Player of the Year Awards
Denny McCarthy, of Rockville, produced an outstanding season, scoring points in twelve events and easily earning a record third successive Player of the Year honor from the Maryland State Golf Association. Pat Tallent, from Vienna, Virginia, and Congressional Country Club, collected his second Senior Player of the Year title, having previously won in 2009. The two were among the honored guests at the MSGA annual meeting on Friday, November 13th.
McCarthy, 22, a University of Virginia graduate, finished with 1,080 points, eclipsing his previous mark of 985, set last year. Overall, he owns four of the top five scores in the Player of the Year competition, which started in 2007. Connor Tendall, Congressional CC, was a distant second with 660 points, followed by Ben Warnquist, Manor CC, 540 points. Rounding out the top five were Dan Falls, Manor CC, 400 points, and Mike Stackus, Hobbit’s Glen GC, 365 points.
McCarthy will long remember this year, as he made the cut in the U.S. Open (tying for second-low amateur) and was named to the USGA’s Walker Cup squad. During the Walker Cup, he played in all four sessions at Lythum & St. Annes, winning a foursomes match with Beau Hossler. McCarthy also won his third Maryland Open title. In addition, he won the highly regarded Porter Cup, qualified for match play at the U.S. Amateur, and lost in a playoff for the Middle Atlantic Amateur Championship. The last was his final amateur event, as he turned professional the next week.
Of the Walker Cup experience, he said, “It was great. Ten guys and the captains. What it really came down to was not about winning or losing — although you like to win — but about the friendships and just all the things that went into it.”
Tallent, 62, who has devoted much of his tournament time to the national and international scene in recent years, earned points in eight events. He tied for fifth (with partner Steve Ford) in the MSGA Senior Four-Ball and tied for third in the Middle Atlantic Senior Amateur, and ended with 365 points.
One event for which he received no points provided him with his biggest thrill. After a series of Top 10 finishes, the 2014 U.S. Senior Amateur titlist — “That opened the door for a lot of 2015 Senior events” — finally broke through to win the British Seniors Amateur championship at Royal County Down in Northern Ireland. “You can’t believe how good a course that is,” he offered recently. “I love playing over there. You can watch the ball roll and that’s a great equalizer…and you bounce the ball into the greens. There’s a lot more strategy than in this country.”
A second-round 3-under-par 68 (it turned out to be the only sub-par round of the tournament) gave him a two-stroke lead going to the final round and the championship came down to the final three holes. Sughrue, who had been his closest pursuer, holed a 15-foot birdie putt to go one ahead at 16, but when he missed a short par putt at 17 and messed up 18, Tallent sealed the victory with a par-par finish.
“With the two-putt at 18 for the win, I was as surprised as everybody else,” he recalled recently. “It was unbelievable to win. I’ve been so close in the past and I thought my chance to win here was done. I was very nervous and had a really bad start but at hole number 12 I said to Matt, ‘It’s match play — just us — and we can’t let anybody catch us.'”
In the Maryland State Golf Association’s Senior Open, Sughrue, from Bethesda CC, and John Howson, from Pine Ridge GC, each had a chance to catch Tallent in the Player of the Year race, as he was not entered in the tournament. As it developed, the two challengers wound up tied for second for Senior Player of the Year with 355 points each. Larry Storck, Hayfields CC, finished the year with 295 points and Lee Flemister, University of Maryland GC had 200 points.
Dawson Stump Outstanding Achievement Awards
Randy Reed and Joe Burns, two nationally recognized pillars in the field of golf administration — especially as it relates to the Rules of Golf — were honored by the Maryland State Golf Association with its Dawson Stump Outstanding Achievement Award during the organization’s annual dinner.
Both men have resigned from their area duties and will be retiring. They will be relocating to be near family members, Reed in Fayetteville, Arkansas, and Burns in Santa Barbara, California. The Stump Award, first presented in 2013, honors a former MSGA president and long-time official.
Reed, 67, who grew up in Fayetteville, was one of a two-member Arkansas State High School Championship golf team and played two years at the University of Arkansas. He graduated from the University of Arkansas and went on to obtain a Master’s degree in government from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He remained in the area, working first in sales management for the George Cornell Co., and then as national sales manager for Softspikes.
He was encouraged to get into golf administration by his father-in-law, Ben Brundred, Jr., a long-time Congressional CC member who served on the MSGA’s Executive Committee and was president in 1985. He suggested Reed become involved with the MSGA, which he did, serving on its Executive Committee, 1987-1995, including being president in 1995.
