When the U.S. Mid-Amateur Championship was staged at Stonewall six years ago, four Golf Association of Philadelphia players made it into the match-play bracket.
I have to admit I was a little surprised that John Brennan, a school teacher at Spring-Ford, was one of them. It was a national tournament. There were all kinds of good players there, veteran amateurs, reinstated professionals.
And guess what, Brennan was one of those good players. Maybe some followers of the local golf scene might be surprised to see Brennan come out on top in the Philadelphia Open at his home course, Philadelphia Cricket Club’s Wissahickon Course, Wednesday, but I stopped being surprised by Brennan’s prowess on the golf course a long time ago.
For the tight-knit community of standout golfers at the Cricket Club, there wasn’t anything the least bit surprising about Brennan grinding out a win on the Wissahickon Course.
The account of Brennan’s two-shot victory on the GAP website focused on a loss he suffered to Marty McGuckin in the Cricket Club’s club championship a couple of years ago. He was 41 then, 43 now. But put him on a golf course he knows intimately, a golf course on which he knows that pars are gold and Brennan can beat anybody.
Brennan is the first Cricket Club amateur in the whole 118-year history of GAP’s Open Championship to hoist the Johnny J. McDermott Trophy. The only other players with a Cricket Club affiliation to win the Philadelphia were professionals George Fazio in 1959 – that would be the same George Fazio who was involved in a playoff with Ben Hogan and Lloyd Mangrum won by Hogan in the 1950 U.S. Open at Merion Golf Club’s East Course – and Donald Bell in 1906.
Brennan was 2-under for his round and even for the championship when he arrived at the tee at the Wissahickon Course’s classic 482-yard, par-4 finishing hole. Nowhere on the golf course is the architectural expertise of the great A.W. Tillinghast more apparent than on the Wissahickon’s 18th.
Brennan bombed his drive to within 176 yards of the pin and then promptly drilled an 8-iron to eight feet. He converted the birdie try to cap a 3-under 67 that gave him a 1-under 139 total that was two shots clear of McGuckin, Country Club of York amateur Rij Patel and professionals Braden Shattuck, the head of instruction at Rolling Green Golf Club, and Robert Fenton, an assistant pro at Sunnybrook Golf Club.
Shattuck and Fenton shared low-pro honors, splitting the top two prizes with each going home with a check worth $6,125.
Brennan had opened with a 2-over 72 in Tuesday’s opening round and just kept hanging around. He made pars on 10 of the first 11 holes on the 7,069-yard, par-70 Wissahickon Course around a birdie at the sixth hole.
Brennan bombed a 3-wood to the front of the green at the 546-yard, par-5 12th hole and two-putted for birdie from 30 feet. The only blemish on his round came when he made bogey at the tough, par-3 15th hole.
But Brennan got that shot right back when he holed a 25-foot birdie putt at the 422-yard, par-4 16th hole. That set the stage for his heroics at the finishing hole.
In his decade as a member at the Cricket Club, Brennan has become an integral part of the competitive golf scene at Cricket, a force on a team that is a perennial contender each spring in the BMW Team Matches and always in the mix at a place where the battle for the club championship is as competitive as you’ll find anywhere.
The pressure of contending for a Philadelphia Open title down the stretch at the Wissahickon Course probably felt very familiar to Brennan Wednesday.
“I didn’t feel (any pressure) going into this tournament,” Brennan told the GAP website. “I was more, I’m ready for this. They can put the tees wherever they want. I’ve played it before. They can put the pins wherever they want. I’ve seen that more than likely before.
“You just can’t press the issue here. If you start pressing the issue, you are going to make bogeys. You have to plod along and make some pars. Avoid a number, just don’t press the issue. That’s when bad things can happen. That’s not the way to play the golf course.”
The 27-year-old Shattuck, one of the rising stars on the Philadelphia Section PGA circuit, had taken the lead with an opening round of 2-under 68 and was still tied for the lead when he arrived on the 18th tee.
That’s when Shattuck made the kind of mistake Brennan was talking about as his drive sailed off to the right, finishing just barely out of bounds. It led to a doble bogey and a 3-over 73 that left him in the quartet tied for second place at 1-over 141.
Fenton added a 2-over 72 to his opening round of 1-under 69 to get his share of low-pro honors with Shattuck with his 141 total.
McGuckin, who starred scholastically at Malvern Prep and briefly played college golf at Temple, added a 1-under 69 to his opening-round 72 to finish two shots behind his club championship rival from two years ago at the Cricket Club and get his piece of second place.
