Now a pro, Shattuck again takes first step to the U.S. Open

   Braden Shattuck, the Daily Times Player of the Year as a senior at Sun Valley, took the first step toward a spot in the U.S. Open for the second time in three years, but there’s something different this time around.

   Shattuck was still an amateur when he earned a trip to sectional qualifying two years ago and offered up the enticing possibility of a Delco player playing in a U.S. Open in Delco as that was the year that the national championship was staged in the Ardmore section of Haverford Township at Merion Golf Club’s historic East Course.

   But two years after he left Delaware after an outstanding freshman season with the Blue Hens, Shattuck will be heading to sectional U.S. Open qualifying as a professional. The National Open will be held June 18 to 21 at Chambers Bay in University Place, Wash.

   Shattuck fired a 3-under 69 at Trump National Golf Club in Pine Hill, N.J. Monday to finish in a tie for second in a local U.S. Open qualifier and, more importantly, earn one of the five coveted tickets to golf’s longest day, the 36 holes of sectional qualifying all around the country.

   Scott McNeil, a 29-year-old Philadelphia amateur who plays out of Bala Golf Club, earned medalist honors with a 4-under 68. Adam Webb of Ridgeway, Va., matched Shattuck’s 69 and a couple of Delaware professionals, Chris Gray of Newark, Del., and Chris Tobiason Jr. of Wilmington, Del. fired 71s to grab the last two tickets to sectional qualifying. Tobiason advanced to the 2011 U.S. Open at Congressional Country Club out of sectional qualifying.

   Shattuck has been biding his time, competing in amateur events the last two summers, while helping out around Mike Moses’ pro shop at Concord Country Club. He had a couple of strong showings in some Golf Association of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania events last summer.

   He is playing on the eGolf Tour and will try to get into a Web.com event through qualifiers when he can. Shattuck didn’t make it to Merion in 2013, but he’ll get another shot at the biggest event in golf when he tees it up in a sectional qualifier at Woodmont Country Club in Rockville, Md.

   Shattuck started on the back nine at Trump National Monday and caught fire in the late stages of his round. He hit a sand wedge to a foot on the fourth hole, chipped in from just over the green for a birdie at the sixth, dropped in a 25-foot  birdie putt on the par-5 seventh, and had a two-putt birdie from the back fringe at the ninth.

   “I’m still going through some swing changes, but it’s coming around,” Shattuck told the GAP website. “It’ll get better the more tournaments I play in.”

   Haverford School junior Max Siegfried gave it quite a run Monday, carding a 1-over 73 to finish a shot behind the two alternates. Radnor All-Delco Carey Bina, Episcopal Academy senior Trey Croney and Mark Hill of Media, who advanced out local qualifying last summer, were all at 2-over 74. I talked to Bina last summer following his freshman year at Wake Forest. He said he was trying to make the team as a walk-on, which is tough to do at a high-powered ACC school, but he’s obviously still playing well.

   Aronimink Golf Club’s Joseph Fabrizio Jr. was at 75. The group at 76 included Anthony List of Havertown and former Llanerch Country Club member and Malvern Prep standout Billy Stewart.

Rolling Green Golf Club’s Matthew Bastian carded a 77 and the group at 79 included Overbrook Golf Club veteran Chris Lange, Conrad Von Borsig, the Daily Times Player of the Year at Strath Haven in 2004-05, and former Garnet Valley standout Jacob Pilarski.

Davis a winner at Buena Vista

   Junior golfers dodged some off-and-on rain showers Saturday in a Philadelphia Section PGA Junior Tour stop at Buena Vista Country Club in Buena, N.J. Saturday and Newtown Square’s  Matthew Davis fired a 4-over 76 to take top honors in the 13-to-15 division.

   Davis toured the back nine at the 6,443-yard, par-72 Buena Vista layout in 2-under par.

   Also in Davis’ division, Case Hummer of Glen Mills finished fourth with an 80, Oliver Forssell of Villanova finished in a tie for 12^th with an 85, Frank Rauscher of Wayne finished in a tie for 16^th with an 88 and Joseph Morganti of Havertown was 20^th with a 91.

   Jake Fitts of Warrington won the 16-to-18 division with a 3-over 75. Radnor sophomore Jacob Liberman finished in a tie for eighth with an 86.

   Kelsey Patterson of Allentown won the girls 16-to-18 division with an 89. Maggie Cass, a junior on the powerhouse Notre Dame team that just completed its remarkable sixth straight perfect run through the Inter-Ac League Monday, finished third with a 94.

