NEW ENGLAND By Mike Cullity
With the leaves changing and temperatures dropping, the end of the New England golf season is upon us. But it was a season replete with highlights worth recounting:
Two Massachusetts golfers – Michael Thorbjornsen and Shannon Johnson – won USGA championships in 2018.
In July, Thorbjornsen, a 16-year-old from Wellesley who attends the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., won the U.S. Junior Amateur at New Jersey’s Baltusrol Golf Club. And in September, Johnson, a 35-year-old Norton resident, won the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur at Norwood Hills Country Club in St. Louis, breaking through after near misses in the championship the previous two years.
Thorbjornsen, a past winner of age-group titles at both the U.S. Kids Golf World Championships at Pinehurst and the Drive, Chip and Putt Championship at Augusta National, came from behind to edge his good friend Akshay Bhatia, 1 up, in the 36-hole final on Baltusrol’s Upper Course.
The victory earned Thorbjornsen two trips to Pebble Beach – he took the first one in August for this year’s U.S. Amateur, where he lost in the first round of match play after submitting the third-lowest score in qualifying, and he will return for next year’s U.S. Open.
Johnson, who lost in the U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur final in 2016 and semifinals in 2017, was the medalist in stroke-play qualifying at Norwood Hills before defeating defending champion Kelsey Chugg, 1 up, in the 18-hole final with a closing birdie. The victory earned Johnson an exemption into next year’s U.S. Women’s Open at the Country Club of Charleston (S.C.) and capped a season in which she dominated at home, winning the Massachusetts Women’s Amateur, the New England Women’s Golf Association Championship, the Grace Keyes Cup and the Edith Noblit Baker Trophy.
Late last month, Thorbjornsen was part of a team of top American juniors who faced counterparts from Europe in the Junior Ryder Cup at Golf Disneyland in Paris. He played a key role in the U.S. victory, capturing his singles match to clinch the point that ensured the Americans would retain the cup.
And Johnson, a North Dakota native who works as a Ping sales rep and plays out of Thorny Lea Golf Club in Brockton, ended the season by qualifying with Megan Buck for the 2019 U.S. Women’s Amateur Four-Ball Championship, slated for April 27-May 1 at Timuquana Country Club in Jacksonville, Fla.
Matt Parziale fulfilled the dreams of many an amateur in 2018 with a grand tour that included starts at the Masters, the U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills and the U.S. Amateur at Pebble Beach.
Parziale, a 31-year-old Brockton, Mass., firefighter, earned berths in those storied championships by virtue of winning the 2017 U.S. Mid-Amateur. After capturing that title last October, he took a leave of absence from his job to avoid potential injury and to devote his energy fully to making the most of what promised to be the season of a lifetime.
In April, Parziale (above) arrived at the Masters having warmed up with appearances in elite amateur tournaments in Argentina, Georgia, Florida and South Carolina. With his father, Vic, on his bag, Parziale played Augusta National practice rounds with Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods and competed in the year’s first major before a healthy contingent of family and friends from the Bay State.
Parziale shot 81-79 and missed the cut at the Masters, but he redeemed himself at June’s U.S. Open, sharing low-amateur honors with Luis Gagne. With rounds of 74-73-74-75, Parziale posted a 16-over-par 296 total on a stern Shinnecock Hills layout.
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The first player to be awarded a U.S. Open exemption for winning the U.S. Mid-Amateur, Parziale birdied the 18th hole on Friday to make the cut on the number, becoming the first mid-amateur to make the cut in the national championship since Trip Kuehne in 2003. Among those he beat at Shinnecock were major champions Woods, McIlroy, Jordan Spieth, Bubba Watson, Jason Day and Sergio García, all of whom missed the weekend.
At the U.S. Amateur in August, Parziale failed to qualify for match play, shooting 78-78 at Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill. And in his U.S. Mid-Amateur title defense at Charlotte (N.C.) Country Club last month, he qualified for match play with rounds of 76-68 before falling in the first round.
Parziale entered several other prominent amateur tournaments across the country, including April’s Coleman Invitational at Florida’s Seminole Golf Club, where he finished T2, and September’s Crump Cup at New Jersey’s Pine Valley Golf Club, where he was a championship-flight quarterfinalist. Closer to home, Parziale won the Hornblower Memorial, finished second at the Francis Ouimet Memorial Tournament, was a quarterfinalist at the Massachusetts Amateur and earlier this month teamed with Doug Clapp to win the Norfolk County Four-Ball.