Matching Brennan’s 3-under 67 for the low round of the tournament and rounding out the quartet tied for second place was the Country Club of York’s Rij Patel.
Patel and his former Harvard teammate, former Penn Charter standout Brian Isztwan, who plays out of Huntingdon Valley Country Club, had earned a ticket to the 2020 U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship, scheduled to be held at … wait for it … Philadelphia Cricket Club in a qualifier the previous fall.
Both played well in this week’s Philadelphia Open at the Wissahickon Course and you can’t help but wonder how they would have fared had the 2020 U.S. Four-Ball not fallen victim to the outbreak of a novel coronavirus.
Patel had opened with a 4-over 74 before closing with his sparkling 67 in Wednesday’s final round.
Isztwan, coming off a victory in last week’s R. Jay Sigel Match Play Championship, a Pennsylvania Golf Association event played on his home course at Huntingdon Valley, finished among a group of four players tied for ninth place at 3-over 143.
Isztwan, who still has a year remaining at Harvard, carded a 3-over 73 in Wednesday’s second round after matching par in the opening round with a 70.
Sandy Run Country Club assistant pro Trevor Bensel, one of the Philadelphia Section’s top players, posted a second straight 1-over 71 as he headed a trio of players tied for sixth place with a 2-over 142 total.
The 1912 Club’s Josh Ryan and Galloway National Golf Club’s Drue Nicholas, both amateurs, matched Bensel’s splits, each recording a pair of 1-over 71s to join him in the tie for sixth place at 2-over.
Ryan, who claimed his third straight GAP Junior Boys’ crown last month at Bala Golf Club, will join the program at Liberty University next month. Nicholas will be starting his junior season at Drexel at the end of the summer and figures to be one of the top returning players among City 6 schools after emerging as one of the Dragons’ best players as a sophomore.
Joining Isztwan in the tie for ninth place at 3-over 143 were three of the region’s most accomplished mid-amateur players in Pine Valley Golf Club’s Jeff Osberg, Saucon Valley Country Club’s Matt Mattare and Yardley Country Club’s Christopher Ault.
Osberg will pick and choose which events he’ll enter, often based on how much he likes the golf course. He lost in a playoff in the Pennsylvania Open at the Wissahickon Course last summer and the A.W. Tillinghast gem is clearly one of the golf courses that fits his game.
Osberg, a two-time Philadelphia Open champion, started slowly with a 4-over 74 in Tuesday’s opening round, but came on strong with a 1-under 69 in Wednesday’s final round.
Mattare, the 2017 Philadelphia Open winner at Philadelphia Country Club, added a 2-over 72 Wednesday to his opening-round 71. Mattare will represent the Philadelphia area in next month’s U.S. Amateur at Ridgewood Country Club in Paramus, N.J. after getting through a GAP-administered qualifier last week at Rolling Green.
Ault was one of that foursome of GAP golfers along with Brennan who made it into the match-play bracket in the U.S. Mid-Am at Stonewall six years ago and won a match before falling in the second round. Ault matched Osberg’s splits, closing with a solid 1-under 69 after opening with a 74.
Professionals Chris Krueger of Kings Creek Country Club, Parks Price, the head of instruction at the Country Club of York, and Ryan Rucinski of Wilmington Country Club made up half of the group of six players who finished in a tie for 13th place at 4-over 144.
Krueger matched par in the second round with a 70 after opening with a 74. Price, winner of the Philadelphia Section’s William Hyndman III Memorial Classic earlier this month at Huntingdon Valley, registered a pair of 2-over 72s. Rucinski, who starred collegiately at Wilmington University, added a 3-over 73 to his opening-round 71.
Phoenixville Country Club’s Morgan Lofland, a sophomore at Penn State, matched Rucinski’s splits as he added a 73 in Wednesday’s second round to his opening round of 1-over 71.
It’s been a lot of fun to watch the progress of Ryan and Lofland, a couple of guys I first encountered when they qualified for the PIAA Class AAA Championship as freshmen in the fall of 2017. Five years later, they were contenders in arguably the strongest field you can assemble in this region.
Rounding out the group at 4-over were Hartefeld National Golf Club’s Zach Dilcher and LedgeRock Golf Club’s Ross Pilliod.
Dilcher, a scholastic standout at Kennett, carded a pair of 2-over 72s. Pilliod, who starred scholastically at Berks Catholic and collegiately at Saint Joseph’s, added a 3-over 73 to his opening-round 71.
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