Club Tri-fecta (Plus One) takes Four-Man Team title

  BLUE BELL, Pa. – With three of its four players hailing from the same club, the group out of Tavistock CC and Little Mill CC played spectacular team golf to card a 9-under-par 133 (gross) Thursday to win the Golf Association of Philadelphia’s 12^th Four-Man Team competition at Blue Bell CC (par 71, 6,398 yards).

  Thomas Hyland, of Little Mill CC, and the trio from Tavistock CC that included Robert Arthur and the father-son duo of Doug and Ronald Cusick, defeated the 40-team field by three strokes.

  And while the clouds and rain stayed away, the birdies didn’t.

  The squad combined to register seven birdies (six counted toward its score) on the front nine and nine on the back (eight counted toward its score) with a balanced team effort.

  Fresh off his New Jersey Open Qualifier round of 68, which included a hole-in-one on No. 7 at Greenacres CC, Doug commented on how playing in other competitions with this team helped today.

  “We’ve all played golf enough together to know each other’s game,” Doug said. “They’re all real consistent.”

  Consistency and teamwork were a staple of the foursome’s field-low round.

  “We all pitched in,” Arthur said. “Everybody made good par putts when we needed them and then had some birdies.”

  Hyland praised Doug saying “he killed his driver,” as he described Doug’s tee shot off No.17 (par 5, 480 yards) that soared over 330 yards leaving him only 146 yards to the pin.

  When it was all said and done, Hyland would end up leading the team with five birdies while Arthur and Doug each had four and Ronald came in with three of his own.

  Another trio plus one, this time out of Philadelphia Publinks GA and Lu Lu CC, took low net honors. Tom Faro, Bill Serody and Gary Valley of Philadelphia Publinks GA, and Steve Owens of Lu Lu CC registered a 22-under-par 120 (net).

  The event’s format was two best gross and two best net scores, with handicaps set at 90 percent of individual course handicaps.