Round #1
It took a while, but teenager Mike Blasey from the host club, Columbia Country Club in Chevy Chase, finally broke a logjam with a 2-under-par 68 to take the early lead in the 94th Maryland Open Championship. He was later joined at the top by professionals Brad Miller, Timonium, and Ryan Eibner, Gaithersburg. Eleven players share fourth place with 69’s, and another eight, including two-time champion Denny McCarthy, are at 70.
The full field of 132 players will play the second round, July 14, followed by a cut to the low 40 and ties for the final round July 15. All play will be from the first tee, with par set at 35-35–70 for the 6,603-yard finely conditioned course.
Blasey, 19, a Landon School graduate who will be a Davidson freshman in the fall, posted 35-33, with five birdies — on putts ranging up to 25 feet — and three bogeys, including two 3-putts.
Miller, 25, a member of the eGolf Tour in North Carolina who was the medalist in the Hillendale Country Club qualifier and a top-6 finisher in the 2011 Open, shot 36-32, that included an erratic front nine with only one par. Four birdies, three bogeys, and a double-bogey sent him to the turn 1-over, but he quickly shifted gears with a birdie at number 11 and an eagle-3 at number 12 (7-iron shot to the fringe and a 25-foot putt on the 518-yard hole).
Eibner had 34-34, highlighted by an eagle-3 at the 535-yard fifth hole, and he went on to record four birdies and four bogeys.
Among the 69’s were two Columbia members, Brendan Peel, who birdied the last two holes, and Doug Hurson, who birdied the first two to get his round going. Michael Meyer, Lakewood Country Club, helped his cause with birdies at numbers 16 and 17, but Connor Flach, Turf Valley Resort, who was in position to take the lead, slipped back with bogeys at 17 and 18. Of the group, only two were pros, Pleasant Hughes, Chevy Chase Club, and Olney Golf Park’s Jim Estes, who had two second place and two third place finishes in a recent five-year span.
This marked the first time Columbia had held the tournament since 2000, when Dennis Winters won and Dirk Schultz and Jack Skilling tied for second.
The morning weather was overcast with occasional rain showers but they were gone before noon and play continued uninterrupted.
Round #2
Ryan Eibner, a first-time entry, became the only player in the 94th Maryland Open Championship to register two rounds in the 60’s and a worthy challenger to two-time titlist Denny McCarthy as each posted a 36-hole total of 137 to tie for the 36-hole lead over a demanding Columbia Country Club course in Chevy Chase, July 14.
Eibner, 24, a professional who lives in Gaithersburg, currently is a member of the eGolf Tour in North Carolina (three cuts in nine events) and works part-time at Congressional CC, was one of three to share the first-round lead with a 2-under-par 68, then stayed there with a 69.
McCarthy, 22, from Rockville and Argyle CC, has a resume that includes going low in several of his recent Open appearances, did it again when he added a 67 to an opening 70, then was forced to share the low-score honor with Connor Tendall, from Congressional CC, who fashioned the 3-under-par number in the next-to-last group of the 121-man field.
“The wind picked up in the afternoon making [play] a little tricky,” McCarthy, a winner in 2010 and 2013, who recently graduated from the University of Virginia, said of his 33-34 that included five birdies, two bogeys. Two of those birds were on the first two holes — “They were 10-12 foot left-to-right breakers and got me off to a good start.” Two others were on putts from 15 and 20 feet. “I scraped it around yesterday [Monday] but today was better.
Two hours later, Eibner, an East Carolina University graduate, joined him at the top. His front nine included four birdies, but they left as quickly as they came, as he had only one, at the 12th, on the back. He had qualified for the event with a 72 at P.B. Dye GC in May.
The cut fell at 146, and 42 players advanced to the final round, July 15.
The leaderboard underwent a shuffling from one round to the next, as many of the early challengers fell back, including leaders (with Eibner) Brad Miller and Mike Blasey. Miller, a 25-year-old eGolf Tour player from Timonium, put up 68-72, and Blasey, 19, a Columbia CC member and an incoming freshman at Davidson College, 68-72.
