Blog is back with a big week for those 2009 Walker Cuppers

    While we were digging out from under two-plus feet of snow, it was a pretty good week for some of the members of Buddy Marucci’s winning United States team in the 2009 Walker Cup Match at Merion Golf Club’s East Course.

   The event itself was pretty exciting in 2009, but you just knew you would always follow some of the young stars, many of whom made the Walker Cup their amateur swan song before embarking on their professional careers.

   The biggest weekend for an alum of that U.S. team is obvious. Rickie Fowler outdueled a strong field to win in Abu Dhabi and rise to No. 4 in the World Ranking. More on that later.

    In another desert half a world away, though, three of Fowler’s teammates at Merion had solid top-15 finishes in the CareerBuilder Challenge in Palm Springs, Calif., an event that once was known simply as the Bob Hope Classic and for many years was a  90-hole shootout.

   Brian Harman, the little left-hander from Georgia, finished in a tie for 11^th with rounds of 67, 66, 72 and 65 for an 18-under 270 total. Harman, No. 97 in the World Ranking, has won nearly $6.5 million on the PGA Tour and owns a victory in the 2014 John Deere Classic.

   Harman finished a shot ahead of two of his Walker Cup teammates. Cameron Tringale, who had rounds of 69, 68, 67 and 67, and Bud Cauley, who had rounds of 72, 65, 66 and 68, finished in a tie for 14^th at 17-under 271.

   Tringale is really starting to come into his own in golf’s big league. He won $1.8 million last season and is off to a fast start in the wraparound 2015-16 season with a tie for second in the Shriners Hospital for Children Open in Las Vegas and a tie for fifth in the unofficial Franklin Templeton Shootout. He has his World Ranking all the way up to No. 73.

   I saw a little more of Tringale that Walker Cup week in 2009 because I had a feeling I might be able to catch up with his Georgia Tech teammate, Adam Cohan, the 2002 PIAA champion as a junior at Radnor. And indeed I did.

   A Google search of Cohan’s name late last year yielded the troubling news that he had been diagnosed with leukemia in 2012. He seemed to be on the road to recovery in September of 2014 when the inaugural Cohan Cup was played at the Atlanta Athletic Club to benefit the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Cohan reached out to some of his old Georgia Tech teammates to help support the event and Tringale, not surprisingly, was among those who answered the call.

   Cauley’s showing in the CareerBuilder might very well be a career builder. The $104,000 the Alabama product earned was much needed. Cauley missed the 2014-15 season after undergoing surgery for a torn labrum Sept. 12, 2014, five years to the day from the first day of the 2009 Walker Cup.

   He is playing on a medical exemption and needs to make more than $500 grand in 15 starts to regain his  full-time status on the PGA Tour. He got into the CareerBuilder off the alternate list at the last minute and made the most of the opportunity.

    Fowler has often been criticized as being all flash and no substance, but nobody who saw him at Merion in 2009 thought that way. When you watch a team, especially a winning one, up close, it’s easy to figure out who the leader is and Fowler, at age 20, was the unquestioned leader of that U.S. team. He put his pro aspirations on hold for several months to honor his commitment to Marucci, who was wrapping up his second stint as U.S. team captain on his home course.

   Fowler stared down the No. 1 (Jordan Spieth) and No. 2 (Rory McIlroy) players in the world to win at Abu Dhabi last week. McIlroy finished in a tie for third and Spieth in a tie for fifth.

   The year dawned with many golf observers looking forward to the competition among the Big Three of Spieth, McIlroy and Jason Day. Many of those same observers were updating that Big Three to a Fab Four after Fowler’s performance last week.

   Fowler made a brilliant comeback to win The Players last year and he had top-5 finishes in all four majors in 2014. He appears poised to become the elite player many of us who watched him at Merion in 2009 were certain he would become.

