By Chris Lang
LYNCHBURG – One constant in recent years when it comes to the annual Virginias-Carolinas Junior Boys Matches: Expect it to be close.
How close? About as close as Carolinas’ golfer Zachary
Reuland’s birdie putt on 18, which came within inches of dropping and leaving
the 37th edition of the matches tied heading into Sunday’s singles
matches.
Instead, the Virginias side of Jimmy Taylor and Nick Fleming
made par and eked out a tie in the day’s final foursome match, giving the
Virginias a 4½-3½ lead after a full day of partner play at Boonsboro Country
Club.
The event concludes Sunday morning with eight singles
matches, starting between 8 and 8:56 a.m. The Virginias team—comprised of seven
players from the Virginia State Golf Association and one from the West Virginia
Golf Association—is seeking its first win in the series since 2015, when it won
9½-6½ at Boonsboro. That’s also the only time in the last five years the
matches have been decided by more than two points.
“I know we have really good players in the state of Virginia
and West Virginia,” Virginias player Charlie Kennedy said. “If we get ourselves
in the right position, we can pull it out tomorrow. We’ll see.”
Kennedy and fellow Richmond resident Ben Cooper teamed to
win two points on Saturday, defeating Spencer Oxendine and Pierce Robinson 5
and 4 in morning four-ball action before besting Robinson and Kenan Poole 2 and
1 in afternoon foursome play.
Though Kennedy, a rising junior at Mills Godwin High School
and Cooper, a recent St. Christopher’s graduate bound for the University of
Richmond, have played with each other in events, they’d never partnered in a
team competition before Saturday.
Their chemistry was evident early and really came to
fruition in alternate-shot play, a format with which neither player was
familiar.
“He can hit the long ball,” Kennedy said. “I don’t hit it as
far as he does—he hits it like 300 almost every time. So I had wedges into
holes, and he was making a lot of putts.”
Said Cooper: “I think we just kind of piggybacked off each
other. I don’t know what it was, but we just kind of clicked.”
After a morning four-ball session mixed with two routs and
two matches that went the full 18, the alternate-shot session in the afternoon
produced a ton of excitement. The champions of the VSGA’s two major junior
championships—Junior Match Play winner Bryan Lee and Junior Stroke Play winner
David Stanford—were paired together all day. They won 6 and 5 in the morning
but ran into a buzzsaw of sorts in the afternoon.
The Carolinas’ Peter Fountain and Spencer Oxendine played
their 17 holes in the afternoon against Lee and Stanford at 7 under, and
Fountain made the putt of the match when he bombed a 45-foot putt for eagle on
16 to put his side 2 up with two holes to play. The eagle came after Lee had
hit a great second shot to give Stanford about a 12-foot putt for eagle.
“I mean, David is one of the best putters I’ve ever played
with,” Fountain said. “I thought he was going to make it. So I told Spencer, I
had to give it a run, I couldn’t hit it too hard—on the small chance he misses
it. Obviously, I was trying to make it, but the chances of making one of those …
come on, it’s lucky. I kind of hit it and hoped, and it ended up going in.”
Along with Cooper and Kennedy, Roanoke’s Ross Funderburke
and Abingdon’s Will Watson won a full point in the afternoon, defeating Keegan
Vaugh and Matthew Hutto 2 and 1.
The Carolinas team—featuring Carolinas Golf Association players
from North and South Carolina--won the final two matches in the morning. Vaugh
and Hutto defeated Funderburke and Nick Fleming 1 up. In the final four-ball match,
Zachary Reuland and Mason Tucker birdied the final two holes to rally and beat
Taylor and Watson when Tucker stuffed his approach on 18 to two feet and sank
the winning birdie putt.
Lang is the editor of
Virginia Golfer magazine and the VSGA’s manager, digital media.