   Casey Oppenheimer of Conshohocken won the 13-to-15 division with an 88. Lauren Butscher of Wallingford was fourth with a 109.

Philadelphia Cricket Club comes out on top in Team Matches

   It’s been a busy weekend of golf and the remarkable performance by the duo of PIAA Class AAA champion Brynn Walker and her partner Madelein Herr of Council Rock North in qualifying at the inaugural U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship at the Bandon Dunes Resort in Bandon, Ore. merited a spot in Monday’s Daily Times print edition and on the delcotimes.com website.

   Meanwhile, at three courses in Delaware County and at Philadelphia Cricket Club Saturday, the BMW Golf Association of Philadelphia Team Matches Division AA champion was crowned with some of the very best amateur players in this area battling it out.

   The Cricket Club, which has really amassed some talent in recent years and won the title two years ago, prevailed again Saturday, piling up 74.5 points. Llanerch Country Club finished second at 55.5, Aronimink Golf Club was third at 49, and defending champion Overbrook Golf Club finished fourth at 37.

   Each club had three golfers at each course and it’s basically everybody against everybody in each match. I can’t pretend to know how each match shook out, but I can figure out some highlights from the scoring on the GAP website.

   The Cricket Club sent out Cole Berman, the two-time Daily Times Player of the Year at The Haverford School who is coming off an outstanding freshman season at Georgetown, Andy Latkowski and Robert Savarese Jr. to defend its home turf and that trio piled up 23 points.

   Llanerch sent a pretty talented threesome to the Cricket Club in Stephen Seiden, a Strath Haven All-Delco and two-time U.S. Amateur qualifier, and two members of Delco’s No. 1 golfing family, brothers Brian and Kevin McDermott, and they managed to pick up 16.5 points.

   The most tightly contested match of the day was at Llanerch as the Cricket Club trio of Sean Semenetz, John Brennan and Joe April  and the Aronmink threesome of 2010 Pennsylvania Amateur champion Cory Seigfried, Joseph Fabrizio Jr. and Charles Bernard each picked up 15 points.  Joe Kerrigan Jr., Carlo Fitti and Brandon Murdock stayed home for Llanerch and earned 13 points.

   At Aronimink, the Cricket Club trio of Brendan Borst, Philip Bartholomew and Jack Wallace picked up 18.5 points with Borst going for what looks like a clean sweep with nine points. The home team group of Dan Bernard, a former Malvern Prep and Bucknell standout, Paul LIebezeit and Jeff Fialko earned 16.5 points.

   At Overbrook, the Cricket Club trio of Marc Mandel, Ryan Gelrod and Kevin Kelly picked up 18 points, with Kelly, like Borst at Aronimink, maxing out with nine points.  Overbrook kept the old guys home and brothers Andy and Ray Thomspon didn’t let their home course down as they teamed with Pat Melvin to give Overbrook 16 points. It looks like Ray Thompson, who made a spirited run to the Philadelphia Amateur semifinals at age 62 last summer, also earned the maximum nine points.

Charlesworth, Donatoni Warner Cup winners

   Speaking of old guys, GAP staged one of its senior major event, the Warner Cup (Gross) Thursday at Little Mill Country Club in New Jersey.

   The close location is the main reason 56-year-old Norman Charlesworth decided to enter and the
Running Deer Golf Club member blitzed the field with a 3-under 68 to win the title by six shots. Ray Pyontek of Mercer Oaks Golf Club was the runnerup with a 74.

   Overbrook Golf Club’s Ray Thompson (there’s that name again) and Robert Billings of Rolling Green Golf Club were among three players who shared third place at 5-over 76. A couple of other players from Overbrook’s deep stable of senior standouts, Chris Lange and Oscar Mestre, who captains Overbrook’s Team Matches entry, were among a large group of players at 77.

   Michael Quinn of Edgmont Country Club was another shot back with a 78.

   In the Super-Senior division, Don Donatoni of White Manor Country Club, the reigning two-time GAP Super-Senior Player of the Year, needed to survive a four-hole playoff to take the Warner Cup title and continue his dominance of the Super-Senior division. 

   Donatoni’s 4-over 75 was matched by Huntingdon Valley Country Club’s David Brookerson, one of the top GAP performers over the years. I seem to recall a GAP match breaking out at the 1989 U.S. Amateur at Merion with Brookerson squaring off against Jay Sigel with hundreds of local golf fans following along while the college kids who usually dominate the U.S. Amateur were trying to figure out what the big deal was.

