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Hey Everyone,

Some good stories in Massachusetts golf this week between Sascha Robinson (Plymouth, Mass) winning a big college event, James Driscoll (Brookline, Mass.) qualifying for MassOpen, and Evan Harmeling teeing it up on the PGA Tour in the Myrtle Beach Classic.

We also had a member buy a country club!

More on all that below.

If you’re a 98.5 Sports Hub listener, I will be on the Sports Hub Golf Club with Hardy this Sunday morning at 7 am. We recorded on Thursday, and it was a blast!

Finally, I attended an event last night to celebrate former colleagues at Shore Country Day who were retiring or had reached service milestones. Three teachers retired after 17, 34, and 43 years at the school.

I know this week is Teacher Appreciation Week, so shoutout to all those teachers who are in the home stretch this school year. It is always a busy, overwhelming, and exciting time of year.

Truist Championship: Keegan Bradley shot 69 (-2) and is T20. Matt McCarty leads after a 63. The first round was suspended and will finish on Friday morning. Live Scoring

Myrtle Beach Classic: Evan Harmeling (N. Andover, Mass.) and Davis Chatfield (Attleboro, Mass.) both shot 73 (+2) and are T95. Martin Laird shot 64 and leads by a shot. Live Scoring

Mizuho Americas Open: Alexa Pano (Westborough, Mass.) and Megan Khang (Rockland, Mass.) shot 71 (-1); they’re T20. Live Scoring

MassGolf Qualifiers: There were four qualifiers this week for the Mass Open. A cool mix of high school golfers like Jack Carew and Massachusetts legends like James Driscoll booked a tee time at Oyster Harbors in June. A good collection of amateurs will be in the field, which is exciting.

Here are the players who qualified.

Black Rock: Drew Golden (a) 69 (-2), Reese Jensen (a) 69 (-2), Doran Gibbs (a) 69 (-2), Brady Allbritton 70 (-1), Mike Calef (a) 70 (-1), Herbie Aikens (a) 70 (-1), Matthew Borghi (a) 71 (E), Matthew Maderos (a) 71 (E), Lorenzo Ciccone (a) 71 (E), Ernest McAlister (a) 71 (E), Jared Winiarz (a) 72 (+1), Oliver Paddon 72 (+1).

Ocean Edge: Nick Antonelli 72 (E), Aidan O'Donovan (a) 73 (+1), Todd Ezold (a) 73 (+1), Christopher Pieper 75 (+3), Aiden Donath (a) 75 (+3), Jude McColgan (a) 75 (+3), Patrick Dalton (a) 75 (+3), Wyatt Frazier 75 (+3), Matthew Oliveira (a) 76 (+4), Colby Cannon 76 (+4), Shamus Landers 76 (+4), Terrence Manning (a) 76 (+4), Griffin Clary (a) 76 (+4), Matt Egan (a) 76 (+4), Brendan Hunter 76 (+4).

Walpole CC: Chad Correia (a) 70 (-1), James Driscoll 72 (+1), Evan Grenus 73 (+2), Wes Milbury (a) 73 (+2), Ryan Derosier (a) 74 (+3), Conor McCormack (a) 74 (+3), Matt Cowgill (a) 74 (+3), Chad Bearce (a) 74 (+3), Joey Nee (a) 75 (+4), Pete McCracken (a) 75 (+4), Patrick O'Leary (a) 75 (+4).

Kernwood CC: Jake Peer (a) 72 (+2), Daniel Koerner (a) 73 (+3), Jeff Steckmest (a) 74 (+4), Brennen Gillis 74 (+4), Chris Houston 74 (+4), Sean Dully (a) 74 (+4), Philip Doyle (a) 74 (+4), Matt Sebet (a) 75 (+5), Benjamin Grimmett (a) 76 (+6), Colin Brennan (a) 76 (+6), Joey Monahan (a) 76 (+6), Sam Grindle (a) 76 (+6), Stephen Quillinan (a) 76 (+6), Jack Carew (a) 76 (+6), John Lazor (a) 76 (+6).

PGA Works Collegiate: Sascha Robinson (Plymouth, Mass.) won the event by eight shots. He shot 67-69-65 (-12) at The Park in Florida to run away and hide from the field. It’s Robinson’s third win in his first two years with Florida A&M. They also won the team event. Results

The NCAA Regionals are the final stop before the NCAA Championship. They are held at six sites around the country. 12 teams and six individuals compete at each venue. The top five teams in each region advance to the National Championship. The lowest-scoring individual who isn’t on a qualifying team will also advance to the National Championship to compete for the individual national title.

