Garrett, Tyer win Breton Bay leg of SMOJGC
Fourth stop of tour yields many winners
The Southern Maryland Optimist Junior Golf Championships tournament schedule may be winding down but the competition doesn’t appear to be doing the same as golfers hit Breton Bay Golf & Country Club in Leonardtown on Monday.
The stop was the fourth of fifth in the tournament with the final stop Thursday at White Plains Golf Course. The regional qualifying tournament will be held Saturday at Marlton Golf Club in Upper Marlboro.
In the boys 16- to 18-year-old age bracket, William Garrett shot a 1-under-par 35 to beat a field of seven competitors. The Huntingtown sophomore had six pars and two birdies — on the 338-yard, par-3 No. 4 and the 495-yard par-5 No. 7 — to edge out Tyler Potts by a stroke.
“I’m pretty happy, my ball striking’s getting well,” Garrett said “I just hit the ball where I needed to. I messed up a little chip on the 8th green just off the fringe to make a bogey, but other than that I hit the ball fine and putted decent.”
Potts double-bogeyed No. 2 but rebounded and finished his round with four pars and two birdies.
“I did play pretty good,” said Potts, a junior at Northern High School. “It was mainly a lot of scrambling, but on the holes where I didn’t need to struggle to make par I did hit good shots and make birdies.”
Potts said of his birdie on the par-3 No. 5, “I hit it 182 yards with a little 5-iron and it pushed it about 20 feet right and I just made the putt coming right back up the hill. Before that I wasn’t doing that solid. I double-bogeyed the second hole by hitting the ball out of bounds and after that I just tried to say, ‘OK, middle of the green.’”
Kent Kamenicky finished in third, a shot back of Potts. The North Point High School sophomore parred his first four
holes and added a birdie on No. 7 sandwiched by two more birdies.
“It’s a pretty easy course so I feel I could have gotten a couple of shots back, but I made a birdie on No. 7 which was good,” said Kaminicky, who has already qualified for Saturday’s event after shooting a 78 in an 18-hole event with the Washington, D.C. Optimists. “But I made two unforced errors that cost me two bogeys. Consistency will be key [Saturday].”
McDonough junior Mark Burgess triple-bogeyed No. 3 but rallied to par five of the last six holes and finish with a 41. Huntingtown junior Nick Garafalo finished with a 48 and Great Mills junior Colin Head was four strokes back. Thursday at Chesapeake Hills Golf Course in Lusby, Burgess took top honors with a 40 while Head was six strokes back.
In the boys 14-15 division Monday, Trent Tyer bogeyed No. 1 but rallied with three pars and a birdie — on No. 3 — over his next four holes on his way to a 38. The North Point sophomore, who also birdied No. 7, was nine strokes ahead of his nearest competitor.
“I played pretty solid,” Tyer said. “I got off to kind of a slow start this year, so it feels good to have a solid round under my belt going into the qualifier. I had a couple holes I didn’t hit good shots on at all, but I just kept my head in check and came back and made a couple of birdies.”
Chopticon sophomore Ben Fowler grabbed second place with a 48 and James Bunn snagged third when he finished with a 49.
“I could have shot a little better in my approaches,” said Bunn, a freshman at Huntingtown. “It was more along the lines of topping the ball. I just need better approaches, they were kind of weak.”
Calverton freshman Samir Shah was third with a 52, Huntingtown freshman Tripp Bagarus took fourth with a 54 and Ryan McGuffin, also a Huntingtown freshman, finished his round with a 55. Logan Weiner, who will transfer to Huntingtown from The Calverton School for his freshman year, shot a 60.
In the boys 12-13 division, Piccowaxen Middle School seventh-grader Gavan Ganter birdied holes No. 2 and 4 and added three pars to finish with a 39.
“On the first hole I got out of a hard lie,” said Ganter, who finished with a par. “Then [on No. 5] I hit it and it was a little thin but it rolled off right onto the green and almost lipped out.”
Jake Ellis, also a Piccowaxen seventh-grader, was 10 strokes back at 49.
Neelan Shah (girls 11-12) was the only female competitor on the day and she finished her round with a 62.