Hanover On A Roll

The tent and scoreboard are in place and it won't be long now! 

HANOVER – It’s not exactly news for Hanover Country Club regulars, but out-of-towners teeing it up Friday in qualifying for the 41st Tommy Keane Invitational could be in for a surprise.

The ball is rolling. Like, really rolling.

“This is my 11th year and the course is in the best shape it has been in since I’ve been here,” said Alex Kirk the HCC head professional. “I think the greens are going to be the fastest we have ever seen them.”

Credit new rollers, green covers, a mild winter, Superintendent Mike Pollard and his crew, and the super of supers, Mother Nature.

Kirk is confident that the 56 two-man teams who will be split into four flights after qualifying will find the condition of the course and the greens to their liking.

“I think so,” he said. “You just have to adjust to the speed. Overall, I think it will bring out the best championship golf.

“We’re playing the ball down in the fairway. We are playing real golf. Between that and the caliber of play I think it will bring out the best in the field.”

The father-son team of Shane and Nick MacDonald is back to defend the championship they won in the annual tournament honoring Tommy Keane, the HCC pro and Dartmouth golf coach from 1922-1966.

“This is probably the top weekend of our summer,” said Kirk. “It is fun for all the people who come back from all over. It is a good melting pot of different groups and ages and talents, and there’s some good golf being played.”

The MacDonalds captured last year’s edition of the Four Ball match play event with a 3-and-1 win over recent Hanover High School graduates Benny Hayes and Nate Choukas. The championship was the fourth overall for Shane MacDonald, the third overall for Nick, and their second playing together.

Hayes and Choukas figure to be just one of the teams pushing to dethrone the champions.

“The McDonalds are always a powerhouse between Nick’s firepower and Shane’s consistency,” said Kirk. “Billy Vielleux is playing really well and Jake Obar is always a solid competitor so they will be tough. But you just never know. You have those guys but then you also have college kids in there like Choukas and Hayes, and Zach Temple – who is playing pretty good – with Mak Lyford again.

 “It’s easy to make predictions but the fun thing is they have to go out and do it. That’s why you’ve got to swing the club and see who gets it in the whole the fastest.”

DIVOTS
If there are teams tied for the final spot in the championship flight Friday they will gather at the first tee at 6 p.m. With the rest of the field watching from the Hanover porch, the teams will “march” down the fairway to determine which will be in the championship flight.

“That’s one of the best spectator things here at HCC all summer,” said Kirk. “It’s almost disappointing where there isn’t one. The march is always fun to watch.”

Match play begins Saturday morning with teams needing to keep winning Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning to make it to Sunday afternoon’s championship matches.

Friday Qualifying Tee Times

All off first tee:

8:30
Scott Peters/Andy Hydorn
Ben Peters/Tom Peters

8:40
Jim Jankowski/Andrew Jankowski
John Donnelly/Rowland Hazard

8:50
Torrey Viger/Matt Wood
Mak Lyford/Zach Temple

9:00
Nick Stern/Matt Spruck
Josh Hildebrand/Josh Wilson

9:10
Mike Hathorn/Mitch Cable
Mike Pollard/Mike Garvey

9:20
Jake Obar/Bill Vielleux
Chris House/Ryan Fay

9:30
Mike Kelley/Adam Pippin
Joe King/Lance Pelley

9:40
Brendan Doyle/Ethan Gage
Taylor Fittro/Adam Hartford

9:50
Chris Taylor/Patrick Norden
Rick Hughes/Chris Clark

10:00
Greg Hardy/Cooper Hardy
Andy Mellow/Dexter Bucklin

10:10
Charlie Carr/Steve Lyon
Dan Peraza/Toby Jasmin

10:20
Bob Donahue/Tim McCarthy
Tim McNeil/Jack Lamborghini

10:30
Zach Taylor/Austin Taylor
Charlie Arnold/Breck Taylor

10:50
Chris Lincoln/Jay Harvey
Dan Fitzgerald/Bob Jacobs

11:00
Mark McCaddin/Rick Wetmore
Dom Candido/Brian Tracy

11:10
Kevin Appleton/Dave Doyle
Ben Gardner/Jason Gardner

11:20
Jim Keane/Kevin Sullivan
Tom Keane/Kevin Johnson

11:30
Thomas Keane/Kevin Keane
Eric Maskwa/Brendan Joosten

11:40
Dan Cole/Matt Keane
Chris Keane/Dillon Sass

11:50
Tyler Kelly/Jared Rice
Todd Becker/Matt Madore

12:00
Alex Robinson/Patrick Norton
Jon Vogel/Mark Loranger

12:10
Alex Lazerowich/Jeff Lazerowich
Craig Maguire/Mike Sullivan

12:20
Scott Sinclair/Joe Roblee
Tim Wyand/Grant Kelly

12:30
Dan Campbell/Nick Trottier
Stuart Williams/Eric Wales

12:40
Dave Cioffi/Ron Cioffi
Mike Noonan/Charlie Mandrachia

12:50
Nate Choukas/Ben Hayes
Greg Genest/Steve Considine

1:00
Terry Hall/Jeff Frechette
Nick MacDonald/Shane MacDonald

1:10
Gary Smith/Matt Lane
Cody Dodds/Ryan Bergeron

The Tommy Keane – An Appreciation

READY TO JOIN IN THE FUN?

