Hey Everyone,

I ventured out to the Berkshires early this week. The main part of the trip was to caddie in the U.S. Open Local Qualifying for my buddy Dan Boisvert at Berkshire Hills. I played Tekoa CC and Blandford CC on my drive out. I paid $45 to play 27 holes of golf, which is incredible.

The main part of the newsletter has some thoughts from my day at Berkshire Hills CC.

Before that, some results and news.

Weekend looks great. Hope you get to play some golf!

PGA Championship: It was a rough day for the Bay State contingent. Keegan Bradley shot 74, and Michael Thorbjornsen shot 77 in the first round. There are seven players tied for the lead in a tournament, including Scottie Scheffler. | Live Scoring

Colonial Life Charity Classic: Rob Oppenheim shot 69 (-1). Chris Francoeur shot 71 (+1). Bryce Lewis leads after a 62 (-8). | Live Scoring

Kroger Queen City Championship: Megan Khang shot 70 (E), and Alexa Pano shot 78. It’s been a long week for Pano who competed in New York last week, played on Monday in the U.S. Women’s Open Qualifier at Marlboro CC, and then went out to Ohio this week. Three players lead at 4-under par. | Live Scoring

U.S. Open Qualifying: Nine players locked up a spot in U.S. Open Final Qualifying at Berkshire Hills and Kirkbrae CC. It’s likely they’ll each play on June 2 in Golf’s Longest Day. There are also qualifiers on May 19. | MassGolf Recap

Division 1 Women’s Regionals

Men’s Regionals - May 18-20 (Full rundown of teams)

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. | Athens Scoring | Winston-Salem Scoring

Division 3 Men’s National Championship

Williams, Hartford, and New England all missed the cut in the Division 3 National Championship. Collin McMahon-Shea (Lexington, Mass.) is competing as an individual for Dickinson. He shot 70-73-76 in the first three rounds and is in 36th place. The tournament wraps up on Friday. | Live Scoring

U.S. Four-Ball: The U.S. Open Four-Ball kicks off at Desert Mountain Club (Cochise/Outlaw courses) in Arizona on Saturday. The field consists of 128 teams. Teams will play one round on each of the two host courses, and the top 32 advance to match play. | Tee Times

Here are the teams with New England connections:

Norfolk County Classic: A cool event at Presidents GC in Quincy. Tee Times

Scott Robertson Memorial: Jack Cheever (Dedham, Mass.) and Caitlyn Doe (Waban, Mass.) both qualified for this event last month and will play in Virginia this weekend. | Live Scoring

Mass Senior Four-Ball: The event is broken into two flights and three courses - Kernwood, Tedesco, and Indian Ridge on May 18-19. | MassGolf Hub

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U.S. Open Qualifying highlights what's great about golf. If you have a .4 handicap you can sign up and go play in a qualifying. Hope springs eternal and the array of players who are there, from grizzled pros like James Driscoll to high school and college kids fresh off their spring season.

On the drive home, some things came to mind about what I learned and thought while caddying, chatting with people, and digging into some of the numbers after the fact.

People are all there for the same reason and a million different reasons at the same time

Within our group, Jared Nelson is an aspiring touring professional who lives in Florida and is grinding on mini-tours.

Adam Pettitt was playing his first round on grass this year. He lives up in New Hampshire and was a PGA Professional before leaving the industry. He works in real estate.

And then my loop, Dan Boisvert, is a teaching pro with a stable of talented players.

Of course, everyone dreams of making it through to U.S. Open Final Qualifying when they tee it up. But there are a lot of other reasons guys tee it up, too.

After the round, I spoke with Mike Calef, who made it through qualifying for the first time and he said, “My chances went from 10,000 to 1 to 1,000 to 1 after today.”

Every golfer just wants a chance. Whether they’re a 10 handicap trying to break 80 or a beginner trying to make their first par, every round of golf is laced with possibility.

But at the same time, the field of players who arrived at Berkshire Hills is there for a wide variety of reasons.

Some just want to compete.

Some want to use it to get some competitive reps.

Dan Boisvert wants to understand his players' feelings and emotions during competition so he can relate to them better. He also loves getting his competitive juices flowing.

