Hey Everyone,

I spent two days out in Western Mass., playing 45 holes of golf. The weather was incredible, and I met some new people along the way.

More on that later in the newsletter.

First, I have a cool giveaway to share before we jump into anything else. I met Reneé MacMurray a couple of years ago at the Northeast Golf Show. She’s a golf sicko and does lovely paintings of various courses.

We are raffling off a custom 8×10 painting to one person that usually costs $600.

All you have to do is be a paid subscriber to Bay State Golf. Winner will be picked later today.

Davis Chatfield shot 67 (-4) and is T14. This is the first event of the FedEx Cup Fall. This is a two-month stretch where Chatfield can move up from 130 on the FedEx Cup Points list. Top 100 get their PGA Tour card in 2027 and top 125 have conditional status. | Live Scoring

Chris Francoeur shot a 68 (-3) on Thursday. This is the Korn Ferry Finals, and the top 100 on the points list advance to next week’s event. Francoeur is currently projected at 84th. He has this event and the next event to climb into the top 60 for the KFT Tour Championship. | Live Scoring

Aidan O’Donovan (Somerville, Mass.) shot 71-72 (-1) at Kinderlou Forest in Georgia. He finished with three straight bogeys. He is T10, and it looks like the top 40 advance to the First Stage of Q-School. | Live Scoring

Four New Englanders are in this prestigious mid-amateur invitational event at Pine Valley in New Jersey. The format is 36 holes of stroke play, and then the 78 players are cut down to three 16-player flights. Jonathan Bale posted a 71 (+1), the day’s lowest score, showing how difficult Pine Valley plays for the best mid-amateurs.

Jim Jankowski shot 70-72 (-2) to hold off a big chasing pack at his home course, Baker Hill, in New Hampshire. Andy Drohen, Brian Fitzgerald, and Jack Kearney all shot 1-under par. John Drohen, Steve Tasho, and David Marshall all finished two shots off the lead at even par. | Results

Jayne Pardus shot 83-74 to win the Mass. Women’s Senior Amateur at Blue Hill CC (Canton, Mass.). Anna Morales and Tracy Welch rounded out the top three. | Results | MassGolf Recap

With the college season in full swing, I am writing a separate college results newsletter on Monday to keep this newsletter shorter. I am trying to respect the inbox, so if you’d like some college results, you can add your name to this list.

A different YouTube video this week from my round at Brookline GC last month. Some golf shots, some music, and some on-screen text about the course.

The song and dance of the first tee at a public course can be a delicate one for a single golfer.

Sometimes, as a tee time approaches, the overwhelming swirl of foursomes convening near the first tee can leave me wondering if I’ll ever put my tee in the ground.

When is it my turn?

Are they running behind?

Are they ahead?

Who am I playing with?

Where is the starter?

Then the realization sinks in…

I’ll have to fend for myself.

This week, I drove out to Ellinwood CC in Athol, Mass., to check out one of the final Donald Ross public courses in Massachusetts I haven’t played yet.

I called the pro shop and made a 10 am tee time.

“The seniors have the tee from 9 to 10,” the man on the phone told me.

When I checked in, the friendly man in the pro shop brought me to the large clubhouse window overlooking the first tee across the street.

He gave me the lay of the land: the 13 holes on the far side of the road have Donald Ross roots; the five on the other side are Geoffrey Cornish.

He uttered the most popular phrase in all of New England golf….

Keep it below the hole.

A few men on the first tee limbered up, a club over their heads, bending sideways and forwards in earnest. It was like they were rehearsing something they saw on YouTube the night before.

How to avoid injury in your 60s. Do this exercise before teeing it up!

It was 9:40.

But I got the sense I would be fending for myself; a woman said she had the 9:40 tee time but they were “behind.”

“Was there a frost delay?” I asked.

“No, they’re just busy,” she said with a shrug.

I wandered across the street as the foursome of women glided past me in their carts, one of them on a rather serious phone call.

After arriving an hour early, I was suddenly feeling rushed. There was no sign of anyone else with the 10 am tee time.

I had two choices.

Ask the two gentlemen on the forward tees if I could join them or play as a single behind a packed tee sheet.

The feeling I get when I ask to join a group is the same as asking to join a lunch table in high school.

Is anyone sitting here?

The foursome of women cheered me on as I made the decision to approach these two men.

“Do you guys mind if I join you?” I asked.

I could see the blood drain from the man’s face.

“If you want to. We’re hacks and hit second balls sometimes,” he said.

“That’s totally fine,” I said. “I’m going to play the blues if that’s okay.”

The two men nodded, and I scurried back to my tee box.

“That works out so much better, doesn’t it?” one of the women said.

I realized they probably didn’t want a single waiting on them for the next 4+ hours.

It’s rare to take the risk I took and end up unhappy on the golf course.

“Golf is a social game,” I was told the following day at Northfield GC when I paired up with Dave.

Ernie and Pete were a delight to play with at Ellinwood CC. Jovial, kind, helpful. They slashed at their golf balls with old clubs and laughed at their misfortune and the game's challenges.

I learned that Pete has lived all over the country but grew up in Athol and returned home in the last couple of years. Ernie would prefer to birdwatch than play golf.

“I play a few times a year,” he said. “I played more when I was younger, but now I’m a bird watcher.”

He and Pete would stare into the trees at the slightest bird song, trying to identify what might be up there.

I played 45 holes of golf this week out in Western Mass., and my moment of bravery set the tone for the rest of the trip. I arrived at Northfield CC the following morning as a solo golfer yet again. As I tried to loosen up, there was, once again, the song and dance of the high school dining room. Who is sitting with who?

Dave stepped up and asked me if I wanted to join him.

We played as a twosome. It was a lovely walk. Dave and I talked about hoops, coaching, local restaurants, and golf as we chased our golf balls around.

That afternoon I played at Crumpin Fox with a foursome I put together via the Internet. I posted a story on Monday with my tee time and a call for three people to join me.

Steve, who founded Cayce Golf, and Tom Layman, who wrote the book Level Par and hosts a podcast, both took me up on the offer. I’ve met both of them before, but I had never played golf with either of them.

Our fourth was Devon, an Internet stranger who was a fabulous addition. He took up the game a few years ago after playing in a corporate outing.

He got the bug.

He got the bug so bad that he snapped up a round of golf with three strangers at Crumpin Fox as a high handicap player.

That is quite a leap of faith.

As the light faded at Crumpin Fox and the four of us had dinner and chatted about golf and life, it was yet another wild snapshot of a quest that started as a selfish endeavor and has turned into an enriching experience of meeting new people in towns I might never visit otherwise.

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