PLYMOUTH – Before the first scores were turned in Thursday afternoon, Canasawacta Country Club owner Tim Carson made the statement that he believed this year’s member-guest tournament had one of its strongest fields ever.
Carson’s words were prophetic as 19 teams of the 90 entered in the tournament shot even par or better, and the first-year pairing of Josh Bennett and Scotty Seiler hold a one-shot lead over Nick Brunick and Paul Brunick after opening-round play.
Bennett and Seiler offset a lone bogey with six birdies and one eagle to shoot a seven-under-par 64. After Brunick and Brunick were Carson and Scott Seiler Sr. along with 2003 champions Doug Wilson and Joe Gutosky, who each shot 66.
“We’re going back out tomorrow, and we’re starting at even par again,” Seiler said. “Yeah, we have a one-stroke lead, but that is nothing right now. Any team can eagle the first hole and if we par it, now they have the lead. Golf can change with just one swing.”
Teeing off on the short par-three second to start their round, Bennett and Seiler anticipated making a confidence-building par to kickstart the day. What ensued was an untimely bogey, the only slip-up on an otherwise spotless scorecard.
After managing pars on the next two holes, Bennett reached the par-five fifth hole in two, and sunk his eagle putt to put his team in red numbers. “Our thought was that we had an easy hole to start, get a par, and get going,” Bennett said. “Then we bogeyed it. We made our first par, and everything was okay after that.”
The birdies came in bunches around the midway point of the round beginning with a deuce on the par-three 8th, then subsequent birdies on the 9th, 10th, 13th, 16th, and 18th holes.
Before submitting their scorecard, Bennett and Seiler had a birdie three listed on the 16th hole as well as a par-four. The tandem was unsure of a golf ruling, and held off signing their scorecard until the rule was interpreted correctly.
Seiler hit his tee shot near the 17th tee sign – an immovable obstruction. Free relief is given to the player if the obstruction interferes with a player’s swing or stance, and in this case, the sign did impede Seiler’s swing. He marked his ball and placed the ball in his pocket as he determined his nearest point of relief for a free drop. Seiler dropped his ball from shoulder height, but quickly realized he had pulled the wrong ball out of his pocket. Under rule 20-6 in the USGA rulebook, a player who drops or substitutes the wrong ball is allowed to pick that ball up and re-drop the correct ball without penalty.
If Seiler had not caught his mistake and played the wrongly substituted ball, he would have incurred a two-stroke penalty. Fortunately, he and Bennett caught the error and were allowed to keep their birdie.
“The best thing about playing with Scotty is that everything is low-key,” Bennett said Thursday night. “That’s how he told me to play. Scotty keeps things mellow and we just play golf. I’m high strung, but golf is a game where you have to stay on an even keel.”
Tournament play resumes today with shotgun starts at 8 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. A complete tournament roundup will appear in Monday’s Evening Sun.
First-round scores, top-25 teams plus ties
(Players, score)
J. Bennett-S. Seiler Jr. 64
N. Brunick-P. Brunick 65
T. Carson-S. Seiler Sr. 66
D. Wilson-J. Gutosky 66
J. Loftus-B. Hagen 68
T. Mirabito-K. Stewart 68
T. Porack-B. Harmon 68