   One other name of note at the CareerBuilder was a tie for 28^th for Sean O’Hair, an adopted son of Delco since marrying into the Lucas family of Aston. O’Hair had rounds of 70, 67, 68 and 69 for a 14-under 274 total.

   After having to play his way through the Web.com playoffs to retain his PGA Tour privileges for last season, O’Hair, winner of more than $19 million in his career, returned to form, fighting his way into the playoffs and reaching the second week.

   He wrapped up his bounceback 2015 with a tie for seventh in the unofficial Franklin Templeton Shootout and he has made the cut at the Sony Open and the CareerBuilder since the calendar turned to 2016.

   This is my first blog post since my “separation” from the Daily Times. It took a couple of weeks to reload technologically. Since I’m hardly a tech whiz, I was unable to figure out how to get my original Twitter handle back when I was loading Twitter on to my new phone. The new Twitter handle is @Tmacgolf16 and I will continue to alert you there when there’s a new post.

   The email address some of you used to contact me at was a work email, so I’ve been using a personal account that’s been active since the days when Chase Utley was good, thus chaseutfan@gmail.com. Feel free to pass on any golf news you hear.

Hopefully, the next chapter still includes this blog

   I’ve reached out to a few of my golf contacts in the last month to let them know my byline will no longer be appearing in the Daily Times, at least not as a full-time staff member.

   I am hoping to keep T Mac Tees Off going. I’ve been in touch with some of the local golf websites and I’m hoping to maybe link to the golf blog off their websites. We’ll see how that goes.

   One thing that greatly disappoints me is not getting to chronicle the exploits of this talented group of Class of 2019 and Class of 2020 boys that are just starting to make their mark in the pages of the Daily Times. But I am hoping to keep tabs on Kevin Smith, Case Hummer, Jake Calamaro, Peter Garno, John Updike, Andrew Curran, Michael and Jacob Zeng, Matt Civitella, David Colleran, Blake Stephano, Joseph Morganti -- did I forget anybody, very likey yes – with posts on this blog.

   At least I did get a chance to watch Brynn Walker close out her incredible scholastic career by winning a second straight PIAA Class AAA girls individual title and leading Radnor to the PIAA Class AAA boys team title.

   And well, I have to keep an eye on that U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball in the spring at Streamsong in Florida when Walker and her pal Madelein Herr, the District One champion from Council Rock North, make another run in an event in which they nearly stole the show in reaching the semifinals last year at Bandon Dunes. And I’m on that record as saying the pair of Michael McDermott and Jeff Osberg have a chance to make some noise that same week in May in the men’s Four-Ball at Winged Foot.

   And it’s only 205 days until the U.S. Women’s Amateur tees off at Rolling Green. You get the picture. There’s a lot going on in golf this year, which is a very good reason to keep this blog going.

   When I was first asked to do a golf blog, I wasn’t sure there would be enough content to make it worthwhile. Turned out that was never a problem.

Radnor's Walker, Kim, Sydnes head All-Central first team

   Three members of Radnor’s PIAA Class AAA championship team headline the 2015 All-Central golf first-team selections as voted by the league coaches.

   Senior Brynn Walker, who capped her brilliant scholastic career by winning her second straight PIAA Class AAA girls title, junior Gabby Kim, who claimed the PIAA Class AAA East Regional girls crown, and junior Michael Sydnes led the Raiders to a perfect run through the Central League followed by a victory at the District One Tournament at Turtle Creek Golf Club and a dramatic one-shot win over Peters Township in the state tournament at the Heritage Hills Golf Resort.

   They are joined on the first team by Garnet Valley junior Jimmy Gillespie, Marple Newtown senior Joey DelFranco, Haverford senior Frankie McVeigh, Springfield senior Josh Luchon and the Conestoga contingent of Ryan Tall, Jack Mitchell, Alex Cook and Samantha Yao.

