Northern Ohio PGA Takes 6-2 Lead after Day 1 Matches
Now, there is something else to worry about.
If the players in the third Junior Ohio Cup and their team captains, parents, and grandparents didn’t have enough to concern themselves with, another factor is about to come into play on Sunday when the competition resumes with 16 Singles matches on Brookside’s stunningly beautiful 6,438-yard course.
First, there is the pressure of playing team golf while representing your PGA Section. Then, there is the pressure of taking on a layout as foreign and demanding as Brookside, with its rolling hills, awkward lies, and greens running faster than Oakmont — or your grandmother’s linoleum kitchen floor.
Not enough? Okay, let’s add gosh-awful weather. Cold. Rain. Wind.
That is the scenario that is expected to unfold on Sunday. As delightful as the weather was on Saturday, when the youngsters representing the Northern Ohio Section built a 6-2 lead during Fourball matches, the forecast for Sunday is about as promising as a Browns victory.
Old Mother Nature, King Triton, the Void, the Weather Wizard — any and all are expected to make an appearance around 11 a.m.
Thank the golf gods they stayed away on Saturday as the NOPGA began its goal of winning the Cup for the third straight year, and the first under captain Jimmy Beers.
“I am very excited,” said Beers. “There was some great golf played out there today by both teams. I mean there were a lot of birdies. Both teams struggled at times, but I think the practice rounds on Friday helped. I saw some great shots.”
The 4-point edge in the team scores is somewhat misleading. Three of the eight matches went the full 18 holes and three others ended at 16, indicating that competition was, well, competitive.
Let’s hear it for the girls. Beers’ ladies swept all four of their Fourball matches, led by the strong tandem of Kayla Knaze (Fairview Park) and Annelise Stencel (Akron), who scored their second Fourball victory in as many years with a 5-and-4 win over Emma Gebhart and Taylor Stringfield.
Knaze and Stencel birdied three of the first four holes and never looked back. They were 3-up after nine and birdied 11 after an SOPGA bogey on 10. It was the only match that didn’t go at least 16 holes.
The team of Elena Varga and Rachel Rush, both from Hudson, went out as the last match of the day and was the second team to finish early, taking a 3-hole lead through 12 and ending it on the 16th, 4-and-2, over Aubrey Arnold and Samantha Spearman.
The other NOPGA girls to win were Julia Gulla (Sagamore Hills) and Kate Vickerman (Medina), 2-and-1 winners over Isabelle Perini and Rebekah Hartley, and Korrine Knaze (Kayla’s younger sister) and Yumi Kohara, who were pushed to the full 18 before prevailing, 1-up against Aubrey Lunn and Sage Shriver.
Gulla and Vickerman were 2-up at the turn, fell back to 1-up on the 10th, and held on the rest of the way until the 462-yard 17th, when their par to the SOPGA bogey clinched the match.
Knaze and Kohara were 2-down after 11 holes but won three of the next four holes to take a lead they never relinquished, making seven straight pars down the stretch.
Hudson’s Dexter James and Westlake’s Ryan O’Leary produced the NOPGA’s first win. They had an early 3-up lead on Lucas Massa and Christian Yoder, but a Massa-Yoder birdie on eight tightened things up until the 195-yard 12th, where a NOPGA par put the lead back at 3-up. Massa and Yoder responded with a birdie on the 13th, and the lead shrunk to one when the NOPGA bogeyed the 578-yard 17th. A par on the 465-yard closing hole — to the SOPGA bogey — ended it.
Westlake’s Dominic Castelluccio and Mogadore’s Jake Rainieri had six birdies between them in their 3-and-2 win over Brady Reuter and Reid Seimetz for the other boys’ victory.
The teams of Casey Colton and Luke Holop and Braylen Haney and Carter Westendorf gave the SOPGA some hope. Colton-Holop birdied two of the first five holes on the back and added a third on the 376-yard 16th to go 2-up on Wren Spires (Medina) and Griffin Pickett (Painesville). Spires-Pickett birdied the 17th but could only manage par on the closing hole and fell, 1-up.
Haney and Westendorf had a 1-up lead over Elijah Stewart and Mick Ambrose at the turn but went on a tear on the back. They churned out three birdies over the first four holes to go 4-up before Stewart-Ambrose retaliated with a birdie on the 15th. Haney and Westendorf ended it with a birdie — their sixth of the day — on the 16th.
The pairings for Sunday’s 16 finals were revealed at a post-match dinner and contain five matchups between players that met in the Fourball competition. That includes Varga vs. Arnold, Ambrose vs. Haney, Vickerman vs. Hartley, Kohara vs. Lunn, and Rainieri vs. Reuter. If it’s any consequence, the NOPGA was victorious in four of those matches.
But Singles is way different than Fourball — probably as different as the weather between Saturday and Sunday.