Luke Cantello, my swing coach, hadn’t played a competitive round in 14 years before his round at Berkshire Hills. He’s playing two qualifiers in the span of week; he’ll be back on the course in a Mass Open Q at The Orchards next week.

For others, like Jared Nelson or Iceland’s Dagbjartur Sigurbrandsson, it’s their livelihood. A good day at Berkshire Hills could generate some momentum heading into the summer.

And now, four players out of the 78-man field are only 36 holes away from a tee time at Shinnecock in the U.S. Open next month.

Par Fives are the thing (and some other thoughts on scoring…)

As we walked off the 15th green, Dan and I started talking about what Jared Nelson was shooting. I had no idea, but Dan thought he might be in the hunt to grab one of the four available spots.

“Three,” Nelson said after he swept in his birdie putt on the par-5 18th hole.

3-under 69 was good enough for medalist honors, and when I went back and looked at his card, the par fives made all the difference.

He made birdie on four of the five par 5s. His other birdie came on a short par 4 where he hit his drive to the front of the green and chipped close for an easy tap-in.

Throughout the round, Dan Boisvert hit his driver with Nelson, but Nelson had another gear he used a few times during the round. He did it on all the par 5s and also attacked the 11th and 14th. He drove it over the green on 14 into the woods and then scrambled for par, which was huge considering he missed a three-foot par putt on the 13th hole.

That stretch of 10-14 was the point of the round where things could have gone haywire. His bogey on 11 happened because he got stuck behind a tree. Holes 12 and 14 were short but fraught with danger because we couldn’t see the green from the tee, so both of those tee shots ended with a shrug. He was fortunate to find his ball on 14, and the group ahead of him told him they saw it roll off the back of the green (they were on the green).

This is what makes 18-hole qualifiers so tricky. One bad bounce, one blind shot, one unknown hazard could ruin the day.

But those five par fives made the difference. They were the five easiest holes on the course, and Nelson didn’t just bash the ball onto all of them for eagle putts. He needed his short game and bunker play to make birdies, too.

Incredibly, the short 17th was the second hardest hole behind the beastly nine. Three of the par-3 holes ranked in the top five most difficult holes.

Looking at the four qualifiers and the two alternates, the par fives played a role.

Calef is the outlier among the four who made it through; he played the par fives 2 under. He was 5-under par after his first six holes because he eagled the par-4 11th and then made another eagle when he chipped in on the the par-5 14th.

Then, “Golf happened,” he told me with a laugh. He managed to steer it home.

He was the only one of the top six players to play the par 4s under par.

The razor’s edge of qualifiers is highlighted by Alan Rose III (Weston, Mass.) and Garren Poirer.

Poirier would probably love a crack at the par threes again, and Rose III had two chances to make one birdie on the final two par fives and couldn’t. Rose III, on the other hand, was splendid on the par threes, and his birdie on the 7th hole was the only birdie on any par three among this set of players.

I went and looked at the other U.S. Open Local qualifier at Kirkbrae CC, and the scoring was totally different in how guys played the par threes, fours, and fives. It’s very even across the five qualifiers, the two alternates, and Joey Monahan (who lost in the alternate playoff).

Feels like a longer player would benefit from playing Berkshire Hills with the five par fives that are the easiest holes on the course.

The breakdown of difficulty at Kirkbrae CC was also more spread out. I’m most fascinated with the par threes and how tough they played at both venues. I have no idea if that’s a new trend. But with how long players are now, par threes are often the holes that challenge elite players to hit mid and long irons more than the par 4s do.

Looking at both courses makes it clear that choosing the right course for a qualifier can matter, especially on the margins.

Good Golf is boring

This probably goes without saying, but it’s so true. Watching guys shoot 74 and 69 in our group made it so clear how boring golf is good golf - fairways, greens, two putts.

Would it be exciting to hit the ball as well as those guys? Of course. But the only time things get interesting for players at that level is when things start to go a little awry. Jared Nelson had an up-and-down hour on holes 10-13, including hunting for a ball in the woods.

But for the most part, guys who play well are boring.

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