Roberts & Heideman Earn Titles
After numerous weather delays throughout the duration of the week, two individuals have been crowned Junior Match Play Champions at Lemon Bay Golf Club. Separating the tournament field between two courses, Lemon Bay Golf Club conducted the Girl's 13-18 and Boy's 13-15 divisions and Lakewood National Golf Club hosted the Boy's 16-18 division. Beginning with the first round of stroke play qualifying on Monday, golfer's faced not only difficult courses but curve balls from Mother Nature as well. At the end of four days, however, it was Brett Roberts and Madison Heideman who prevailed to capture the Junior Match Play titles in the Boy's 13-15 and Girl's 13-18 divisions, respectively.
In the Boy's 13-15 division, player's knew it was going to be a battle from the very beginning. The first round of stroke play featured three outstanding rounds of eight-under par, just one shot shy of tying the course record at Lemon Bay Golf Club. Shooting 63's for the first round were Brett Roberts of Coral Springs, Jonah Leach of Windermere, and Tianyu Wu of Howey-in-the-Hills. With stellar low scores in the first round, it was going to take birdies to make it into the top 16 and advance to match play. The second round produced, once again, low scores yet not as low as the first round. Making a charge up the leaderboard in the second round was recent Boys' Junior Champion, Tyler Wilkes. Wilkes used his length to his advantage during the second round by carding a seven-under par, 64 to finish stroke play at ten-under par. Marc Kaneko-Fujii, playing his home course, followed up his one-over par round of 72 for round one with a six-under par, 65, to move into the fifth seed for match play. Claiming the top seed in qualifying was Jonah Leach who finished the stroke play rounds at 12-under par, two shots ahead of Wilkes and Brett Roberts. With the match play bracket set, Lemon Bay Golf Club was going to be home to many quality golf shots for the rest of the week.
The Round of 16 proved to be an upper-seed show with seven of the eight matches being won by the stronger seed. Top seed, Jonah Leach, beat 16th seed, Frankie Harris just 1 up while fifth seed, Marc Kaneko-Fujii was forced to play 20 holes before taking the match from 12th seed, Bryce Walker. Boys' Junior Champion, Tyler Wilkes defeated Michael Hauer 3 & 2 while the biggest margin of victory of the day came from fourth seed, Tianyu Wu. Winning 5 & 3 over Will McFrif, Wuwas set to play Kaneko-Fujii in the quarterfinals.
The quarterfinals brought some upsets with stroke play medalist, Jonah Leach losing to ninth seed, Aidan Kramer 1 down. Mac Kaneko-Fujii used his course knowledge to his advantage as he teed it up with Tianyu Wu. After a back-and-forth match, it was Kaneko-Fujii who came out on top after taking the lead on the back nine. With a 3 & 2 win over Wu, Kaneko-Fujii would face Aidan Kramer in the semifinal match that afternoon. The biggest upset of the morning came from Nicklas Staub of Boynton Beach. The seventh seed drew second seed, Tyler Wilkes in the quarterfinals. Wilkes could never get ahead in the match as Staub came out of the gate strong. After getting as much as 3 up on Wilkes on the front nine, Wilkes battled his way back an squared the match after the 16th hole. However, with a birdie on the final hole, Staub would defeat the reigning Boys' Junior Champion and advance to the semifinals.
The semifinal matches featured the third seed, Brett Roberts, playing against seventh seed, Nicklas Staub and ninth seed, Aidan Kramer taking on fifth seed, Marc Kaneko-Fujii. In Roberts and Staub's match, it looked as if Staub would be advancing to the finals early on in the match. After getting to two up early in the match after the sixth hole, Roberts went on a birdie run by winning the tenth through 13th holes. For Roberts, he went from 2 down after nine to 2 up after the thirteenth. With another birdie on the 16th hole, Brett Roberts would make an incredible comeback to win 3 & 2 over Nicklas Staub and advance to the finals. In the other semifinal's match, things started off pretty slow before Aidan Kramer hit his stride. After nine holes, Kramer had a 5 up lead over Kaneko-Fujii and just needed to play consistently to advance to the finals. With hopes of making a comeback, Kaneko-Fujii would eventually fall to Kramer on the 17th hole, where Kramer would make a birdie to win 3 & 1.
