Seeking a third GAP Junior Boys crown, Ryan the co-medalist in qualifying at Bala

    The 1912 Club’s Josh Ryan matched par with a 68 at short, but testy Bala Golf Club Monday to share medalist honors with Nick Werner of Huntsville Golf Club in qualifying for match play in the Golf Association of Philadelphia’s 108^th Junior Boys’ Championship.

   Wait a minute? Josh Ryan is still a junior golfer? He hasn’t played high school golf in nearly three years. How can he possibly still be eligible for this?

   Denied the opportunity to become a four-time PIAA Class AAA qualifier – Ryan would most assuredly have earned that berth – by the Norristown Area School District, Ryan will try this week to become the first three-time winner of the GAP Junior Boys’ crown since Meredith M. Jack did it in 1914, 1915 and 1916.

   “Bo” Jack was still hitting it around at Merion Golf Club when I first arrived on the scene as a looper in the early 1970s. He hated that he wasn’t as good a player as he once was, but the guy was possessed of as sweet a swing as you ever saw. Game for a lifetime, indeed.

   And rest assured, the 18-year-old Ryan is still very much eligible to play junior golf. The District One Class AAA champion at Turtle Creek Golf Course as a junior in 2019, Ryan went on to finish in a tie for third place in the PIAA Class AAA Championship at the Heritage Hills Golf Resort in York County, six shots behind the winner, Central York senior Carson Bacha.

   There was a state championship in the coronavirus pandemic year of 2020, but Ryan was forbidden to compete by the Norristown Area School District. Ryan was home-schooled and only represented Norristown on the golf course, but he abided by the school district’s decision, which wiped out his senior season.

   Bitter? Nah, that’s not Ryan’s style. He always moves on to the next challenge. He has committed to play college golf at Liberty, which reached the NCAA Championship last month at Grayhawk Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz., but knowing he could still play junior golf, Ryan took a gap year and will start at Liberty later this summer.

   Ryan finished in ninth place earlier this month in the Pete Dye Division of The Dye Junior Invitational at Crooked Stick Golf Club in Carmel, Ind.

   Last week, Ryan earned a spot in the match-play bracket in the BMW Philadelphia Amateur Championship at Philadelphia Country Club. I wouldn’t have been surprised in the least if Ryan had won the thing, but Jon Rusk, the general manager and part owner of LuLu Country Club, took him out in the second round in a thriller that went to the 19^th hole.

   So what is Ryan doing at the sporty 5,306-yard, par-68 Bala layout? Let him tell you.

   “I love this event,” Ryan told the GAP website. “I love match play. Anytime I can play match play, I love to play it. It’s also good to not expect to win, but always trying to win is always a good thing.

   “The more you win, the more confidence you can get. So, if I can do that this week, that would be awesome. I’m going to take it the same way I always take it. One match at a time. One hole at a time. Don’t get ahead of myself.”

   Bala didn’t afford Ryan a whole lot of opportunities to take the driver out of the bag, but he bombed it to the fringe at the 306-yard, par-4 12^th hole and two-putted from 40 feet for a birdie. He drove it on the green at the 293-yard, par-4 17^th hole and holed a 20-footer for eagle that got him back to even for the round.

   Ryan knocked it over the green on the last at Bala after his drive ended up in the adjacent 14^th fairway, but he made a nice up-and-down for par.

   As I finish up this post, the opening round of match play is under way. Ryan drew Penncrest senior Eli Shah, who is playing out of Penn Oaks Golf Club. Shah survived a playoff among five players for the final three spots in the match-play bracket after they finished in a tie for 13^th place, each landing on 5-over 73.

   Also surviving that playoff was Evan Barbin of the golfing Barbins of Chesapeake Bay Golf Club and Seiji Sako of McCall Golf Club.

   I’m also in the midst of a post on a Philadelphia Section PGA Junior Tour qualifier held last week at Valleybrook Country Club for next month’s Philadelphia Junior Boys PGA Championship in which Shah was the medalist with a 2-under 70, so the guy can play. I will finish that post before this week is out.

   I’ll keep up with the first flight of match play in the GAP Junior Boys this week, but the talented players who were unable to qualify for the championship flight speaks to the depth of talent in junior golf in this area.

   Werner finished in a tie for sixth place in the PIAA Class AA Championship at Heritage Hills last fall to cap an outstanding freshman season at Wyoming Seminary.

   He was 1-over for his round when he nearly holed his approach on the 385-yard, par-4 11^th hole with a 60-degree wedge from 87 yards before tapping in for birdie. Werner again wielded the 60-degree on the short, par-4 12^th hole from 48 yards and converted his birdie try from 10 feet to get it to 1-under for the round.

   An errant drive on the finishing hole led to a bogey at the last for Werner as he was unable to get a nine-footer for par to drop and he settled for a share of medalist honors with Ryan.

   Wilmington Country Club’s Matt Homer, who lost in the semifinals to Ryan in the GAP Junior Boys a year at Overbrook Golf Club, shared third place in qualifying for match play with Whitford Country Club’s Keller Mulhern, each finishing a shot behind Ryan and Werner with a 1-over 69.

   Homer teamed with twin brother Jeffrey, younger brother Jack and Kristof Kopecky to give Wilmington the GAP Junior team title. The Wilmington foursome compiled an 18-over 222 total in the four-score-three format.

   The Homer brothers are standouts on the Tatnall School team, which finished second in the team standings in the Delaware Interscholastic Athletic Association Championship earlier this month at Odessa National Golf Club with Matt Homer claiming the individual crown.

   Mulhern was the best player in the Inter-Ac League during the six regular-season invitationals as a senior at Malvern Prep last fall, piling up the most points in the individual standings.

   Christian Deussing of Jericho National Golf Club was a shot behind Matt Homer and Mulhern in fifth place with a 2-over 70. Deussing played a round at Stonewall earlier this spring along with Holy Ghost Prep’s Calen Sanderson, the 2020 PIAA Class AAA champion, while I carried for Calen’s dad. The kid’s got some game.

   Matthew Zerfass of Allentown’s Brookside Country Club headed a group of six players tied for sixth place in qualifying, each landing on 3-over 71. Zerfass’ round featured his first career hole-in-one as his lob wedge at the 97-yard, 16^th hole found the bottom of the cup. Zerfass, a two-time PIAA Class AAA qualifier during an outstanding scholastic career at Emmaus, will join the Saint Joseph’s program later this summer.

   Also in the group at 3-over was Fieldstone Golf Club’s Davis Conaway, who captured GAP’s Junior-Junior crown last summer at the Moorestown Field Club. Conaway earned a spot in the field for the Bert Linton Inter-Ac individual championship as an eighth-grader at Malvern Prep last fall.

   Rounding out the group tied for sixth place at 71 were Llanerch Country Club’s Aidan Farkas, Merion Golf Club’s Nathan Guertler, North Hills Country Club’s Tyler Leyden and Laurel Creek Country Club’s Carson Thompson.