Villanova junior is brilliant in final round of the Metro Amateur
How satisfying is it to play your best in the biggest tournament of your life? Ask Brendan Kelly of Annapolis, winner of the 90th Metropolitan Amateur.
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Sunday at Manor Country Club, in the 36-hole championship match against Bobby Fox of South Riding, Kelly, 20, played his final 18 holes in 6-under par — 64 immaculate strokes to a title. Kelly, a junior this fall at Villanova, subdued Fox, a junior at Longwood, 3 and 1.
“This was really big for me,” said Kelly. “I won a college tournament in the fall, but this is the first big tournament I’ve ever won.”
On a day when he trailed 3 down after eight holes, Kelly needed his A-game. He got it in his bogey-free afternoon round, hitting 15 of 17 greens. Of the two he missed, Kelly chipped in for a birdie to win the first hole, and made a par from the weeds to halve No. 4.
“He played well. I knew I needed to make birdies to beat him,” said Fox, 20, a former player at Division II power Sonoma (Calif.), who transferred to Longwood this year. “Hats off to him.”
After finishing the first 18 all square, Fox and Kelly brought out the best in each other in the afternoon. On the front nine, while Fox shot 33, Kelly answered with a 32. When Kelly rolled in a 15-foot birdie putt at No. 7, he took a 2-up lead. When he followed with a 7-iron to within three feet on the 175-yard 8th hole, Kelly looked ready to take command.
But Fox answered with a 25-foot birdie putt to halve the hole, then made birdie putts of 7 and 17 feet on the next two holes to halve the match. It stayed that way through No. 12 and 13, where Fox saved pars after missing the fairway by wide margins.
Fox’s wayward driver finally cost him at No. 14, where he pushed his tee shot into high grass and made a bogey, and No. 15, where he drove into the rough, then hit a hybrid out of bounds, falling 2 down.
At No. 17, a 189-yard par 3, Kelly smoked a 6-iron to within 6 feet. Closing the match in style, Kelly rolled his birdie putt into the hole and celebrated his biggest win.
Sunday wrapped up a weekend of clutch play from Kelly, who edged recent Georgetown Prep graduate Matt Brown in 19 holes in the semis.
In the quarterfinals Saturday morning, Kelly beat nemesis Jay Mulieri, 1 up.
Three days earlier, Kelly was runner up by one stroke to Mulieri in the Bubby Worsham Memorial. Earlier this summer, in the quarterfinals of the Maryland Amateur, Mulieri beat Kelly in 19 holes on his way to the title.
“I’ve been playing really well this summer, really consistent,” said Kelly. “But it’s been Jay Mulieri. Beating him yesterday really gave me a lot of confidence.”