Quinnipiac will play as the 12th seed in the Ann Arbor Regional after winning the MAAC…Molly Smith (Westford, Mass.) and her UCF Golden Knights are also in the Ann Arbor Regional as the 3 seed… Isabel Brozena hopes to help 10th-seeded Xavier advance out of the Louisville Regional… Harvard’s Vanessa Zhang qualified as an individual and is headed to the Tallahassee Regional… Carys Fennessy (Dover, N.H.) will compete for the College of Charleston in the Louisville Regional.

Harvard will compete as the 12 seed in the Athens, Georgia Regional. Vanderbilt is also in that field as the 3 seed. Ryan Downes (Longmeadow, Mass.) and John Broderick (Wellesley, Mass.) could both be competing for the Commodores. Joey Lenane (Dedham, Mass.) is hoping to help the NC State Wolfpack in the Winston-Salem Regional. NC State is the nine seed. In addition, Fairfield’s Rasmus Ditzinger qualified as an individual in Athens after winning the MAAC individual championship. Team selections and tee times will be out this week.

Southern New Hampshire and Assumption are both competing in the Division 2 East Regional from May 7-9. Live Scoring

Here’s how the NCAA website describes the requirements to advance to the National Championship… At a minimum, the top three teams and the top two student-athletes not with a team from each regional will advance to the finals, May 18–22 at the Boulder Creek Golf Club in Boulder City, Nevada. The remaining eight team berths will be allocated based on the regions represented in the prior year’s head-to-head medal play portion of the championships, with the maximum number of teams from a given region capped at seven.

Mass Mixed Four-Ball: Conor McCormack and Alexis Florio represented Woodland GC with a 63 (-8) winning score. The young team of Jeremy Zhang and Skylar Kotzen finished runner-up after an impressive 66 at Willowbend. MassGolf Recap | Results

Mass Development Team Makes History: Over the last few years, the USGA has built out a development program. Massachusetts and New York each have teams. This week, those two teams played each other. It’s the first match of its kind. New York won 7.5 to 4.5. We have a new rivalry!

Monthly recaps are back! Checked off three courses, and each of them was under $50!

For many, it would be a dream to buy their country club. Well, that’s now a reality for Bobby Palma, who purchased Indian Pond CC last week.

Palma will be the second owner in the club’s history. The founder, Fred Tonsberg, has owned and operated the course since it opened in 2001.

Tonsberg not only built the course but also the housing development surrounding Indian Pond CC.

It all started back in the 1980s, and over the last 40 years, Tonsberg, who is in his 80s, transformed the area; he even built the largest municipal leaching field for the town of Kingston, which sits underneath the Indian Pond CC driving range.

You might remember Indian Pond CC making news in 2022 when a couple sued the club for damages after golf balls flew into their home on the golf course. They initially won the lawsuit for $5 million, but a court overturned the ruling. It created quite a stir and some healthy debate about buying houses with a property line on a golf course.

Over the last few years, Tonsberg had been entertaining offers from potential buyers. Having built and developed the course and the surrounding housing development, Tonsberg had great pride in his lifelong project. As he heard proposals from potential buyers, he turned down anyone who planned on turning the golf course into something else.

Imagine that…

In the end, Bobby Palma, a local businessman who owns Palma Dental Lab, purchased the country club.

So what did it sell for?

Records in the Registry of Deeds state it was a $12 million sale; that price been verified by other parties.

Considering Easton CC’s sale to Stonehill College was $6.5 million, this feels like the right number for a private club with newer amenities and buildings. However, it also highlights the money that Tonsberg might have left on the table if he had sold to a developer or solar company.

Maplegate sold for $24.8 million to a solar company. Heather Hill in Plainville, Mass., recently sold to Toll Brothers and will be developed into a 55-plus community, and the golf course will be gone entirely. That price is not public yet, and neither is the PureSky purchase of Cape Cod CC, since it isn’t official yet. Green Meadows in Hudson, NH, sold for $123 million to Target and is now an empty shipping center.

So, this is a cool story all around. The founder sells to a member who will bring the club into the next era. One of those conversations that comes up in grill rooms across the country, What if I bought this place?, has become a reality at Indian Pond CC.

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