For a change, the golf was secondary; it was the background that was important.
The Maryland State Golf Association and the Gibson Island Club were both born in 1921. However, it took nearly 100 years for the two to get together.
Certainly, the founders of the MSGA put down a firm foundation and famed architects Charles Blair MacDonald (National Golf Links, Chicago Golf Club) and Seth Raynor (Elkridge, Yale) did their work at Gibson Island, as strong a 9-hole golf course today as it was years ago.
It took two former fledgling assistant golf professionals to bring organization and club together. At one time, David “Moose” Brown and David Grossman were young assistants at the Country Club of York (Pa.), and when Grossman was named head professional at the Gibson Island Club two years ago, they renewed acquaintances through what Brown called, “The assistants’ pipeline.”
Grossman wanted to elevate the golf program at Gibson Island and Brown, a vice-president with the MSGA and in a position to help him, said, “We wanted to find an event that would help the club.” Voila. The MSGA awarded its 2018 Baltimore-Washington Team Matches to the facility in Anne Arundel County. The course, with lots of elevation, was played at 5,941 yards to a par of 35-34–69.
For the second year, the two teams were divided with each side pairing six amateur and six Junior players. Baltimore won last year, 12-6, and Washington won this time, 15-3, in a contest held August 11. Baltimore had six holdovers — Billy Wingerd, Brandon Wilson, Ford Bennett, Patrick McCormick, Jack Halleron, Austin Barbin — and Washington had three– Ben Warnquist, Mark Cusic, and Matthew Malits. In addition, Nick Barrett and Connor Flach played for Washington last year and Baltimore this time.
Washington produced four 3-0 shutouts in the better-ball format, won another, 2 1/2 – 1/2, and lost only one, 1/2- 2 1/2, on a sunny, hot afternoon.
The highlight match saw Vance Welch (3), from Hobbit’s Glen GC and Marshall Meisel (4), from the Chevy Chase Club, combine for seven birdies in the first nine holes to overwhelm Baltimore Country Club’s McCormick-Halleron. 3-0. Warnquist, from Manor CC, a two-time MSGA Amateur champion, and Keegan Shreeves, Congressional CC, shut out Wingerd-Wilson, both from Mountain Branch GC, 3-0, going 1 up on the front and 2 up on the back.
The last two matches went to Daniel Chen, Blue Mash GC-Pieter DeGroot, TPC Avenel, over Barrett-Addison Wells, Chartwell CC, and Cusic, from Breton Bay G&CC, and Malits, from Argyle CC, over Flach, Turf Valley Resort, and Barbin, Chesapeake Bay GC. Both went 3-0, with the winners going 1 up on the front and 2 up on the back.
Joey Rice, Old South CC, and Matthew Feinstein, Congressonal CC, lost the front to BCC’s Mike O’Neil and Green Spring’s Ford Bennett, then won the back, 3 up, to take the match.
The father-son combination of Mike Hudak, from Caves Valley GC, and Joseph Hudak, Green Spring, administered Washington’s only loss, 2 1/2 – 1/2, when Mike sank a 15-foot putt on the 18th green to win the side and the match.
This may have been the first outside event at the Gibson Island Club, but likely not the last. As Grossman expressed it, “We want to have more golf here.”
Reported by John Stewart
