Mixed Foursomes

Final Results

Qualifying Round Scoring

Championship Division    Match Play Results   -  Match Play Tree

First Division    Match Play Results   -  Match Play Tree

Second Division    Match Play Results - Match Play Tree

Final Recap
By Paul Kenyon

EAST GREENWICH _ For two hockey players, Tyler Cooke and Susie Cavanagh sure can play some terrific golf.
         The two, who got to know each other last year while both were playing ice hockey for the University of Connecticut, completed a sweep through the Rhode Island Golf Association Mixed Championship on Wednesday with two more victories, including by 5 and 4 over David Apuzzo and Katie Rockwell in the title match.
      The champions built a 4-hole lead as they made seven pars and a bird in the first eight holes and were never seriously threatened, although Apuzzo and Rockwell did win both the ninth and 11th holes.
      The result is not exactly a surprise.
      Cavanagh and Cooke looked to be the strongest team heading into the tournament. The two first met when both were playing high school hockey and golf, Cavanagh at Pilgrim and Cooke at Toll Gate. Cavanagh already had won both the Amateur and Stroke play titles in RIGA competition this summer and Cooke just this past weekend won his second Potowomut club championship.
         Since women only recently began holding a Stroke Play event in addition to the Amateur, Cavanagh becomes the first ever to sweep the three biggest events open to women in the RIGA. Her work also completes a sweep of all four major women’s events since her club mate from Agawam, Caroline Farber (who Cavanagh and Cooke beat in the semifinals in this event) won the Junior Championship.
       Cooke and Cavanagh struggled, by their standards, to a 79 in qualifying. They got progressively better once match play began and easily lived up to their billing as favorites.
       ``We played all right,’’ Cavanagh said in definite understatement after the final.’’
       ``Including the gimme birdie they gave us on 14,’’ Cooke pointed out, ``we were even for the round, and that included taking a seven from the middle of the fairway on the (par-5) ninth."
       ``By gross score, we played our best in the final,’’ said Apuzzo. ``They just played great.’’
       While Cooke will head back to UConn soon for his junior year, Cavanagh plans to take some time off from hockey and school spend some time concentrating on golf.
        Apuzzo and Rockwell earned their spot in the title match with a dramatic 1-up decision over 2012 champions Gina Bartolotta and Rick Angeli in the semis.
         Rockwell and Apuzzo did it by winning the last three holes. On the 17th, Rockwell’s second shot on the par-4 from the left rough hit the flag stick and ended up 12 feet away. Apuzzo and Rockwell never led until they won the final hole with a par. Angeli and Bartolotta four different times saw their lead move between one and two holes.
     Cooke and Cavanagh never trailed in their semifinal match as they beat the Agawam pair of Caroline Farber and Ben Donaldson, 3 and 2. They took the lead with a deuce on the par-3 third and built it to 3-up through six. Donaldson and Farber got back within one through 10 but Cooke and Cavanagh won 11 and 13 and halved every other hole for the victory.
      In the first division, Ralph Apici and Joann Zannella of Potowomut defeated the Mother and Son team of Rick and Ginny Bernard 1-up.
     In the Second Division, Anthony Defusco and Jessica Brier of Ledgemont defeated John and Barbara Barber 5 and 4.