   Donatoni finally prevailed when Brookerson’s approach to the par-4 eighth hole just trickled off the green into some deep grass. The lie was so gnarly that Brookerson double-hit his chip trying to extricate the ball with a wedge, opening the door for Brookerson to take the playoff.

   Merion Golf Club’s Carl Everett finished fourth with a 77 and Edward Pappas of Rolling Green was one of three players another shot back in a tie for fifth at 78.

Kan, Purdue headed for NCAA Tournament; Walker, Herr on a roll at Bandon Dunes

   Aurora Kan, the 2010 PIAA champion from Chichester, represented Purdue as an individual as a junior at the NCAA Tournament a year ago.

   I’m fairly certain she wanted the rest of the Boilermakers along for the party in her senior season and that’s exactly what Kan got Saturday.

   Purdue couldn’t sustain its sizzling second-round pace on a day when the scores throughout the field were generally higher, but that middle round gave the Boilermakers just enough cushion to enable them to survive a tough final-round 306 Saturday and finish in a tie for fifth at the NCAA South Bend Regional at the Warren Golf Course on the campus of Notre Dame.

   Reigning national champion Duke, getting a 1-2 finish individually from Leona Maguire, a freshman from Ireland, and Celine Boutier, a junior from France and the reigning Player of the Year in college women’s golf, held off ACC rival Wake Forest to take the team title by three shots.

   Duke added a final-round 296 to its first two rounds of 288 and 289 for a 9-over 873 total. Wake Forest made up five shots on the Blue Devils with a final-round 291 and, paired with its first two rounds of 293 and 292, gave the Demon Deacons an  876 total.

   UC Davis (295-294-295) finished third at 884, Arizona (294-292-300) was fourth at 886 and Tulane (298-298-295) and Purdue (299-283-306) got the last two berths to the NCAA Tournament as they tied for fifth at 888.

   August Kim, a sophomore from St. Petersburg, Fla., fell back from her spectacular second-round 69 with a final-round 75, but her 2-over 218 total gave her a tie for eighth in the individual standings.

   Anna Appert Lund, a junior from Sweden, had a final-round 76 to finish in a tie for 21^st at 222. Kan, with just one more tournament remaining in her stellar collegiate career, struggled to a final-round 78 for a 224 total that left her in a tie for 31^st. Marta Martin, a freshman from Spain, struggled with a 79 in the final round to finish in a tie for 36^th. Kan’s fellow senior and Appert Lund’s fellow Swede, Johanna Tillstrom, counted for Purdue with her final-round 77 and finished at 237 and in a tie for  86^th.

   The NCAA women’s tournament joins the men for the first time this year in adding match play to the mix. After 54 holes of team play, the top 15 teams play one more round with the final eight survivors after that round  meeting in matches to determine the NCAA champion. It’s probably not as fair as medal play, but hey it’s golf, so it’s already unfair by definition. Bottom line: If you can get into the match-play mix, anything can happen.

   The individual champion will be crowned following those 72 holes of stroke play with players from the top 15 teams and the top nine players from non-advancing teams following 54 holes in the mix for the individual title.

   It gets under way May 24, the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, at the Concession Golf Club in Bradenton, Fla. In recent posts, I’ve been bemoaning the fact that Purdue couldn’t crack the top 30 in any of the women’s college polls. Well, there’s only 24 teams headed to Bradenton, so I guess they’ve cracked the top 30 now.

   In the individual chase at Notre Dame, Maguire overtook her teammate, Boutier, with final-round 72 to finish at 4-under 212. Boutier led her teammate by a shot going into the final round, but shot a final-round 74 to end up a shot back of Maguire at 3-under 213.

   There is a familiar name on the runnerup Wake Forest squad as freshman Erica Herr, the two-time PIAA champion at Council Rock North, carded a solid final-round 73 to finish in a tie for 41^st at 227. Meanwhile, maybe a thousand miles away, Herr’s younger sister was making some noise.

Walker, Herr light it up Bandon Dunes

   It was kind of difficult to know what to expect when reigning PIAA champion Brynn Walker, a junior at Radnor, and her pal, Council Rock North junior Madelein Herr, younger sister of Wake Forest freshman Erica, teed it up in the inaugural U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship, which got under way with the first round of stroke play Saturday at the Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Bandon, Ore.

