Johnson's 66 at Merion's East Course gives him a one-shot lead following opening round of Pennsylvania Amateur

    The 40^th anniversary of my last loop at Merion Golf Club’s historic East Course passed at some point last month as it came in the second round of the 1981 U.S. Open when the run for Scioto Country Club assistant pro Jay Cudd and his faithful caddy ended with a missed cut.

   Thought maybe the 50^th anniversary of the 1971 U.S. Open at Merion might be observed during the coverage of this year’s Open at Torrey Pines. Maybe it was and I didn’t see it. But I was there for that, too, a forecaddie at age 16 on the sixth hole and, yeah, I brown-nosed my way into the playoff between Lee Trevino and Jack Nicklaus and worked the even holes.

   It’s why there was a buzz in amateur golf circles in Pennsylvania in 2021 because, for the first time since 1986, the Pennsylvania Golf Association’s 108^th Amateur Championship would be staged on the Hugh Wilson gem shoehorned impossibly into a corner of the Ardmore section of Haverford Township. The Pennsylvania Amateur is presented by Dick’s Sporting Goods.

   The great thing about the East Course – and over the years I’ve come to believe that the course’s first greenkeeper, one William Flynn, had as much to do with the final product as Wilson did – is that you can make birdies on it.

   The East played to 6,650 yards and its traditional par of 70 for Monday’s opening round and Tanner Johnson, playing out of Nemacolin Country Club, birdied the first three holes he played, the par-4 11^th – the hole on which Bobby Jones completed the old Grand Slam by clinching the 1930 U.S. Amateur victory – the par-4 12^th and the little par-3 13^th that comes back to clubhouse.

   Johnson was on his way to a sparkling 4-under 66 that gave him a one-shot lead over Lehigh assistant golf coach Billy Johns, playing out of Middletown Country Club, and recent Carlisle graduate John Peters, winner of the Pennsylvania Junior Boys’ Championship in 2020.

   Johnson, a product of Peters Township who will play an extra year at Ohio University, would have four more birdies in his round for a total of seven in grabbing the lead following the opening round.

   He made bogeys at the tough par-3 17^th hole and the iconic par-4 finishing hole to fall back to 1-under for the day. Birdies at the par-5 second hole and the par-4 fifth hole, the toughest hole on the golf course, got him back to 3-under. After falling back to 2-under with a bogey at the short, par-4 seventh hole, Johnson finished with a flourish, making birdies at two of his last three holes, eight and 10, both short par-4s.

   Johnson, who had never seen the golf course until playing a practice round 10 days ago, is coming off a victory in last month’s Western Pennsylvania Amateur Championship at Indiana Country Club.

   Johns, who was a standout at Lehigh before returning as an assistant coach, had a steady tour of the East Course. Johns also started off the 11^th tee and made a birdie at the par-4 16^th hole and then a bogey at the par-3 17^th. Birdies at the sixth, eighth and 10^th holes got him to 3-under, a shot behind Johnson.

   Peters, who will join the program at Atlantic Coast Conference power Duke next month, capped an outstanding scholastic career at Carlisle with a third trip to the PIAA Class AAA Championship at the Heritage Hills Golf Resort in York County last fall.

   Peters had a couple of birdie bursts during his round. Starting off the first tee, Peters made birdies at the par-3 third, the par-5 fourth and the par-4 sixth holes to quickly get it to 3-under. Back-to-back bogeys at the seventh and eighth holes, both tricky little par-4s, dropped Peters back to 1-under for the round.

   Birdies at the 12^th, 13^th and 17^th holes – the twos at 13 and 17 gave him three birdies on the East Course’s four par-3s – briefly gave  him a share of the lead at 4-under before he closed with a bogey at the tough par-4 finishing hole.

   A heavyweight foursome, including two Merion members, is lurking two shots behind Johns and Peters in a tie for fourth place, each posting a solid 1-under 69.

   Pretty sure John Sawin basically runs the Pebble Beach Resorts these days, but the one-time Haverford School standout couldn’t pass up a trip home to play in the Pennsylvania Amateur, which he won in 2014. He has maintained his Merion membership, despite spending most of his time on the West Coast.

   Joining Sawin at 1-under was Merion’s Peter Bradbeer, a four-year standout at Bucknell who spent part of the spring season on the Temple golf team, using the extra of eligibility offered by the NCAA due to the coronavirus pandemic. After winning medalist honors in qualifying for match play in the BMW Philadelphia Amateur Championship at Cedarbrook Country Club last month, Bradbeer indicated he is seriously considering taking a shot at professional golf before this year is over.

   Defending champion Michael R. Brown Jr. of LuLu Country Club was also among the group tied for fourth place at 1-under. For the moment Brown is the reigning amateur champion in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, having recently added victories in the Garden Stare and the First State to the Pennsylvania crown he won last summer at Lookaway Golf Club.

   Rounding out the foursome at 1-under was reigning Pennsylvania Open champion Jimmy Ellis, who is playing out of South Hills Country Club. Meyers, like Johnson a Peters Township product, won the Pennsylvania Open at Oakmont Country Club last summer by matching par in three straight rounds. Meyers obviously thrives on golf courses where par is still very much of value.

   Speaking of Oakmont, Penn State junior Patrick Sheehan, who plays out of Talamore Country Club, is headed to the Henry Fownes classic in suburban Pittsburgh for next month’s U.S. Amateur after claiming medalist honors in a Golf Association of Philadelphia-administered local qualifier at stormy Sunnybrook Golf Club last week. There’s a post coming with some details on that. What can I say, it’s been a busy couple of weeks on the golf scene.

   Sheehan matched par at the East Course Monday with a 70 and was in a tie for eighth place with Northampton Country Club’s Zachary Juhasz, who nearly won a Philadelphia Section PGA event last week when he lost in a playoff in the GALV Lehigh Valley Open on his home course at Northampton, another post I have yet to get together.

   Eight more players were tied for 10^th place at 1-over 71, including another formidable Merion member, 2010 Pennsylvania Amateur champion Michael McDermott.

   It’s been five years since McDermott won the last of his three BMW Philadelphia Amateur titles in an epic 36-hole final with Jeff Osberg and later reached the quarterfinals of the U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship at Stonewall. McDermott has not been as active on the local amateur scene the last couple of years, but you fall asleep on the guy at your peril, especially at Merion.

   Another strong contender in the group at 1-over was Nate Menon, the 2015 PIAA Class AA champion at Wyomissing who is playing out of LedgeRock Golf Club. Menon, who will play a fifth year at Stanford, was the medalist in another GAP-administered U.S. Amateur qualifier at Hartefeld National Golf Club last week.

   Not surprisingly Merion’s second team led Merion’s first team by two shots in the team competition.

   Bradbeer’s 69 and McDermott’s 71 gave Merion 2 an even-par 140 total in the three-score-two format. Merion 2 tossed a 79 by former Haverford School and Brown standout Nelson Hargrove. Pretty nice second team, huh?

   Sawin and his old Haverford School buddy, Tug Maude, gave Merion’s first team a 2-over 142 as Maude added a 73 to Sawin’s 69. Merion tossed a 74 posted by recently reinstated amateur Cole Willcox, who teed it up in the 2005 U.S. Amateur at Merion. Maude and Sawin teamed up to reach the round of 16 in the 2018 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship at the Jupiter Hills Club in Tequesta, Fla.

   The field will be cut following Tuesday’s second round. Might have to sneak down to my old stomping grounds and do a little live-blogging from Wednesday’s final round.