The golfers straggled in from all angles, climbing over low undulating hills back to the clubhouse, where they sat and ate and commiserated about a tough day on a tough course. The words “tough” and “rough” bounced around like ping pong balls, because slippery greens and gusty winds and a demanding layout landed all sorts of interesting geometry on typically cleanly scorecards.
Just not, for the most part, on Hunterdon Central’s.
The Red Devils posted a 310 to outstrip all 23 other teams and upend formerly blistering Westfield for the Group 4 title Monday at Raritan Valley Country Club. The Blue Devils, which entered as the putative favorite and perhaps planned to expand this season’s already bulging trophy case, finished second in Group 4 with a 319. Williamstown and Washington Township, the other two Group 4 competitors, languished far in the distance, with 352 and 362.
But Westfield found a sunny spot amid the disappointment. Barnes Blake carded a 1-over-par 73 to win Group 4 by 3 strokes.
Blake, though, participated in the cascade of uncharacteristic geometry. A dreaded triangle alighted on his card. It marked a triple bogey, carded on the 14th hole, which torpedoed his chances of winning the individual Tournament of Champions. Blake finished tied for fifth overall.
The shapes visited his teammates, too, and frequently. Squares and squares and squares, signaling bogeys and bogeys and bogeys. Enough bogeys to usher Hunterdon Central into the winner’s circle. Not that the Red Devils needed help.
“It was definitely a battle out there, because the conditions weren’t ideal,” said Jack Fisher, who led Hunterdon Central with a 4-over 76. “But we battled it out. We all broke 80.”
The NJSIAA abolished the TOC, across all sports, before this school year, which meant Hunterdon Central received no award for besting the likes of Newark Academy and Delbarton, both from Non-Public A, which placed second and third overall with a 311 and a 317. Westfield tied with Wall and Gill St. Bernard’s for fourth.
It seemed silly, really, that the NJSIAA neglected to crown Hunterdon Central as the team TOC champion. Did it matter to the Red Devils?
“We don’t need a trophy to prove it,” said Chris Gacos, the team’s coach.
“We don’t need a trophy to prove it,” Fisher concurred.
The Hunterdon Central victory marked the stirring final chapter in a series of tussles this season with Westfield.
The schools clashed most recently at the North 1/2, Group 4 sectional championship. Westfield won. Before that, they clashed at Westfield’s Blue Devil Invitational. Westfield won. Before that, they clashed at the Garden State Cup. Neither won—Hunterdon Central placed higher. Before that, they clashed at Hunterdon Central’s Red Devil Invitational. Westfield won. Barely. On a fifth-man tiebreak.
Which sort of insulated the two schools on Monday from the surrounding chaos. Twenty-four teams vied for an unofficial overall title, and then for six group titles. One hundred twenty-eight players vied for one individual trophy, and then for six group trophies. Smaller battles within smaller battles within smaller battles.
Then there was the biggest smallest battle of them all. Westfield. Hunterdon Central. Leader. Chaser.
“The losses kind of stuck with us,” said Jeff Yong, who posted a 7-over 79. “And we knew what we had to do to beat Westfield.”
So they did. Isaiah Williams shot a 5-over 77, and Alex Yong shot a 6-over 78 to round out the Hunterdon Central quartet. Excitement for the Red Devils.
A big ouch for Westfield.
“It definitely hurts,” said Ryan Daly, Westfield’s head coach. He smiled all afternoon, from the moment he pulled up to the clubhouse in his golf cart to when he congratulated Hunterdon Central to when he walked back to the parking lot. But it was one of those smiles. The disbelieving ones, frozen in place, genuine but pained.
“As a program,” Daly said, “we knew how special of a season we were having. So we really wanted to finish it today and just, unfortunately, came up a little short.”
Blake similarly expressed some regret at not repeating as the individual TOC champion. He “got off to a little slow start,” he said. The par 5s hampered him: He parred them all. Including the ninth hole, “the most disappointing out of all of them.”
He nearly bogeyed it.
Standing over a 2-footer for par, Blake putted. Then froze. Heart pounding. Body suspended. His ball flirted with the hole’s edge, traced a scary half-circle around it. It dropped. Phew.
But then came the 14th hole. The triple-bogey 7. He caught a bad break off the tee, saw his approach squirt further than anticipated and out-of-bounds. Blake spent some time, after the round, talking about the hole. A long time.
“Tee shot could have been better,” he said, “but it’s not a tee shot that typically results in a 7.” He placed extra emphasis on “7,” like the number was something nasty, something disgusting.
He recovered, though, playing his final eight holes in 2-under and winning Group 4. The mishap, though, dropped Blake out of reach of the leaders.
Those were Delbarton’s Tyler Lee and Newark Academy’s Arjun Caprihan, who headed to a playoff after matching 70s. They played 18 holes together, Caprihan birdieing the final two to force a playoff. Then they played a 19th.
The designated playoff hole was the 10th hole. St. Andrew’s, that venerated Scottish haven, has the famed Road Hole. Raritan Valley CC has the Turnpike Hole (or so it will henceforth be known). It’s adjacent to a major road. The club’s driveway entrance runs through the hole.
The green is treacherous, firm and unyielding, sending balls bouncing over. Both players ended up over the green. Lee got up and down from a simple lie. Caprihan didn’t.
The awards ceremony lasted a while, what with all the group and individual trophies to present. Aside from Group 4, Mountain Lakes won Group 1 with a 342, Wall won Group 2 with a 319, Ramapo won Group 3 with a 329, Newark Academy won Non-Public A with a 311 and Gill St. Bernard’s won Non-Public B with a 319.
The day also featured a dash of the absurd.
That came when Morristown-Beard’s Justin Benbassat, toiling through a miserable round, arrived at his final hole, the par-3 7th. He ascertained the distance, 155 yards. He pulled a 9-iron. He swung. The ball went in the hole. A hole-in-one, on his final hole, to shoot an 89.
“I wasn’t even happy,” Benbassat said.
That was because neither he, nor his team, won.
Hunterdon Central did. The Red Devils were plenty happy.
“It’s awesome,” Williams said. “Westfield always brings out the best in us, just as we know we bring out the best in them, so it’s a good feeling.”
Plenty happy.