   It’s the first time the USGA has staged the event, for one thing. And there were all kinds of good players in the field. When I checked the starting times for Walker and Herr, I noticed they were a group ahead of one Meghan Stasi. All she’s done is win eight Philadelphia Women’s Amateur titles, four U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur crowns and play on a winning U.S. Curtis Cup team.

   Well, how about a sweet, five-birdie, one-bogey 4-under 68 over the 6,005, par-72 layout and a tie for fourth after the opening round. That should put the District One All-Stars in pretty good shape for making the top 32 teams that advance to match play following Sunday’s second round of qualifying.

   Walker, a North Carolina commit, and Herr, a Penn State commit, got out of the gate with a birdie at the par-4 second and a birdie at the par-5 third. A bogey at the par-3 fifth was the only blemish on the card. On the back nine, they made birdie at the short par-3 11^th and added birdies at the last two par-5s, the 12^th and 15^th.

   The USGA scorecard doesn’t say which player’s  score counted, but it’s likely Walker’s length played a role in the duo dominating the par-5s at Bandon Dunes. Of course, if your partner is hitting it straight, that lets the longer hitter be a little more aggressive. No matter who did what on what hole, you have to be playing pretty good partner golf to do what Walker and Herr did Saturday.

   By the way, Stasi, who calls Oakland Park, Fla. home these days, and her partner, Dawn Woodard of Greer, S.C. had a five-birdie, five-bogey round of even-par 72.

   The first-round leaders are Athena Young of Winter Haven, Fla. and Kendall Griffin of Sebring, Fla. who teamed up for a sparkling 6-under 66.

   My advice to Walker and Herr in yesterday’s blog post was to have fun and make as many birdies as you can. Well, they made some birdies and I’m guessing they had some fun.

Team Matches have Delco flavor; Purdue surges at Notre Dame

   If you’re driving by Aronimink Golf Club or Llanerch Country Club or Overbrook Golf Club Saturday and it looks like the golfers are grinding a little harder than usual, it’s probably because they are.

   The champion of the BMW Golf Association of Philadelphia Team Matches top division, Division AA, will be determined Saturday and three of the final four are the three aforementioned Delco clubs.

   “The result of the first three weeks leads to probably one of the most exciting days of competition that we have on the GAP schedule,” Oscar Mestre, captain of defending champion Overbrook, told the GAP website. “It’s a fun kind of pressure, playing three other very solid teams. It’s a special day. I know that all four clubs will take it seriously and make the most of it.”

   Anybody who checks into this blog from time to time would not be surprised to learn that three clubs in this county would emerge from a GAP competition that encompasses the entire region, including South Jersey, as three of the final four teams in the Team Matches, which were first contested in 1897 – and that’s not a typo.

   It is Llanerch’s first appearance in the final four since 2007.

   “The last couple of years, we’ve been 2-0 and got defeated in that third week,” Llanerch captain Tom Spano told the GAP website. “The beauty of our place is 11 of our 12 guys are under 40-years old.  I think we have a really deep middle-amateur squad. There’s a lot of energy and a lot of dedication. We take it pretty seriously.”

   In its final match against Little Mill, Llanerch got strong showings at Little Mill from Stephen Seiden, a Strath Haven All-Delco and two-time U.S. Amateur qualifier, and James Wingerter, who piled up eight points between  them, and back at Llanerch from Eddie Johnson and Kevin McDermott, a Haverford High All-Delco who nearly won the 1994 PIAA title, who earned 6.5 points.

   Aronmink got a huge effort from the brothers Siegfried, Cory, a Haverford School product and the 2010 Pennsylvania Amateur champion, and Max, who was one of the Inter-Ac League’s top players as a junior at Haverford School last fall. Cory and Max came home from Glenmaura National Golf Club with nine points to add to the cause.

   Aronimink also got a boost by adding Michael Davis, the former Malvern Prep standout coming off an outstanding freshman season at Princeton, to the lineup.

   All Overbrook had to do to assure that it would get a shot to defend its title is beat Merion without two of its best players in Chris Lange and Haverford School All-Delco and former Villanova standout Michael Kania.

   Lange’s son Chris went over to Merion and came home with nine points while the old guys, Andy and Ray Thompson, mined the store at home with three singles points apiece. Brad McFadden matched the Thompson brothers with three singles points as well at Overbrook.

   The Cricket Club had four of its best players, Philip Bartholomew, Andy Latkowski, Sean  Semenetz and Jack Wallace, out of the lineup while they competed in the inaugural USGA Amateur Four-Ball Championship at The Olympic Club in San Francisco.

