Four Players at 69 Lead the Maryland Open Championship After First Round
Connor Tendall, a recently minted professional golfer from Potomac, produced the only sub-par round of the afternoon wave during the opening round of the 95th Maryland Open Championship at Bulle Rock Golf Course in Havre de Grace, July 11th. The three-under-par 69 was enough to lift him into a four-way tie for the lead. The event, sponsored and conducted by the Maryland State Golf Association, will continue with single rounds on July 12 and July 13.
Tendall, 23, tied for fourth last year and turned professional this spring after competing in the United States Golf Association’s Four-Ball Championship. At Bulle Rock, over a course stretched to 7,055 yards with a par of 72, Tendall had three birdies on each nine — his best one on a 25-foot putt at the eighth green — but his effort was marred by a double-bogey at the 462-yard 13th, a treacherous test with a lateral water hazard and tangled vegetation on the right side. He drove into that junk and struggled from there, then rebounded with two successive birdies.
The other 69’s in the 130-man field were by former champions Matt Bassler (2009), an amateur from the CC of Maryland, and Sean Bosdosh (2012), a professional from Holly Hills CC, plus Billy Peel, an amateur from Columbia CC. Bassler was the first to post a 69 after dropping back with a three-putt at the 18th green, his final hole. Earlier, he crushed two shots to reach the green of the 624-yard 11th hole in two, then drained a 60-foot putt for an eagle. Bosdosh also started on hole number one, had five birdies, two bogeys on the front, then one of each on the back. Peel, also a front-nine starter, highlighted his round with a birdie at the 13th, where he put his second shot in a fairway bunker, was short of the green in three and chipped in.
Matt Fry, a professional from Bel Air, had five birdies, including two of the last three holes, capping it with a chip-in at 18 to finish at 70, along with professionals Brad Miller, from Timonium, and Craig Callens, from the CC of Virginia.
Amateurs Ryan McCarthy, from Baltimore CC, and Ryan Richardson, Mountain Branch GC, followed at 71. McCarthy eagled the 529-yard 15th with a 185-yard 6-iron second shot to just off the green, from where he delivered a nice pitch that ran in from 35 feet. Richardson got to 4-under through 11, then gave three of them back. Lee Detmer, an amateur from the Chevy Chase Club, also got into the “crush ” act, when he smashed two shots (driver-4-iron) to 25 feet and made the putt for an eagle-3 at the 519-yard eighth.
-Reported by John Stewart from Bulle Rock Golf Course