   Walker, a North Carolina commit pictured at right on the first day of the District One Tournament at Gilbertsville Golf Club, had rounds of 74 and 76 for a 150 total at Heritage Hills that gave her a three-shot victory at the PIAA Tournament. She came back two days later with a 73 as Radnor put up a 312 total in the team competition that was a shot better than Peters Township.

   Kim fired a 2-over 74 at Golden Oaks Golf Club to beat Walker and Coatesville’s Sammie Staudt by a shot and claim the East Regional title. Her 83 in the team competition at Heritage Hills was the final counter in Radnor’s state championship bid.

   Sydnes bounced back from a bitterly disappointing first day at the District One Tournament at Turtle Creek when a 77 left him with a lot to do to advance individually to the East Regional. An even-par 72 on Day 2 left him a frustrating one shot short of reaching the regional, but was crucial in leading the Raiders to the district team title that qualified them for the state tournament.

   Sydnes contributed a 77 to the team effort that resulted in the state title at Heritage Hillls.

   Sydnes shared the top spot with Luchon in the Central League Tournament at Turtle Creek as both carded 1-over 73s. Luchon was awarded the title on a match of cards. McVeigh finished alone in third at the Central tourney with a 74 and DelFranco, Gillespie and Radnor freshman Jake Calamaro were another shot back in a tie for fourth at 75.

   Gillespie made the cut at the district tournament on the number with a 76, but failed to advance to regionals with a second-round 79.

   Radnor’s Calamaro, another key figure in the Raiders’ state title run, heads the All-Central second team. He is joined by teammates David Colleran and Caitlin Bullock, Ridley’s Greg Myers, Upper Darby’s Mike Wolf, Penncrest’s Jessica Davis, Strath Haven’s Lauren Butscher and the Harriton foursome of Jack Hirsh, Ryan Keefe, Nick Wert and Dom DiLoreto.

   Earning honorable mention were: Radnor’s Chris Austen and Conor Rinehart, Haverford’s Emmett Fox, Matt Druce, Matt Speers and Brendan Boas, Marple Newtown’s Matt Deacon, Springfield’s Baun twins, Dillon and Derrick, Strath Haven’s Ben Newlon and Chris Byrd, Penncrest’s T.J. May, Dillon Armstrong and Sarah McCabe, Conestoga’s James Goodwin and Mike Hamilton and Harriton’s Kyle Koziol.

Remembering Chris Fuga's love for the game at Llanerch

   There’s always a lot going on on the first day of the Philadelphia Amateur. There’s 120 or so golfers playing two rounds at two different golf course and at the end of the day, weather permitting, there will be 32 of the Philadelphia area’s very best players advancing to match play.

   So when you first arrive, you’re just staring at the scoreboard trying to figure out what’s going on. That’s where I first met Stephen Giampietro on Day 1 at Llanerch Country Club last summer. He was asking if anybody knew about where Chris Fuga would be on the course at that point. As the Golf Association of Philadelphia official manning the scoreboard tried to figure out about where Fuga would be, I checked his name on the scoreboard and it listed him as being an Overbrook member.

   The name rang a bell from covering high school golf and GAP events, but he was St. Pius X in high school and Phoenixville Country Club, so he wasn’t “mine.” That’s the way you think when you’re covering an event like that for a paper like the Daily Times. OK, he’s Overbrook now, he’s on my radar.

   I asked the gentleman how long Fuga had been at Overbrook. I was guessing it was his dad, but I later learned he was Fuga’s uncle. He said, “Do you know about Chris?”

   “No, tell me,” the nosy reporter answered.

   I listened, I’m sure increasingly wide-eyed, as his uncle told me that Chris was near death this time last year after being diagnosed with leukemia. That he had a bone-marrow transplant at Temple’s Fox Chase Cancer Center in August. He had shot 73 in the morning at Rolling Green. He was in the process of shooting 2-under 69 in the afternoon at Llanerch. It was 90 degrees. He was 10 months removed from a bone marrow transplant. Are you kidding me?

   “In the newspaper business, we call that a story,” I said to Giampietro when he finished.

