Clay Fitzgerald and Skip Tendall, paired for this event for the first time,
returned 34-33–67 at the Green Spring Valley Hunt Club and won the 22nd Senior
Four-Ball championship of the Maryland State Golf Association, May 22. The
6,506-yard course was played at a par 35-37–72, with a field of 32 teams.
Lee Flemister and David Nocar finished second at 68, followed by Pete Hiskey-Joe
Lefavor, and Marty West-Bob Morris, 70.
The winners, from Congressional Country Club, finished with six birdies after an
opening-hole bogey, playing in the morning under what were called “brutal”
weather conditions of steady rain with temperatures in the mid-60’s. The rain
stopped about noon and the afternoon conditions were more favorable.
Each had a front-nine birdie, Fitzgerald from 25 feet at the fifth and Tendall
from 15 feet at the dogleg-seventh. Fitzgerald birdied the 10th and Tendall ran
off three the rest of the way, finishing with what turned out to be the winning
stroke, a 10-foot birdie putt at the 136-yard 18th.
Tendall, with partner Michael Kelly, was part of a three-team group that shared
the 2014 title, and a MSGA Father-Son crown he won with with Conner at Green
Spring was special, after having won three times with son Ryan. Tendall has won
four Congressional club championships and Fitzgerald, one regular and two
Seniors.
Flemister, from the University of Maryland GC, and Nocar, a former MSGA Amateur
champion from Chartwell Country Club, had a birdie apiece on the front and after a bogey, Nocar birdied the 15th and Flemister birdied the 17th (a 25-foot chip-in) and 18th (four feet) to take an early lead.
Later, with Fitzgerald-Tendall already in, Morris and West closed to within two strokes with a 3-under round working through 16 holes, then could get no closer.
Two withdrawals left the Super Seniors (65-over) with only six teams, and Jim Castagna-Joe Records took care of that group with 34-35–69 over a 6,173-yard layout. Records in his first major competitive experience in awhile, had three birdies and Castagna, two. There were two bogeys for a finish at 3-under.
In the past, Castagna had won with Larry Den in 2007, and Records, with Van Strakes in 2008 at Green Spring, while Records-Strakes won a Middle Atlantic Amateur Senior Four-Ball in 2006, and Records- Castagna won in 2010. In addition, Records and Larry Storck have won six Baltimore Municipal Golf Corporation Two-Man Team titles, most recently in 2004.
“Yeah, I brought him out of retirement,” Castagna offered, to which Records replied, “Yes, and I’m going right back in.”