Click the Entry Application (below) to enlarge (you may have to click it a second time), fill it out and mail it with the entry fee to Alex Kirk, Hanover Country Club, 36 Hilton Field Lane, Hanover, NH 03755.

Scenes From Championship Flight Final Match

Click the photos to enlarge them.

MacDonalds Jump Out Early And Stave Off Choukas-Hayes

It's handshakes all around after the final putt on 17. (More photos tomorrow. Click to enlarge.)

HANOVER – Peering over a cliff at the distant Union Pacific Railroad posse they couldn’t shake, a disbelieving Butch Cassidy asks the Sundance Kid in their eponymous Western, Who are those guys?

When Nick and Shane MacDonald galloped out to a huge early lead and then had trouble shaking their pursuers in Sunday’s Tommy Keane Invitational championship match, they might have wondered, as Butch did, “Who are those guys?”

Except they knew exactly who was on their trail.

Trying to catch them were former Hanover High School teammates Nate Choukas and Benny Hayes.

Choukas, a rising sophomore golfer at Trinity, and Hayes, a junior golfer at the University of Puget Sound, had survived a 22-hole marathon to win their morning semifinal over fellow collegians Zach Temple and Mak Lyford.

And even after falling four holes down through five they showed no signs of backing down against the battle-tested MacDonalds.

“They are very good players and real good kids,” said Shane MacDonald after the father-son team outlasted Jake Obar and Billy Vielleux in 19 holes in their morning semifinal and then clinched a second Keane title in a row with a birdie on 17 in their afternoon match with Choukas and Hayes. “I think they were nervous at the start and made a couple of bogeys they wouldn’t normally make and that gave us a little advantage.

“Those early bogeys ended up being the difference but they kept on coming.”

And they did keep coming.

“We gave it our all in our first match and we needed our all again against the MacDonalds,” said Hayes. “We gave it our best but we never played well all week on that stretch of holes from one-to-five. We tried to fight back and made some birdies but it’s tough to beat them when you fall behind and Nick is 5- or 6-under.”

Already down three, Hayes and Choukas hit errant tee balls on No. 5 to lose the hole with a bogey. At that point it was clear to everyone including the large rolling gallery following the match that it would be a short afternoon on the course if they fell any further back.

They didn’t.

Choukas promptly drained a clutch birdie putt on six to shrink the deficit back to three.

“I think they were a little nervous early,” said Nick MacDonald. “They settled down after the fifth hole and got things together.”

A Nick MacDonald birdie on nine built the lead back to four but once again the young challengers responded, this time with a Choukas birdie putt on 11.

When Nick MacDonald hit the flagstick with his tee ball on the uphill 14th to set up an easy birdie Choukas stepped up with still another clutch putt of his own to halve another hole his team could ill afford to lose.

Their hats off in anticipation of a congratulatory handshake on the 15th green, Hayes and Choukas caught a break and dodged the proverbial bullet when Nick MacDonald’s short birdie attempt rimmed out and they halved the hole.

Backs still against the wall, Choukas and Hayes stayed alive when Hayes rolled in a 20-foot birdie putt to win 16 and stretch the match to 17.

But that’s where the chase came to a close as Nick MacDonald’s length and bunker shot to four feet led to a birdie that finally ended the match at 3&1.

The championship was the third for the MacDonalds together, the fourth overall for Nick, and the fifth for his dad.

“You know they are comfortable out there,” said Choukas. “There’s no nerve factor. You know Nick is going to pretty much step up and hit it 30 yards by you, right in the middle of the fairway. Every time. You just have to expect that and hope that you roll in a birdie putt on him and sometimes he doesn’t.”

If there was a nerve factor for Choukas and Hayes, it disappeared for good before the turn.
“It’s just that they haven’t been there before,” said Shane MacDonald. “Now they’ve seen it and felt it. They’ll be back.”

“Definitely,” said Choukas.

“That’s the plan,” said Hayes, who is taking classes this summer and flew back from the Pacific Northwest in part to play in the Keane.

Unfortunately for the rest of the field, the MacDonalds will be back again next  year – and for the foreseeable future.

“I’ll keep playing as long as Nick will have me,” said Shane with his trademark laugh before sharing the MacDonald gameplan for TKI success.

“I make sure Nick is in a good mood,” he joked. “That’s how I do it. We make a good team and don’t disagree about anything. When he asks me (about a putt) I just agree with him.

“The only thing we disagreed on this weekend was whether to get Chinese food or pizza last night.”