   And what a story it turned out to be as Fuga finished tied for third in qualifying and would make it all the way to the semifinals before falling to eventual champion Cole Berman, the three-time Daily Times Player of the Year at The Haverford School.

   Which is why my heart sank last week when, in my regular scanning of the Internet to see how former Delco high school kids are doing in college, I discovered that Chris Fuga had died Oct. 30 at age 24.

   It turns out that Fuga had fallen ill again in the hours following his loss to Berman in the Philly Am semifinals. The leukemia had returned  and he would spend the rest of June and most of July in the hospital and have another bone marrow transplant.

   But Fuga bounced back again. He actually was doing well until he was hit with an infection the Sunday before Halloween, an infection his immune system, weakened by all the anti-cancer drugs he had taken, could not fight off. By Friday he was gone.

   I talked to his dad Mark last week, his emotions still understandably raw.

   “He was talking about going back to Coker (College) for the spring, the last time I talked to him he was like, ‘It’s OK dad, I got this, I’ll be OK,’” Mark Fuga said.

   Chris Fuga had been one of the top players at Coker, in South Carolina, before missing the 2014-2015 season while recovering from the first bone marrow transplant. At the Philly Am, he was planning to go back for his senior season.

   Oscar Mestre, a longtime Overbrook member, had invited Fuga to gain membership through the club’s President’s Pick scholarship. That’s how he ended up helping Overbrook reach the final four of Division AA, the top tier in GAP’s Team Matches, in the spring.

   At Llanerch, he couldn’t have been more complimentary of the way in which he had been accepted at Overbrook.

   “It was a six-and-a-half hour wake,” Mark Fuga said. “The president of Coker came up here with a posthumous degree. People came from Overbrook. People came from everywhere. Chris never wanted to be the center of attention. It was an amazing tribute to him the way everybody came to pay their respects.”

   One of the things that struck me about Chris Fuga that week at Llanerch was how much he enjoyed just being there. The Philadelphia Amateur, he told me, was his favorite tournament. He had reached the quarterfinals two years earlier at Aronimink.

   And there he was at Llanerch in the semifinals. He ran into the only person more determined that he was that week in Berman. And even then, Fuga won the 10^th and 11^th holes, to take a 1-up lead on Berman before the three-time GAP Junior Player of the Year surged back to win the match, 2 and 1.

   There was no shortage of story lines at Llanerch that week for the guy covering the tournament for the Delco Daily Times. First of all, it was Llanerch, one of three Delco courses to stage a major professional championship, the 1958 PGA Championship, along with Aronimink (1962 PGA Championship) and the five U.S. Opens at Merion’s East Course.

   There was the dream matchup in the second round of match play between Michael McDermott, who grew up at Llanerch, and Jeff Osberg, a former Llanerch member. It was a tremendous match between the two best mid-am players in the Philadelphia area for the last decade-plus and their Llanerch connection had quite a few of the membership sneaking away from  work early on a Wednesday to catch some of it.

   And there was the final between Berman and Michael Davis, who were only a year removed from the Inter-Ac League battles I had covered for four years with Berman at Haverford School and Davis at Malvern Prep.

   I asked Chris Fuga’s dad for a picture to add to this post and it is that same smile that I remember that week at Llanerch. He loved the Philly Am because he knew that if you were good enough to reach the semifinals in this tournament, you were a player. You could play.

   “Anybody, 1 to 32, is good enough to win this once match play starts,” he said.

   He loved the game and he was very thankful that week that Dr. Henry Chi Hang Fung at the Temple Fox Chase Cancer Center’s Bone Marrow Transplant program had given him a reprieve and he was going to make the most if it.

   It’s Thanksgiving week and we always like to talk about what we’re thankful for. And I guess I’m thankful that Chris Fuga came along and reminded me how much I love the game. Just like he did.

   The Philly Am is at Merion next year. Chris Fuga would have loved it.