Favorites meet match
By Justin A. Rice Globe Correspondent / July 16, 2009BROOKLINE - The last man into match play at the 101st Massachusetts Amateur is well on his way to being one of the last men out at The Country Club. Finishing stroke play Tuesday in an eight-way tie for 25th place, Fitchburg’s Chad Bouchard was the No. 32 seed going into the first day of match play yesterday.
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“I just felt confident,’’ said Bouchard, 23, who plays out of Sterling National Country Club. “I wasn’t really worried about my opponent; I was worried about playing my own game. If it’s a good shot or a bad shot, [I] just stuck to what I was doing.’
Higgins’s loss reaffirmed the Mass Am’s curse of the medalist. Prior to John Hadges last year, no stroke-play medalist had won the match-play title since James Driscoll, who is playing in the British Open this week, in 1998. But the curse did more than just take out the No. 1 seed yesterday - the No. 2 and 3 seeds, Matt Parziale and Benjamin Spitz, also fell.
Parziale (Thorny Lea Country Club), last year’s runner-up, fell to No. 31 John Gilmartin of Indian Ridge Country Club, 5 and 4, while Spitz (The Harmon Club) was beaten, 2 up, by No. 30 Antonio Grillo of Farm Neck Golf Club.
Higgins, 34, was the 2008 Massachusetts Golf Association Player of the Year.
“[Bouchard] played great, real solid, and made putts when he needed to,’’ Higgins said. “I missed a couple of short putts on the front that really cost me the match I feel.
“He made a real clutch play on the playoff hole.’’
After trailing most of morning, Higgins holed his second shot for eagle on No. 13 to square the match. He went ahead on the next hole before Bouchard evened the match again on 15.
“Great shot,’’ Bouchard said, recalling Higgins’s eagle. “You gotta stay levelheaded no matter if you are even up five or down five.’’
Bouchard, who failed to qualify for match play in the 2005 Mass Am, didn’t play much match play in college.
“Once someone gets going and you get into match play it’s just one guy versus another,’’ said Bouchard, who plans to turn pro in December. “I knew I had the game. It’s just putting it together and hitting the right shots at the right time and avoiding the bad shots.’’
Bouchard will be at it again today against No. 8 Bradley Kushner (Club at New Seabury), who beat No. 24 Kevin Velardo (Country Club of Billerica) on the 22d hole.
“The worst part about it is I don’t have a caddie,’’ said Kushner, an incoming freshman at Yale. “My first match was only 14 holes so I had a few holes off.’’
Defending champion Hadges also needed 22 holes to win his Round of 16 match against No. 5 Jeffrey Santora of Pleasant Valley Country Club. Hadges’s quarterfinal match will be against No. 13 Bill Drohen, who defeated No. 4 Taylor Fontaine, 2 and 1.
Frank Vana Jr. (Marlborough Country Club) beat Brian Cawley of The Georgetown Club, 6 and 4, to advance to the quarterfinals, where he will play Cohasse Country Club’s Benjamin Bridgeo. No. 15 Bridgeo beat Gilmartin, 3-2.
Also in the afternoon, Grillo won, 2 up, against Norton’s Country Club’s Ryan Riley and will play No. 22 Scott Congdon of Foxboro Country Club. Congdon won, 1 up, against No. 6 Greg Shuman (The Country Club).
“I was surprised by all the upsets near the top,’’ said Grillo, Shuman’s teammate at Harvard, which practices at TCC. “But when you get to match play it’s a whole different thing. Quadruple bogeys don’t haunt you in match play and those are easy to come by out here.’’
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