Chuck Freedman and Kirk Lombardi have played a lot of golf with and against each other over the years, but their latest shootout had to be one of the best. Paired together in the last group, each shot 3-under-par 69 at Sparrows Point Country Club, and Freedman came away clutching a one-stroke edge and the title in the 16th Maryland State Mid-Amateur championship.
The new champion, from Columbia's Hobbit's Glen Golf Club, whose best previous showing in this event had been second, birdied the 18th hole from inside of 3 feet to break out of a tie with 70-69-139. Lombardi, who had rolled in a 5-foot birdie putt at No. 17 to forge a tie, ended 71-69-140.
U.S. Amateur: Brian Quackenbush, the Middle Atlantic Amateur champion from Fairfax, Va., shot 72-71-143 in the 36-hole qualifier at Oakland Hills Country Club in suburban Detroit, but he will have to wait until this morning to try and play his way into the match-play portion of the event.