With the final match set, Roberts and Kramer both knew it was going to be a fight until the finish, and their match was nothing short of that. After never getting more than 1 up on each other for the first 14 holes, Kramer would make his second consecutive birdie of the day to get to 2 up over Brett Roberts after fifteen. Not giving up though, Roberts birdied the 16th hole and made a 45-foot putt on 17 to get back to all-square heading into the final hole. With Brett hitting his 18th consecutive green in regulation, Kramer was forced to make an up-and-down to go to extra holes. Making a five-footer to save par, Kramer forced extra holes and both headed back out on the course. On the 19th hole, Brett Roberts hit a remarkable approach shot to two inches, giving him a tap-in birdie to win the match and the 2017 Junior Amateur Match Play Championship.
After a third place finish at the 2017 Boy's Junior Championship, Brett Roberts secured his second FSGA tournament victory of the season with a near course record and four straight wins in match play.
Boy's 13-15 Match Play Bracket
In the Girl's 13-18 division, talent was not lacking and some of the state's top junior female golfers teed it up at Lemon Bay hoping to make it to match play and claim the Junior Match Play title, Scores were not as low as the boys after the first round with Tianyi Zhaung shooting the only under-par round of the day. Shooting a three-under par, 68, Zhuang led the field by four shots over Karoline Tuttle of Lake Mary and Lara Van Staden of Winter Springs. With a five-over par, 76 in the second round, Tianyi Zhuang would drop a spot to second as Karoline Tuttle lit up the course and carded the second under-par round of the tournament with another three-under par, 68. After the stroke play portion of the championship, those ladies that shot 157 and lower over the two rounds advanced to match play.
In the Round of 16, top seed, Karoline Tuttle advanced after needing 20 holes to defeat the 16th seed, Kaitlyn Schroeder of Jacksonville. The most surprising upset of the day came from the fifth match of the morning which featured second seed Tianyi Zhuang and 15th seed, Norah Catlin. After a tight match throughout the entire morning, it was Norah Catlin who upset the second seed on the final hole to win 1 up and advance to the quarterfinals. The other other upset that occurred in the Round of 16 was the final match between sixth seed, Daniela Spillert and 11th seed, Madison Heideman. Heideman would make a charge for the win late in the round and defeated Spillert 2 & 1 to face third seed, Lara Van Staden in the quarterfinals.
The quarterfinal matches were full of upsets as top seed, Karoline Tuttle, was defeated by ninth seed, Kim Egozi, 2 & 1. The longest match of the championship came from Ellen Dong and Chloe Schiavone's match. After 23 holes, Schiavone finally got back to one up after being down or all square since the eighth hole. Another surprising victory came from the last match on the course between Lara Van Staden and Madison Heideman. Lara Van Staden struggled throughout the entire match and could never get ahead of Heideman. Never letting Van Staden have the lead, Heideman won her quarterfinals match 3 & 2 and faced Norah Catlin in the semifinals.
In the semifinals, it was Chloe Schiavone and Madison Heideman that put on stellar performances to earn their spot in the final match. After losing the first hole, Chloe Schiavone never fell behind again after making the turn at 1 up. Steadily playing the back nine, Schiavone was able to get to 3 up on the 14th hole and finish her match on the 16th hole, 3 & 2. The most dominating match of the championship came from Norah Catlin and Madison Heideman's semifinals match. After tying the first five hole of the match, Heideman went on a seven-hole winning streak to defeat Catlin 7 & 6. With an incredible performance, Heideman secured her spot in the final match and would face Chloe Schiavone for the title.
In the final match, Heideman got off to a good start by winning the first hole, but Schiavone came back with wins on the third and fourth holes to gie her the 1 up advantage early on in the match. With a win at the sixth, Heideman squared up the match and the two would remain all square as they made the turn. With a birdie on the 10th hole, Heideman got up in the match before Schiavone brought the match back to square on the 11th hole. However, beginning on the 12th hole, Heideman went on another birdie run and after winning the 12th through 15th holes, Heideman became the 2017 Junior Amateur Match Play Champion with a 4 & 3 victory over Chloe Schiavone.
After finishing the stroke play round and beginning matches as the 11th seed, Madison Heideman won her first FSGA event and is the new Junior Amateur Match Play Champion.
Defending Champions