And although he’s back working at Ladder Co. 1 in Brockton, he’ll return to the national stage for next spring’s U.S. Amateur Four-Ball at Bandon Dunes, for which he qualified with partner Herbie Aikens, and next summer’s U.S. Amateur at Pinehurst and U.S. Mid-Amateur at Colorado Golf Club, for which he is exempt.
Keegan Bradley returned to prominence on the PGA Tour in 2018, capping his season with an emotional victory in the BMW Championship, the Tour’s third FedEx Cup playoff event.
Bradley, the 32-year-old nephew of Hall of Famer Pat Bradley who grew up on Vermont’s ski slopes and attended high school in Hopkinton, Mass., defeated Justin Rose with a par on the first playoff hole at Aronimink Golf Club near Philadelphia. The victory was his first in more than six years.
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After winning three times in his first year and a half on Tour – including the first major he ever entered, the 2011 PGA Championship – Bradley appeared destined for stardom. He and Phil Mickelson partnered to great effect in two Ryder Cups and a Presidents Cup, but he struggled in the wake of the USGA’s 2016 ban of his favored anchored putting stroke.
Bradley began the 2017-18 season with a runner-up finish at the CIMB Classic in Malaysia and signaled something special might be afoot with a third-round 62 at the Tour’s first playoff event, the Northern Trust. Wielding a putting technique in which he allows the shaft of his putter to rest against the inside of his left forearm, he scaled the mountaintop once again on a dreary Monday at Aronimink after storms washed out the final round on Sunday.
Bradley wasn’t the only New England touring pro to enjoy success this year. Peter Uihlein, the 29-year-old New Bedford, Mass., native who earned a PGA Tour card last fall after five seasons on the European Tour, notched three top-five finishes and earned nearly $1.8 million in his maiden U.S. campaign. Richy Werenski, the 26-year-old from South Hadley, Mass., earned more than $1 million as a PGA Tour sophomore, with his best finish a tie for second at the Barbasol Championship in July.
Brittany Altomare, the 27-year-old from Shrewsbury, Mass., who made a splash in 2017 with her playoff loss in an LPGA major, the Evian Championship, followed up with a pair of top-three finishes on the women’s circuit this year, one of them a tie for second at the Buick LPGA Shanghai tournament in China two Sundays ago. And Megan Khang, the 21-year-old from Rockland, Mass., has posted five top-six finishes in her third LPGA season, including a T4 at the LPGA Taiwan Championship last week. Both Altomare and Khang are on track to qualify for the season-ending CME Group Tour Championship in Naples, Fla., next month.
And in the senior realm, Fran Quinn once again engineered a late rush to retain his PGA Tour Champions card. With a T3 finish two Sundays ago at the tour’s first Charles Schwab Cup playoff event, the Dominion Energy Charity Classic, the 53-year-old Holden, Mass., resident jumped from 64th to 45th on the Schwab Cup points list; the top 54 advanced to the second playoff event, last week’s Invesco QQQ Championship, and secured playing privileges on the 50-and-older circuit in 2019.
Last year, Quinn finished T8 in the same tournament to keep his card. Having full status will come in particularly handy next year, given that Quinn expects to be sidelined for a spell after undergoing hip replacement surgery next month.
Frank Vana Jr. burnished his legend as one of Massachusetts’ all-time greats with three notable summer triumphs. The 56-year-old Boxford resident won the Eddie Lowery Division for senior competitors at the Francis Ouimet Memorial Tournament in July, captured his record 10th Massachusetts Mid-Amateur title in September and two weeks later notched his first Massachusetts Senior Amateur triumph. Moreover, Vana advanced to the round of 16 at the U.S. Senior Amateur, which was staged at Eugene (Ore.) Country Club in late August.
And earlier this month, Pam Kuong enhanced her national profile by winning medalist honors at the U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur. Kuong, a 57-year-old Wellesley Hills, Mass., resident, shot 74-69 at Orchid Island Golf & Beach Club in Vero Beach, Fla., to lead all qualifiers, with the latter round her career low in USGA competition. A U.S. Senior Women’s Amateur finalist in 2015, Kuong eventually lost in the second round of match play.