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By Arthur Utley
RICHMOND — Defending champion Michael Brennan (River Creek Club) won two matches at Richmond Country Club on Thursday and advanced to the semifinals of the 28th Virginia State Golf Association Junior Match Play Championship.
A 16-year-old from Leesburg, Brennan extended his tournament match-play victory streak to six with a 2-and-1 win over RCC member Charlie Kennedy in the round of 16 and a 3-and-2 triumph over tournament medalist Connor Johnson Jr. (CC of Virginia) in the quarterfinals.
The semifinals and scheduled 18-hole final are Friday.
The other members of the final four – John Hatcher Ferguson IV (The Water’s Edge CC), Caleb Choe (Bayville GC) and Ben Carroll (Blacksburg CC) – have reached match play and the semifinals for the first time.
Brennan is the eighth seed and will face Ferguson, the 12th seed, in the upper bracket semifinal. Ferguson eliminated Dylan Fox (Salisbury CC) 2 and 1 in the first round and Patrick Gareiss (VSGA Junior Circuit) 2 up in the quarterfinals.
The bottom half of the bracket pits 15th seeded Choe against the third seeded Carroll.
Choe defeated No. 2 seed Bryan Lee (VSGA Junior Circuit) 4 and 3 and rallied to edge Leonard Park (VSGA Junior Circuit) 1 up in the afternoon.
Carroll won both of his matches 1 up. He slipped by Everett Whiten Jr. (Cahoon Plantation) in the first round and won the 18th hole to beat Drew Brockwell (GC at The Highlands) in the quarterfinals.
Brennan had a night to remember on Wednesday before stepping on the golf course for his first match (7:40 a.m.) on Thursday. By virtue of being named the VSGA’s Junior Golfer of the Year for 2017, Brennan had the opportunity to throw out the first pitch at Wednesday’s Richmond Flying Squirrels baseball game.
“It was a little high, maybe a little right, but it was a cool experience, and it was a lot of fun,” he said.
Brennan was supposed to do it Tuesday night, but that game was rained out. A high school junior, Brennan also made an early commitment to Wake Forest University a week ago.
“I knew my first match was going to be difficult. Charlie’s a member here so I always thought maybe he could go low…I’m just thankful I got through that match,” said Brennan, who won the 11th and 13th holes to go 2 up on Kennedy, the reigning VHSL Class 5 state champion. Kennedy cut his deficit in half with a win at No. 14, but Brennan regained a 2 up margin at No. 15 and parred the next two holes.
The afternoon match with Johnson was a battle between two of the commonwealth’s top players.
“It was a very big match. He can hit it a long way and is very talented. I hit some good shots coming in which helped me secure it,” Brennan said. “I try not to think about it (being defending champ), just try to focus on every match, hole by hole, shot by shot and try to win every single hole. I think if I have that mentality I’ll do fine.”
Brennan never trailed in the match with Johnson. He went 3 up after winning the fourth through sixth holes. Johnson closed to one hole down with a birdie at the par-5 13th, but Brennan won the next two holes to gain the closeout margin.
Ferguson has progressed from not making the first-day cut in his first Junior Match play to reaching the semifinals in his third effort.
“It’s nice to finally make it into match play. It was definitely scrappy golf,” Ferguson said of his two matches, “and that’s what match play is all about. Sometimes you have to go out and make six or seven birdies to win and other times it just takes getting up and down, hitting fairways, hitting greens and making pars on tough holes.
I had three or four birdies in each match. A lot of it was holding in there and making the 5-foot putts and just coming up with shots when you really wouldn’t expect to…as far as strategy [against Brennan], I have to stay true to who I am as a golfer and just play my game like I know I’m supposed to.”
Against Fox in the morning, Ferguson was 1 up at the turn. He and Fox exchanged victories from the 13th through the 17th. Ferguson’s victory at 17 ended the match.
Ferguson won six holes in his match against Gareiss, who won four holes, including No. 17 where he closed to 1 down. The final margin came when Ferguson won the 18th.
Gareiss won his morning match against Ross Funderburke (Hidden Valley CC) even though Funderburke produced the shot of the day, a hole-in-one at the 15th.
Choe, who earned an alternate spot in the U.S. Junior Amateur qualifier last week, had to make it through a playoff Wednesday just to get into match play Thursday.
He made only one birdie, to close out the match, in the victory over Lee, and he was three holes down to Park with six holes left. Choe pitched in for birdie on the par-5 13th and won four of the last five holes to advance.
“It was a grind all day, the second match especially because of the way I was striking the ball, but I just stayed composed, just tried to stay in the moment and tried to execute down the stretch and I was able to do that,” Choe said.
Making match play for the first time was Carroll’s goal coming in, and now he’s in the semifinals. Both matches went the distance. Carroll went 2 up after winning the 7th hole against Whiten, then the two halved 10 of the last 11 holes. The only winning hole was Whiten at No. 15.
Neither player got more than 1 up in the Carroll-Brockwell match. Brockwell squared the match with a victory at No. 17, but his second shot on 18 flew the green, hit the cart path and landed in bushes. Carroll won the hole and the match with a bogey.
“I played very similar rounds [in both matches]. I played solid for both of them. I really didn’t make very many mistakes. I didn’t have any big holes, and I made birdies I needed to make,” Carroll said. “I’m hitting the ball great. I made a lot of good putts on the back nine to stay in the match.”
Retired Richmond Times-Dispatch writer Arthur Utley is a frequent contributor to VSGA.org and Virginia Golfer magazine.