OXFORD – The home-field advantage, or the home-course advantage in Chad Bradley’s case, never was a factor his 14 appearances in the Bluestone Men’s Member-Guest Tournament.
As for number 15, the steady strokes of misfortune for nearly a decade and a half changed for Bradley and his partner, Keegan McCumiskey.
Bradley, whose family owns the Oxford-based course, captured the overall team championship Sunday with McCumiskey shooting a 4-under-par 66 in the second round to nip hard-charging Brian Willis and Josh Williams by one shot.
Elsewhere, Mike Chrystie and Tom Locke won the first flight, while the brother combo of Bill and Rich Van Orden took the second flight for the second straight year.
Bradley said that not only had he not won the tournament on the family-owned layout, but he had never won a flight of any kind. “Apparently not,” Bradley said when asked about a home-course advantage.
Bradley and McCumiskey grossed a 1-over-par 71 in the first-round best ball format to trail leaders Corey Endress and Josh Newman by three. The format switched to captain and mate in day two, and Endress and Newman slipped to a 1-over-par 71 winding up third two strokes behind the leaders.
Bradley and McCumiskey made up ground by simply avoiding bogeys. Newman and Endress went out on the front nine in 1-over-par, and the champs’ birdie on the par-five ninth drew them to within one. “We kind of figured that if we got the three strokes back on the leaders, we should be in good shape,” Bradley said.
Both teams birdied the par-five 12th, the first to drop in was a 40-foot bomb curled in by McCumiskey. Endress and Newman subsequently bogeyed 13 and 15, and a birdie from four feet on the 16th by the Bradley-McCumiskey tandem had them up by two on the first-round leaders with two holes to play.
Meanwhile, Willis and Williams nearly made up an eight-shot deficit on the first-round leader. An eagle on the ninth hole capped a 3-under-par 31 on the front nine. Five more birdies on the back nine gave Willis and Williams a tournament-best 8-under-par 62 – one shot shy of Bradley and Williams.
“We saw them drain that eagle on number nine, so we knew they were capable of a good round,” Bradley said of Willis and Williams. “Shooting 8-under, that’s a heck of a round.”
Chrystie and Locke used a strong back nine to finish up their second round at 1-under-par. The brothers-in-law birdied nine, 12, and 17 to offset a one-over-par front nine. John DiFrancesco and John Pacifico had an even-par second round winding up two shots out of first place.
The Van Orden brothers matched their lowest round ever in Bluestone tournament play, and that came one day removed from firing their worst-ever tournament score to nip Mark and David Hinlicky by two strokes.
The Hinlickys had the early advantage as the two teams started on the ninth hole. Four birdies on the last five holes of the back nine gave the Hinlickys a one shot edge heading to the front side. The Van Ordens rallied on the front nine with steady play taking the lead for good with a birdie on the fifth hole.
Scoring
(Top five teams by flight)
Championship
