Local Amateur Competition Lives On

By Gary Larrabee

Gary Larrabee

The North Shore needs to take a back seat to no region when it comes to hosting professional golf tournaments. The list includes, but is not limited to, three USGA Opens at Salem Country Club, countless NEPGAs, New England Opens and 11 LPGA Boston Five Classics at Ferncroft Country Club as well as an ongoing rotation of Massachusetts Opens at Salem CC, Tedesco Country Club and Kernwood Country Club, the latter of which will host this year’s event on June 18-20.

The area has done itself proud on the state, regional and national level for amateur championships as well, on the same terrific layouts, adding Myopia Hunt Club and Essex County Club to the mix, of course.

But when it comes to conducting individual amateur events on an annual basis, the North Shore has lagged behind. Thankfully, Bill Flynn inaugurated the North Shore Amateur in 1975 at Thomson Country Club and it’s still going strong 32 years later at Far Corner Golf Club and is annually staged in late August.

And now, Andy Hydorn, a long-time fixture on the North Shore and state golf scene, and his golf apparel company, Back Nine Golf, are ensuring that the “The Allen B. Rogers Memorial,” the amateur tournament conducted by The Lawrence Eagle Tribune from 1969 until its sale two years ago to an Alabama concern, will go on as the Eastern Massachusetts Amateur.

“The Rogers has been the one constant for top amateur competition every year north of Boston since 1969, primarily in the Merrimack Valley,” says Hydorn, a two-time winner of the event who ended Paul Cortese’s decade-long control of the title. “Russ Conway (former Eagle Tribune sportswriter) kept the event going for many years, but the paper bowed out last year, so we golfers decided to keep it alive on our own terms and get more clubs involved.”

Haverhill’s Shawn Roderick won the 2006 title, known as the Rogers Eastern Mass. Championship, breaking Bill Drohen’s two-year hold. This year the event runs June 28-30, with Haverhill Country Club serving as the first day venue, Andover Country Club hosting for the second day and Atkinson Resort and Country Club, just over the border in New Hampshire, for the third day.

Two key format changes should add considerable flavor to the event. The team competition has been reinstituted after a one-year absence and the club invitation list features the crème de la crème of North Shore clubs left out in the past with the newcomers being Ferncroft CC, Essex CC, Ipswich Country Club, Kernwood CC, Myopia, Salem CC and Tedesco CC. The winning team (five players, best four scores each day count toward team total) will receive the Russ Conway Cup, the low individual the Rogers Cup. The field will be limited to 130 players. The charitable beneficiary will be Lawrence Family Services.

It’s people like Flynn, Hydorn, Atkinson CC pros Marc Spencer and Peter Doherty, Andover CC’s Mike Menery and Haverhill CC’s Jason Dufresne who keep competitive golf alive on a local/regional level. A tip of the visor to them all.

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A few observations as we get into the heart of the season:

• Lest we need a reminder, we’ve got some great tracks around here, as the newly published “Best in State” rankings from Golf Digest indicate. Myopia ranks sixth (should be third, Salem eighth (should be second), newcomer Turner Hill is 12th (should be eighth) and Essex, site of the 2010 Curtis Cup Match, stands 16th (should be 12th). No provincialism from this guy, eh?
• Congrats to Pat Kriksceonaitis, ex of Essex CC, for being named by the Golf Course Superintendents Association of America and Golf Digest magazine as one of the 11 merit winners for his environmental stewardship efforts over the years.
• It’s time to bring the LPGA Tour back to the North Shore.
• It’s time for the city of Beverly to sell the Beverly Golf & Tennis Club to a private golf management company so that it can be restored to its past glory because it ain’t gonna happen under the present operational arrangements.