Blickle's birdie on the fourth hole of a playoff beats Osberg and gives him a Pennsylvania Open victory at the Cricket Club

    WHITEMARSH – Alex Blickle’s residence is listed as Reinholds, but that’s not really where he’s living these days.

   “This summer, at least, I’m living in an Airbnb off the seventh fairway at LedgeRock,” Blickle said moments after outlasting the Philadelphia area’s top mid-amateur, Jeff Osberg, on the fourth hole of a playoff to win the Pennsylvania Golf Association’s 105^th Open Championship, presented by Dick’s Sporting goods, Thursday in unrelenting heat on an unrelentingly classic of a golf course in Philadelphia Cricket Club’s Wissahickon Course. “I play a lot of money games against a lot of good players there. They’re great guys and they keep me sharp.”

   The 29-year-old Blickle has been a professional golfer for five years, chasing his dream on mini-tours and state Opens. For a few weeks this summer, he feels like he’s getting somewhere. He won a mini-tour event earlier this summer in Indiana. And now this … a Pennsylvania Open victory and the oversized $8,000 check that went with it.

   “This validates that feeling I have that I’m starting to become a pretty good player,” said Blickle, who drilled a spectacular 7-iron from 206 yards away to two feet on the fourth hole of the playoff, the uphill 424-yard first hole. “This is where I learned how to play, in Philly and Pennsylvania stuff. I didn’t play high school golf, it wasn’t until I started to play in stuff like this that I went, ‘Hey, I might be pretty good at this.’”

   Blickle, who spent a good part of 2019 hanging out at the Cricket Club, wearing a caddy bib, certainly matched the moment on two different occasions Thursday. He came to the final hole of regulation knowing he was one shot out of the lead, which was held by Osberg, playing in the group behind him.

   “I asked my dad where I stood and he said I was a shot behind, but it’s not like you can go overboard trying to make birdie on that hole,” Blickle said of the sweeping 487-yard, downhill par-4 finishing hole at the Wissahickon Course. “We just wanted to get something on the green and hopefully get a chance to make birdie. At least make a par because the hole is so hard, par might have been good enough. too.”

   Blickle’s pitching wedge from 160 yards finished 12 feet from the hole and he drained the downhill slider for birdie that enabled him to complete a 1-over-par 71 in the final round that gave him a 54-hole total of even-par 210.

   “I was more worried about speed than I was about the line,” Blickle said. “I knew it was going a little right to left and I knew it was fast, so I just threw it out there a little and it went in.”

   I picked up Osberg in the final group on the seventh hole and watched as he was unable to convert a bunch of good birdie looks. He had one more in regulation, a 10-footer downhill, on the 18^th hole. It was right on line and came up impossibly short. Osberg didn’t dare hit it any harder. It gave Osberg a final-round 73 and put him in a playoff for the Pennsylvania Open crown.

   Osberg did make some par-saving putts and he got one more on the first hole of the playoff, the aforementioned 18^th. He left his approach just outside the greenside bunker on the side the pin was on. He popped it up in the air and was left with seven feet for par, a putt he had to make after Blickle knocked it on the green and two-putted for par. And Osberg got his par putt to fall to send the playoff to the first hole.

   Osberg had a six-footer for par on the Wissahickon Course’s tough opener that would have given him the title, but couldn’t get it to fall as both players made bogey and the playoff went on.

   Back on 18 again, Blickle got a read off Osberg’s birdie putt as both their approaches finished 20 feet above the hole, but neither could convert and it was back to the first tee one more time.

   Blickle pulled his drive to the left, but had found the rough pretty forgiving on the A.W. Tillinghast design. The ensuing 7-iron that finished two feet from the hole might have been the equal to John Peters’ stunning 8-iron shot that found the bottom of the cup for an eagle on Merion Golf Club’s classic finishing hole to win the Pennsylvania Amateur two weeks ago. It did everything but go in the hole.

   “I really wasn’t trying to end up on that top shelf,” Blickle said of the back right corner of the green where the pin was nestled. “One of my partners in regulation went over there and I saw how dead that was. It was almost easier to stop it out of the rough here this week because the fairways are so tight.

   “It was one of those swings, though, where you felt like you got it pretty nice. For where it was and the situation, it probably was the best shot I’ve ever hit.”

   Osberg also hit a pretty nice approach to 10 feet, but one last birdie putt just wouldn’t fall and he knew Blickle wasn’t going to miss his golden opportunity.

   Osberg completed the Golf Association of Philadelphia’s career grand slam by winning the Middle-Amateur Championship last fall at LedgeRock Golf Club, where Blickle is hanging out this summer. Osberg has won seven GAP majors and contended in a bunch of others, twice falling in the BMW Philadelphia Amateur final.

   Osberg had taken control of the tournament with a sizzling 5-under 65 in Tuesday’s opening round, easily the best score of the week on the 7,119-yard, par-70 A.W. Tillinghast classic. Whenever you come to the Wissahickon Course, Tillie’s masterpiece is the co-star.