   I don’t know this for a fact, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the Cricket Club got a boost from the addition of Cole Berman, the two-time Daily Times Player of the Year at Haverford School who is coming off a really strong freshman season at Georgetown, to the lineup.  The return of that foursome from the USGA Four-Ball will make the Cricket Club a formidable team indeed.

   Each club will dispatch three man teams to each course Saturday with each player competing in a three-way match against a foe from one of the other teams. Like I said, they’re going to be grinding out there.

Purdue surges into second

   Anybody who has followed along as I have followed the fortunes of Chichester’s 2010 PIAA champion Aurora Kan and her Purdue teammates this spring will know that I am the least surprised person in America to find out that the Boilermakers fired a sparkling 5-under 283 total in Round 2 of the NCAA’s Notre Dame Regional Friday to climb into second place in the team standings, five shots back of reigning NCAA champion Duke.

   More importantly, Friday’s fireworks puts Purdue in very solid position to finish in the top six following Saturday’s final round and move on  to the NCAA Tournament in a couple of weeks.

After a so-so opening-round of 299 Thursday left the Boilermakers in a tie for ninth,  August Kim, a sophomore from St. Petersburg, Fla., went off on the front nine at the Warren Golf Course on the campus of Notre Dame. Kim made eagle on the par-5 second hole and then added birdies at the third, sixth and seventh holes.

   Kim would finish with a 3-under 69 that gave her a 1-under 143 total and vaulted her into a tie for fifth in the individual standings, just four shots back of Duke’s Celine Boutier, a junior from France who was the consensus Player of the Year in women’s college golf a year ago. After a blistering 5-under 67 to open the tournament Thursday, Boutier fell back with an even-par 72 Friday for a 5-under 139 total. Her teammate, Leona Maguire, a freshman from Ireland, is a shot back in second at 4-under 140 following a sparkling 4-under 68 Friday.

   Kan, a senior, and Anna Appert Lund, a junior from Sweden, backed up Kim’s round with a couple of 2-under 70s. Kan, a three-time Daily Times Player of the Year at Chichester, and Appert Lund had each opened with 76s,  so they both landed at 2-over 146 and tied for 15^th in the individual standings.

Marta Martin, a freshman from Spain, was Purdue’s leading lady on Day 1 with a 1-over 73 and she fell back a shot with a 74 and stands in a tie for 20^th at 3-over 147. Kan’s fellow senior, Johanna Tillstrom, like Appert Lund a Swede, is tied for 91^st after rounds of 82 and 78 and a 160 total. Don’t be surprised if Tillstrom gets it going Saturday.

   The second-round 283 gives Purdue a 6-over 582 total, five shots back of Duke (288-289). The Boilermakers will have to grind it out in Saturday’s final round as there are plenty of talented teams right on their tail. Wake Forest is in third, three shots back of the Boilermakers at 585. Arizona is another shot back in fourth at 586, followed by UC Davis in fifth at 589 and Tulane in sixth at 593.

   But Devin Brouse’s team showed what it is capable of doing Friday. One more day in that neighborhood and Purdue, which somehow never cracked the top 30 in anybody’s rankings this spring, will be headed for Bradenton, Fla. and The Concession Golf Club for the NCAA Tournament.

Walker, Herr tee off in Four-Ball

   Speaking of the inaugural U.S. Amateur Four-Ball Championship that those Philadelphia Cricket Club guys played in last weekend, Saturday morning the District One all-star duo of 2014 PIAA champion  Brynn Walker, a junior at Radnor, and her pal, Council Rock North junior Madelein Herr, will tee off in the inaugural women’s Four-Ball at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Bandon, Ore.

   It is the fourth USGA event for Walker, won competed for Pennsylvania in the USGA Women’s Team Championship prior to her sophomore season at Radnor and qualified for both the U.S. Girls’ Junior and U.S. Women’s Amateur championships last summer.

   It’s a busy weekend for the Herr family as Maddie’s older sister Erica, a two-time PIAA champion, is on the Wake Forest team that trails Aurora Kan’s Boilermakers in the NCAA South Bend Regional by three shots. Erica Herr, a freshman, had rounds of 78 and 76 and is tied for 58^th in the individual standings at Notre Dame at 154.

   I will be checking the USGA site over the weekend as the Walker-Herr duo competes in two rounds of stroke play Saturday and Sunday in an attempt to qualify for match play. There are tons of good players teeing it up in this event from all over the country, but these two will be having some fun out there and hopefully making some birdies.