshman when the pandemic shut down college golf. The Big Ten, as the Atlantic Coast Conference did with Notre Dame, would not allow the Nittany Lions to compete in the fall of 2020 with the pandemic continuing to rage out of control.

   But Sheehan solidified his spot in the Penn State lineup with a tie for second place in the Rutherford Intercollegiate, hosted by the Nittany Lions at the Penn State Blue Course this spring. Penn State was unable to earn an NCAA regional bid, but by the end of the spring, it was apparent that Sheehan will be a leading man for Greg Nye’s program this fall.

   The stage for the final at Sewickley Heights was set by a couple of terrific semifinal matches as Sheehan defeated Mark Goetz, another Hannastown representative, 3 and 1, and Jackson took out six-time R. Jay Sigel Match Play winner Nathan Smith of Pinecrest Country Club with a hard-fought 2 and 1 decision.

   Goetz, a Kiski School product, capped his senior season at West Virginia by finishing second in the individual chase in the Noblesville Regional at The Sagamore Club, coming up just short of a trip to the NCAA Championship as an individual.

   Sheehan surged in front of Goetz with wins at the fifth, sixth and eighth holes. Goetz twice cut his deficit to 1-down, the last time with a win on the 15^th hole, but Sheehan closed him out with wins at the 16^th and 17^th holes.

   Smith, a four-time U.S. Mid-Amateur champion and three times a member of the U.S. Walker Cup side, is very simply one of the best match-play competitors you can find.

    Jackson put a nose in front of Smith by winning the 11^th and 13^th holes to turn a 1-down deficit into a 1-up advantage. Smith evened the match by winning the 14^th hole, but Jackson used wins at the 15^th and 17^th holes to close out his fellow PIAA champion. Smith was the state champion in 1994 as a sophomore at Brookville.

    Jackson reached the semifinals with a 2 and 1 decision over Grant Gronka of Glenmaura National Golf Club, Smith claimed a 1-up decision over Tanner Grzegorczyk of Wildwood Golf Club in his quarterfinal match, Sheehan pulled out a 1-up decision over Kevin Koerbel of the Longue Vue Club and Goetz booked his semifinal date with Sheehan by edging Paul Ajak III of Connoquenessing Country Club on the 19^th hole.

   A couple of Philadelphia area players who advanced to the match-play bracket, Dawson Anders, playing out of Indian Valley Country Club, and Merion Golf Club’s Peter Bradbeer (the medalist in qualifying for match-play as the BMW Philadelphia Amateur teed off Monday, but that will be a whole other post), were first-round victims at Sewickley Heights.

   Anders, who starred scholastically at Souderton and was the 2017 Golf Association of Philadelphia’s Junior Boys’ champion in 2017, fell to Ajak, 2 and 1. Anders was coming off a solid senior season for Brian Quinn’s Temple Owls.

   Bradbeer was briefly a Temple teammate of Anders this spring, taking the extra year of eligibility offered by the NCAA to make up for the spring of 2020 lost to the pandemic with the Owls after starring at Bucknell for four years. Bradbeer was edged by Koerbel, 1-up, in the opening round of the R. Jay Sigel Match Play.

   Sheehan announced his intentions at Sewickley Heights in the opening round of a double round of qualifying for match play June 8^th with this start: Birdie, eagle, birdie, birdie, birdie. The guy was 6-under through five holes. He did make a bogey at the eighth hole, but made birdies at 11, 14 and 18 to complete a fairly spectacular 8-under 64.

   Sheehan added a 3-under 69 in the afternoon round of qualifying to claim medalist honors with an 11-under 133 total.

   Smith opened with a 6-under 66 before adding a 4-under 68 in the afternoon to finish a shot behind Sheehan in second place at 10-under 134.

   The ultimate four semifinalists finished among the top four in qualifying as Jackson, who added a 69 to his opening-round of 4-under 68, and Goetz, who added a 70 to his opening round of 5-under 67, shared third place, each landing on 7-under 137.