   Osberg couldn’t get much to fall in a 2-over 72 in Wednesday’s second round, but he still took a two-shot lead into the final round over Blickle and his two playing partners in Thursday’s final round, Overbrook Golf Club’s talented assistant pro Trevor Bensel and Liberty senior Zach Barbin of the golfing Barbin family from Elkton, Md.

   Blickle had opened with a 1-under 69 before matching par in the second round with a 70. Bensel surged into contention with a 2-under 68 in Wednesday’s second round. Barbin had added a 1-under 69 to his opening-round 70.

   And despite some early struggles, Osberg remained atop the leaderboard all day as others took a run at him.

   “I just couldn’t get the speed of the greens,” said Osberg as classy in defeat as he is gracious when he wins. “I got to the ninth tee and I just wanted to keep making good swings, give myself some birdie chances and hope that eventually a couple of them would fall. IO had really good chances at 11, 13 and 14. I made a nice par save at 15, but then made a bad bogey at 16.”

   Osberg bunkered his approach at the 426-yard, par-4 16^th and couldn’t get it up and down. He had made seven straight pars to remain at 1-under, but the bogey would ultimately open the door for Blickle.

   Bensel had creeped within a shot of Osberg when he birdied the 546-yard, par-5 12^th hole, but could get no closer. Bensel closed with a 3-over73 to finish in a tie for third place with Englishman Finlay Mason, an intern out of the Cricket Club pro shop, at 2-over 212. Mason had made an early run at the lead on his way to a final round of even-par 70.

   Barbin, winner of the BMW Philadelphia Amateur at Lancaster Country Club and the Joseph H. Patterson Cup at Doylestown Country Club in a banner 2020 on the GAP circuit, struggled a little down the stretch, closing with a 4-over 74 that left him in a four-way tie for fifth place at 3-over 213.

   When the cut was made to the low 40 and ties following Wednesday’s second round, Zach Barbin’s younger brothers Austin and Evan were also inside that cut line. So, Zach Barbin did earn low-Barbin honors Thursday.

   Zach Barbin shared fifth place with three other guys who, like Blickle, are giving professional golf their best shot.

   Anthony Sebastianelli, who starred scholastically at Abington Heights and collegiately at Central Connecticut State, had the best round  of the day Thursday, a 1-under 69.

   Michael O’Brien, the former Saint Joseph’s standout and a proud Manayunker who was the runnerup to Zach Barbin in the Philly Am at Lancaster last year, was making his pro debut at the Cricket Club and matched par with a70 in the final round to join the group at 3-over.

   Rounding out the trio of young pros who landed at 213 was Hermitage’s Matt Gruska, who has done some good work on the Outlaw Tour. Gruska actually had a share of the lead at even-par before making a triple bogey at the Wissahickon Course’s tough finishing hole that left with a 2-over 72 in the final round.

   Three more pros, Bertus Wessels, who, it appears, works out of pro shop at Green Valley Country Club, Williamsport’s Jordan Eck and Beau Titsworth, who played collegiately at Oklahoma, were joined by amateur Gregor Meyer, a redshirt sophomore at High Point who was a scholastic standout at Fox Chapel, in a tie for ninth place at 4-over 214.

   Meyer closed with his second straight 71, Eck and Titsworth each finished up with a 2-over 72 and Wessels carded a final-round 73.

   I hadn’t even posted on the first two days of the Pennsylvania Open as I let my interest go west to the U.S. Amateur at Oakmont Country Club outside of Pittsburgh where a whole bunch of Philly/Pennsylvania types were involved.

   West Virginia fifth-year player Mark Goetz, a Kiski Prep product, got that medalist honor he was closing in on when I last posted, but got upset in the opening round of match play Thursday by Sweden’s David Nyfjall, a senior at Northwestern who had survived a 12-for-one playoff to get into the match-place bracket.

   Goetz blew a 3-up lead with four holes to play to drop a 1-up decision. But they can’t take that qualifying medal away from him, at Oakmont, making it quite a prize for a western Pa. kid.

   I’ll get back to the U.S. Amateur at some point, but I had a minor medical procedure earlier in the week that sidelined me from looping at Stonewall for a few days. And well, couldn’t resist a run down to the Cricket Club.

   Got a chance to hang out with Joe Juliano of the Philadelphia Inquirer. I first met Joe when I was covering a Penn State football game for the Daily Collegian and he was in the Beaver Stadium press box for United Press International, circa 1976. Sounds like Joe will be moving on at the end of the year, but it’s been a pleasure covering the local golf scene with him over the years. A pro’s pro would be the best way to put it.

   He’s got one more Penn State season to cover and probably the start of the Villanova men’s basketball season, two of my favorite teams. Between golf, the Nits and the Wildcats, I’ve read at ton of Joe Juliano stories over the years.