Thus Eibner and McCarthy were followed at 139 by Brendan Peel (70), Columbia CC; Walter Egloff (70), Chevy Chase Club, and two who improved — pro Sean Bosdosh, Holly Hills CC (70-69) and Billy Hoffman, an assistant pro at Westwood CC (71-68). The 140’s were Blasey, Miller, Tendall, and Scott Ehrlich, Manor CC, and the 141’s were pro Pleasant Hughes, Chevy Chase Club, 69-72; Josh Eure, from Crofton, a former MSGA Amateur champ and last year’s leader the first two days, 71-70; Connor Flach, Turf Valley CC, 69-72, and Matt Sughrue, Bethesda CC, 70-71.
Final Round
Denny McCarthy, from Argyle Country Club, rode a second straight 3-under-par 67 to his third Maryland Open championship in six years, finishing with a 54-hole total of 204 at Columbia CC in Chevy Chase, July 15.
McCarthy, a 22-year-old amateur from Rockville, began the round tied with first-time entry Ryan Eibner, but the latter dropped back after a triple-bogey seven at the ninth hole. Billy Hoffman, an assistant pro at Westwood CC in Vienna, Va., who got the first-place money, was two back when the day started, but never got closer after the second hole, and ended with a 67-206. Walter Egloff, 18, from the Chase Club, finished with 68-207 for third place.
“My goal is always the same — limit my mistakes and make no bogeys,” McCarthy said of his pre-round thinking. After he and Hoffman birdied the first hole, he hit a poor shot that led to a bogey at the par-4 second and all of a sudden the four players who had been two back were right in it.
“I was really ticked about that bad shot at 2 and I told myself mentally, ‘No more mistakes. Think your way around,’ and I didn’t drop a shot the rest of the way,” McCarthy said. “I drove the ball well. . .great position and left myself short [of the hole] with uphill putts. Also, we had a northwest wind — one you don’t normally get on a golf course and different from the first two days — that made it tricky and I knew the round would be tougher [for everybody].”
Hoffman’s plans took a hit on the third where he recorded a double-bogey, and although he birdied the ninth to turn even and rallied on the back (three birdies) with a steady effort, he was still chasing the leader at the end. The other three who started two back — Egloff, former titlist Sean Bosdosh, Holly Hills CC, and Brendan Peel, Columbia CC — none was closer than two strokes, and Bosdosh (72) and Peel (83) fell back.
The top three were trailed by George Bradford, a Waverly Woods GC pro (67) and amateur Connor Tendall, Congressional CC (69), who tied for fourth. Last year, Bradford had a last-round 65 and ended solo third, also at 209. At 211, Bosdosh, a professional after winning as an amateur, was joined by Ryan Cole, an amateur from Waverly Woods, who highlighted his 68 with birdies on the four par-3 holes.
The list of multiple Open winners is headed by Charlie Bassler with seven, followed by Al Houghton and Chip Sullivan with four. In addition to McCarthy, the others with three in the 94-year history of the event are Cliff Spencer, Jack Isaacs, Marty West, III, and Wayne DeFrancesco.
With Columbia a par-70 course played at 6,608 yards, McCarthy now has his three titles on three par-70 courses, as he won at Manor in 2010, and at the CC of Maryland in 2013. Of his six Opens, McCarthy has three wins, a lost playoff (at Lakewood in 2014), a second (at Old South in 2012), and a missed cut (at Maryland Golf in 2011).
His future calendar for the summer includes the Porter Cup, Western Amateur, and U.S. Amateur. His latest triumph puts another stamp of approval on his resume, as he awaits a USGA announcement on the makeup of the Walker Cup team. Several of the members may be picked in the next several weeks, with the possibility of the committee withholding its final selections until after the Amateur. The matches will be played Sept. 12-13 at Royal Lytham & St. Anne’s in England.
-Reported by John Stewart from Columbia Country Club