Round of 16 and Quarterfinal Recap
By Paul Kenyon

EAST GREENWICH _ For the second time in three days, the teams of Susie Cavanagh-Tyler Cooke and Caroline Farber-Ben Donaldson will play a round of golf together Wednesday at Potowomut.
     This time, the stakes will be a lot higher.
     Those two teams played in the same group Monday in qualifying in the Rhode Island Golf Association Mixed Championship. When they tee it up Wednesday morning it will be in the tournament semifinals.
     Those two teams each scored a pair of victories on Tuesday. They are joined in the semis by 2012 champions Gina Bartolotta and Rick Angeli and the freshly minted Wannamoisett team of Katie Rockwell and David Apuzzo .
     RIGA officials, as they like to do, created some interesting pairings when they set up tee times for qualifying.  Putting Farber and Cavanagh in the same group seemed like a natural. The two players from Agawam Hunt have swept the three major events held thus far for women in the first year men and women are part of the same organization. Cavanagh won both the Amateur and the Stroke Play and Farber captured the Junior just last week.
      Neither team was particularly pleased on Tuesday. Cooke and Cavanagh finished with a 79, including two late double bogies, and Donaldson and Farber spoke about playing inconsistently on the way to an 81. It left them as the third and seventh seeds, respectively, and in the bottom half of the bracket.
      Both teams were happier on the first day of match play.
      Cooke and Cavanagh, who both played ice hockey UConn last year, did nothing to display their label as one of the favorites. They were 1-under in the morning _ they won the first eight holes _ in sweeping past the mother-son team of Trudy and Glenn Dufault, 9 and 7. They received a much tougher test in the afternoon quarterfinals from the team of Dean and Laura Parziales.
       The Parziales, finalists last year, pulled even when they won the 11th hole. The 12th was halved before Cavanagh and Cooke won the next four holes with three pars and a birdie for their 4-and-2 decision.
        Farber and Donaldson had two very different matches. They swept to a four-hole lead in the first five on the way to a 5-and-4 decision over former State Amateur champion Ben Tuthill and Licia Langford in the first round. In the afternoon, they fell behind Felicia Revens and Guy Asadorian by three  through five.
      ``We didn’t do lunch well,’’ Donaldson said. ``We brought lunch with us on the cart and we didn’t play well at all at the start. But then we got going.’’
        Got going indeed. They won six and seven with pars, then birdied both of the par 5s, 9 and 10, to go ahead. Asadorian and Revens won 12 to get back even, but Farber and Donaldson did the same thing Cavanagh and Cooke did, win 13 through 16 (all with pars) for a 4-and-2 victory.
        The Bartolotta-Angeli team was never behind all day.  The medalists and champions in this event two years ago beat Tom and Melodie Hebert 5 and 3 and then David Spencer and Lori DiPersio 5 and 4.
       In the quarters, they led DiPersio-Spencer by only one hole through five but then won 6, 8, 9 and 10. Spencer and DiPersio won the next two holes to get back within three, but Angeli and Bartolotta parred 13 and birdied 14 to close out the match.
        ``Everything’s going well so far,’’ Angeli said. ``We’re playing pretty well and the course conditions are impeccable.’
        The fourth team in the semis features two players who were talked into being a team by friends at Wannamoisett. Apuzzo and Rockwell had never played a round of golf together until Monday’s qualifying.
     ``One of my friends knows I like to play and said I should meet her,’’ Apuzzo said. ``He talked about what a good player she was. So we decided to do it. We didn’t play a round of golf together until Monday. He was right. She’s good.’’
     They were involved in the best match of the day in the first round, a back-and-forth battle with the team of Joseph Flynn and -Mia Bartolotta. It went 19 holes before Apuzzo and Rockwell won it with a par on the first extra hole.
     Each team had taken turns on the lead and each team won three holes in a row, Rockwell-Apuzzo taking 8, 9, 10 and Bartolotta-Flynn winning 13, 14, 15. Apuzzo and Rockell won 16 to pull even, Flynn and Bartolotta birdied 17 to go ahead and Rockwell and Apuzzo won 18 with a par to force extra holes.
        In the afternoon, Rockwell an Apuzzo made three birdies on the day to edging Otis Brown and Colleen Mahoney, 2 and 1.
       The lower divisions include one very interesting possibility. The team of John and Barbara Barber won twice to reach the semis in the second division. On the other side of the bracket, the semifinalists include the team of former State Amateur champion Kevin Clary and his partner, Jen Kosh. Kosh is the Barber’s daughter.

Round 1 Recap

By Paul Kenyon
EAST GREENWICH _ There was a definite pattern to the round Rick Angeli and Gina Bartolotta put together Monday in qualifying play  of the Rhode Island Golf Association tournament at Potowomut.
    ``No birdies.  We had a lot of chances for birdies but we didn’t make any of them,’’ Angeli said. ``But we made all the par putts.’’
     Bartolotta and Angeli made 15 pars and three bogeys for a 74, good enough to earn medalist honors in the 73rd annual Mixed, the first played with all participants members of the RIGA. The RIGA and RIWGA merged this year.
     Angeli and Bertolotta did not have to look far for their top competition. Their playing partners, Guy Asadorian and Felicia Revens, finished second with a much more up and down round. They posted a 77 that included birdies at 2 and 11. Revens and Asadorian were within one stroke of the lead until they doubled the par-4 17th.
     Bartolotta and Angeli won the event two years ago.
      The play of that foursome upstaged the effort by two Agawam Hunt stars, Susie Cavanagh and Carolina Farber, to complete a sweep for their club of the top four RIGA events for women in 2014.
     Cavanagh, who already has won both the Amateur and the Stroke Play , combined with Tyler Cooke for what was a disappointing 79, which made the them the third seed entering match play.   That team was 2-over for the first 14 holes, but then finished double-double- bogey-bogey.
     ``We were as bad as we could be at the end,’’ Cavanagh said.
     Agawam’s Caroline Farber, who last week won the RIGA Junior title for the second year in a row, also is hoping to win this event for the second straight time. She won last year with Josh Helm. Helm is now an assistant pro at Agawam and thus ineligible to take part.
     Farber and her new partner, Ben Donaldson, the four-time Agawam club champion, shot 81 to tie for fifth, one behind the team of Katie Rockwell and David Apuzzo.
     Two rounds of match play will be held Tuesday and the semis and finals on Wednesday.



Schedule of events:

Monday, August 18th - Qualifying Round - 18 Holes Foursomes Stroke Play

Tuesday, August 19th - Foursomes Match Play - Winner of morning match will play an afternoon match

Wednesday, August 20th - Foursomes Match Play - Winner of morning match will play for Championship in the afternoon.

-Championship Division is GROSS all others NET.
-In the event of a tie for the 16th or 48th place, there will be a sudden death playoff immediately following the completion of the Qualifying Round.
-There will be an 18 hole stroke play consolation round on 8/20 for teams that do not qualify for match play.
-Entry fee includes lunch after the qualifying round and cart fee for all rounds.

Directions to:  Potowomut GC