During his presidential year, he worked with Pat Kaufman and others in the formation of the MSGA’s separate Women’s Division, and it was founded in late 1995. “I consider this one of the most interesting and positive accomplishments during my time of involvement with the MSGA,” Reed said. “I am very pleased with my role in helping make the process a remarkably smooth one and the achievements of the Women’s Division have been extraordinary.”
Although he had been working on course set-ups from 1990 into the early 2000’s, an incredible work-load situation began with his acceptance of the position of Director of Rules and Competition for the MSGA in 2002, a position he held until resigning at the end of the 2014 season.
Along the way he was: Washington Metropolitan Golf Association’s Executive Director, 2004-2015; Middle Atlantic Golf Association Secretary/Executive Director, 2003-2015, and a year as President in 2008; USGA Committee Member from 1989-present. In 2014, he received the organization’s Ike Grainger Award for 25 years of volunteer service. Other honors have included the Middle Atlantic PGA’s David Wortman Citizen of the Year Award, the MSGA-Women’s Division’s Distinguished Service Award and the WMGA’s recently initiated Distinguished Service Award, which is named after him.
It is, however, in his capacity as a rules official that Reed leaves the largest footprint.
Consider this partial list: 12 NCAA championships during the 1990’s; more than 40 USGA championships; joined Lew Blakey and David Staebler in establishing a Middle Atlantic workshop for area officials; and overall, worked more than 600 tournaments, including more than 100 USGA qualifiers.
In summation, Reed says, “One of the greatest satisfactions has been bringing together many rules officials from Baltimore, Washington, and Northern Virginia — and often Pennsylvania — to administer tournaments in a capable manner as part of a common effort. The devotion of these scores of people to the effort has been remarkable.”
Reed and his wife, Laura, have two married children, Chris and Carroll, and Randy is pleased that he introduced both to the game of golf.
Burns, 77, a native of Caldwell, Idaho, a graduate of the University of San Francisco and Stanford Business School, has long been an enthusiastic golfer. “Nothing noteworthy,” he says — but only in the last 15 years or so has he been an active administrator/rules official. Prior to that, he worked for the Deloitte accounting firm (and its predecessor firms) for 38 years and retired in 2000.
Living in Greenwich, Connecticut, at the time, Burns was recommended by a fellow member of The Stanwich Club as a volunteer for the Metropolitan Golf Association. He was welcomed first as a tournament official and later as a course rater.
In late 2003, he moved to the eastern shore of Maryland and in early 2004 got in touch with Bill Smith and Randy Reed to volunteer as a tournament official in Maryland. Later, he began doing course ratings for eastern shore facilities.
After separating from his wife and moving to Baltimore in 2006, he suddenly had more time to devote to golfing activities. This included not only the MSGA, but the Middle Atlantic Golf Association (MAGA) and Washington Metropolitan Golf Association (WMGA) as well. He has served the MAGA as Treasurer, and is currently on the Executive Board of the WMGA.
During the last 10 years or so, he has officiated at countless events for these organizations. In 2010, he was appointed to the USGA’s Junior Committee and has worked each of its championships since then. In addition, in 2015, he was asked to officiate at the USGA’s Women’s Amateur Championship. Also, he continues to be active in the course-rating programs for the MSGA and the WMGA.
Burns has three sons, two of whom live in California, and six grandchildren.
Scholarship Recipients
David King Scholarship:
Langston Frazier, a University of Maryland Eastern Shore freshman is pursuing a degree in PGA Golf Management and would like to go on to a master’s and PhD. He was a First Tee member for six years and a four-year member of his high school golf team.
Emmet Gary Scholarships:
This scholarship is presented annually to agronomy students at the University of Maryland, this year in the amount of $12,000.
Thomas Donnelly, a senior
Brock Campbell, a junior
MSGA Scholarships:
Micaa Thomas, an Archbishop Spalding graduate and freshman at Savannah College of Art & Design, where she is majoring in 3D Animation.
Brooke Welsh, a graduate of Westminster High School, and a freshman at James Madison University, where she is majoring in early childhood education.
MSGA Scholarship Renewals:
Aria Jalalian, University of Maryland College Park
John Brennan McMullen, Eastern Kentucky University
Keely Murphy, Temple University
Mary Jordan Nogay, Presbyterian College
Cole Wernecke, Virginia Tech
-Reported by John Stewart