GREENFIELD — It was the equivalent of an away match for the Holyoke tandem of Chris Ferriter and Joe Wilson on Sunday.
Like a good road team, the duo built an early lead, came through in timely moments, and became the first non-local team in 10 years to capture the Invitational Four-Ball at the Country Club of Greenfield.
Ferriter’s monster birdie putt off the fringe on the back of the 16th green ultimately proved to be the exclamation mark on the end of a busy four days for the pairing. Ferriter and Wilson, seeded ninth in the Championship Flight of the 73rd edition of the prestigious event, held off 2014 champions and CCG standouts Cody Booska and KC Finley, 2 & 1, in the finals of match-play before a solid crowd of over 100 spectators on a bright and sunny day.
“Every match kept getting harder and harder, but we got a little bit better each match and every day,” explained Ferriter, who plays out of The Orchards Golf Club in South Hadley. “We kind of like a little bit of an away-game environment. We’ve played some tournaments against teams from the home clubs, so it’s a different kind of atmosphere. KC has won a lot of tournaments here over the years and I know Cody is now their best player (at CCG). Certainly in the morning, I knew this was going to be an extremely difficult match.”
Ferriter and Wilson became the first non-local team to win the Four-Ball since 2008, when teenagers Jake Skole and Dan Fanion accomplished the feat. They ran quite the gauntlet of competition to get there. The team stopped a string of two consecutive titles for Brodie Conant and Max Major, who they defeated in Saturday’s quarterfinal round, before knocking off last year’s runners-up, Derek Yvon and Brian Foley, in the semifinals.
“They definitely deserved it,” lauded Booska of Ferriter and Wilson. “The three teams they had to beat the last couple days to get here … it was an unbelievably tough road.”
The eventual champions built an early 2-Up lead at the turn, and increased the lead to 3-Up on No. 11, thanks to Wilson. The Wyckoff Country Club product’s birdie putt from deep on the par 3, 185-yard hole banged into the cup, and things looked very good for the Paper City partnership with seven holes remaining.
“That was a good momentum-builder,” said Wilson of his birdie, which put Finley and Booska up against it.
The third-seeded home team didn’t go away however.
With the crowd behind them, the CCG tandem got one back. Finley’s birdie on the par 5, 470-yard 12th hole pulled his team back within two holes, and the veteran snagged another birdie on No. 14, another par 5, to put he and Booska just 1-Down with four holes remaining.
“We were just trying to bring the deficit down on the back 9. We got it to one (down) and I thought we’d have a chance but we ran out of holes,” explained Booska.
After halving the 15th hole with pars, Ferriter put the hammer down with his lengthy birdie putt on 16 that got he and Wilson dormie with two to go.
“That kind of took the wind out of our sails right there,” admitted Booska of the putt on 16. “In four-ball, things like that tend to happen for guys that win it in the end. I’ve seen my dad (Dennis) chip-in and stuff like that in championship matches. They make a lot of those shots to finish it off.”
After a qualifying round that saw them fire a 2-under, 68 and earn the No. 9 seed in the match-play bracket, Ferriter and Wilson needed all 18 holes to get past eighth-seeded Tom Herzig and Gary Hunt in the Round of 16. Then came Conant and Major, the two-time defending champs, who again pushed the eventual champs to the brink.
“We’ve played so many rounds together the last few years, that we know to never throw in the towel,” Ferriter said.
It was the third time Ferriter and Wilson have played in the Invitational Four-Ball. After failing to make the Championship Flight cut in their debut in 2016, they reached the quarterfinals a year ago and eventually fell in the Consolation Final to Dave Kennedy and Nate Burdick.
“To have 96 teams that come to play, not many tournaments can do that, but they still get the teams to come out every year,” said Ferriter of the Invitational.
Finley and Booska punched their ticket to the finals thanks to a win over 15th-seeded Bruce White and Lee Craig in the semifinals on Saturday. Prior to that, they beat sixth-seeded Pat McGuire and Aaron Wheeler in the quarterfinals to open Saturday’s action.
“To be in the championship was awesome,” admitted Booska. “I wish we could’ve played better. The whole weekend, we didn’t have our best game. We squeaked by our first two matches, not playing all that great. That’s the beauty of match-play, you don’t have to play your best sometimes to win.”
The No. 10 seeds, Jared Barber and Hugh Barber, captured the Consolation title in the Championship Flight on Sunday with a victory in the finals against fifth-seeded Paul Vincelette and Mike Slyne.
For the full list of winners in every flight, check page B2.