It was another crazy week in local high school golf. Fordham Prep, the top team in The Journal News Westchester/Putnam (and in my mind overall) rankings, lost not once, but twice. The competition was pretty stiff though as the Rams lost to rival Iona Prep on Monday and then fell to perennial Section 1 powerhouse Rye yesterday at Winged Foot.

Since the team’s played match-play format, it produced a 4-1 win for Rye. It also included an incredible matchup at No. 1 with Fordham Prep’s Jonathan Renza going head to head with Rye’s Mark Mumford. The day belonged to Mumford, though, who fired a 2-under-par 37 to defeat Renza 3 and 2.

Despite both losses to great teams, the results will drop Fordham Prep from its top spot in the rankings. How far? You’ll have to check out my final notebook on Tuesday (cheap promo).

In other news, Hen Hud and Edgemont continued their stellar under-the-radar seasons. Hen Hud fired a 198 at Hollow Brook Golf Club, site of Day 2 of sectionals, and Edgemont shot a 201 in a win over Ardsley. Hen Hud is now 10-4 and Edgemont is now 9-2.

I also learned that Scarsdale’s David Spiro had a hole-in-one on the par 3 fourth hole at Fenway Golf Club a couple weeks ago in a match against White Plains. Amazingly, not only was it the sophomore’s first-ever ace, but it was also his first eagle.

But the story of the week may have been Marisa Kamelgarn. The Mahopac junior and reigning Journal News girls golfer of the year, carded a 2-under 34 at Centennial in a close loss to Brewster. Perhaps she can make a run at being the first girl to qualify for the state team since Pelham’s Nannette Hill, who is now tearing it up as a first team All-ACC player at my alma mater Wake Forest (Go Deacs!).

So, I was supposed to cover a huge match today, but the weather once again isn’t cooperating. As a result, the Rye Country Day vs. Fordham Prep match at Apawamis has been cancelled.

It’s unfortunate because it was a match scheduled recently due to both teams’ tremendous success thus far. The Wildcats and Rams have emerged as two of the top teams, if not the two top teams, in the area and I was looking forward to seeing them matchup.

But now, just like the Rye vs. Brewster tilt, we will just have to try and imagine what would happen if they played. Anyway, I’ll be working on my final golf notebooks today (the Spring season really flys!) and I’ll be back with some updates from all the action when the weather was fantastic earlier in the week.

Today I was fortunate enough to cover a fantastic match between Scarsdale and Clarkstown North. The Red Raiders had been struggling a little of late, but that was not the case at all in this match.

David Spiro led the way with a 4-under-par 32 at Scarsdale Golf Club. As a team, the Raiders posted a 191 total, the lowest in Section 1 this season, to beat the Rams 191-199.

Spiro was on fire from the start, birdieing the first two holes. He nearly made several more birdies before making two in a row on the 7th and 8th holes. No. 8 was truly special as he knocked a blind, downhill approach shot from 165 yards to 8 feet after pulling his drive in the left rough.

Meanwhile, Chris Scialo was nearly as good, carding a 34. On most days, this would be the story of the day, but even the University of Delaware bound player was overshadowed on this day.

Clarkstown North also got great play from flashy freshman Derrick Kim (36), Jared Greenspan (39) and Mike Kapnick. All three are on the borderline of that 6.0 differential needed to qualify for sectionals so today certainly helped.

The Raiders were balanced as always, despite not having three of their regular players. Coach Andy Verboys told me after that they have an outside shot of having 9 or 10 players qualify for sectionals!!! If that happens, it would probably double the next closest team.

Robert Gelber (39), David Schutzbank (40), Peter Friedman (40) and Jake Nathan (40) also scored for the Raiders (13-3), who ended North’s 8-match winning streak.

All around, some great golf was played. The first group would have shot 8-under if it was playing best ball. Not too shabby.

Neither was Scialo’s prodigious drive on the final hole. The 302-yard par 4 has water down the left, but the senior pulled driver and gave it a rip. From the tee, it looked like it almost hit the pin… we weren’t mistaking. His ball mark was about 3 feet right of the hole … from 302 yards. He nearly made his 30-foot eagle putt, but settled for a tap-in birdie.

