In the Seinfeld episode “The Opposite”, Jerry had the realization that everything in his life seemed to even out. When one of his friends was doing well, the other would go through a tough time. When he got dumped by a girlfriend, he didn’t get upset because he figured something good would happen soon to even things out.
For Jack Maguire of St. Petersberg, Fla., his fortune at the 11th hole at Savannah Quarters Country Club during the AJGA Junior at Savannah Quarters did seem to even out in the end, and unfortunately for him, that end didn’t mean a much-deserved AJGA victory.
During the first round Saturday, Maguire was looking to get up-and-down from a greenside bunker for a second straight birdie to open his round (he started on No. 10), and after his bunker blast appeared to be headed a few feet right of the hole, that seemed to be a very real possibility. Then the Golfing Gods decided to give him a little boost.
“The kid I was playing with was about two feet to the back right of the pin,” Maguire said. “My bunker shot actually banked off of his ball and into the hole, so that was kind of cool.”
But as it so often does, the game giveth, and the game taketh away.
Maguire found himself on No. 11 for the third time of the tournament on Sunday afternoon, this time in a sudden-death playoff with Ben Dietrich. Maguire, who wowed longtime AJGA Senior Rules Official John Spiroplaus with prodigious length off the tee earlier in the day, attacked the reachable par-4 with a driver. His shot flew left of the green, and bounded into a nearby hazard. A drop, a chip and two putts later, Maguire made bogey and lost the playoff.
The runner-up finish is surely tough for Maguire, who now has five top-10 finishes in AJGA events, but he’ll have a chance to try to even things out this weekend when he plays in the TaylorMade-adidas Golf Junior at Innisbrook hosted by Sean O'Hair.
By Ted Newton, AJGA Communications Intern
Comments