I had my own little highlight in there as well. After a player, who shall remain nameless, left a club on the second hole, there was a short waiting period while he went to retrieve it. That allowed me to drop down the Pro V1 I had just found, grab another player’s wedge, and take a crack at the 100-yard par 3 fifth hole. With the pressure of elite junior golfers watching me, I calmly knocked it onto the left side of the green. I guess the four rounds of golf I’ve already played this week is starting to pay off…

Today I went to Siwanoy Country Club to be a part of a photo shoot with Ellen Oswald, who is a senior on the Clarkstown South team. The shoot was for a feature I’m writing on Oswald, who recently signed with St. John’s to play for their women’s team.

On the high school level though, Oswald has been a part of a very successful boy’s team for four years, including helping the Vikings win the county championship last year. She’s been the only girl on the team the whole time and has been a starter the past three years.

I hope our presence wasn’t too much of a distraction before she teed off. She shot a 45, but her team fell to Bronxville 217-219 in what was somewhat of a mini-upset.

In other events, it’s been tough to get a read on certain teams all year. Take Iona Prep. The Gaels knocked off undefeated Fordham Prep, which is No. 1 in the power rankings, yesterday. Then today, they came back and lost 211-213 to an underrated John Jay team.

It’s kind of like my own golf game. Sometimes I look like a bad hacker and sometimes I look like a terrible hacker.

I will be at the Scarsdale vs. Clarkstown North meet on Thursday. Back with some thoughts on that.

Also, make sure you check out Mike Dougherty’s feature on Mike Marvin in tomorrow’s (5/7) paper. Marvin is only 24 years old, but has already been the head pro at Hudson Hills for three years. Not a bad gig…

I was at yesterday’s Fairchester Athletic Association Championship at Westchester Country Club. I’m finally starting to feel my hands again.

A cool day became freezing as the sun went down and stiff winds swept over the course. Not surprisingly, the scores were pretty high.

Rye Country Day School, the defending champions, played solidly, but was unable to keep the trophy. That honor went to Brunswick, which has now won eight of the last 10 years.

For the Wildcats, Will Hilbert led the way with an 80. Brothers Conor and Colin McDade each had 81, Ryan Coughlin and Aaron Klimchuk each had 86 and Brian Starker had an 87.

Brunswick shot a team total of 395. The Bears were led by two Westchester residents: Conor Kenny (Rye) and John Torell (Bronxville). Rye Country Day finished third, behind St. Luke’s, with a 409.

St. Luke’s Cameron Wilson, who made the semifinals at the Met Open last summer at the age of 14, won medalist honors with a 2-over-par 73. He was playing alongside Coughlin so I got a chance to see quite a bit of his impressive round.

Rye Country Day did bounce back today though, beating Rye for a second time this season. The teams used a nine-point format and the Wildcats won 5.5 to 3.5. They also won the aggregate, 206 to 208 so it must have been an exciting match. I was assigned a baseball game instead since Josh Thomson had to be on RNN… Thanks Josh. I’ll have to get you back on the course tomorrow.

Today I was supposed to cover a very exciting match between Rye, Brewster and Horace Greeley. Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate.

The match, which featured probable Section 1 title contenders Rye and Brewster, was cancelled. The coaches are trying to find a date when they can all get together again, so I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

Rye, the defending Section 1 champs, lost its first match to Rye Country Day, but hasn’t been tested since. Brewster, which lost in the Section 1 Championships last year, is off to a tremendous 10-0 start.

Instead, I covered the Lakeland/Panas vs. Horace Greeley girls lacrosse game. Aside from the wet weather, it turned out to be very exciting, with the Rebels pulling out a 14-13 win on a last minute goal by Caitlin Collins. The game also featured Lakeland standout Chelsea Robinson scoring her 200th career goal.

Tomorrow, it’s back to the links for me (cloudy and in the 50s will have to do following last week’s glorious weather). I will be teeing off with a couple fellow team Journal News members as we continue to take advantage of not having 9-5 jobs…

I’ll be back Wednesday hopefully, to let you know how the Fairchester Athletic Association Championship went. Rye Country Day is the defending champion, but perennial powerhouse Brunswick has already defeted the Wildcats twice this year. The event is being played at Westchester Country Club for the first time, so that could be a slight advantage for the Rye kids that make up most of the RCDS squad. We’ll have to wait and see.

I covered the Brewster vs. Harrison match today and one person ended up stealing the show: Danny Blumberg.

The Brewster junior was spectacular, firing a 2-under-par 34 on the South Course at Westchester Country Club. Blumberg told me afterwards that he was just so excited to play the course for the first time that he didn’t even care about his score. Whatever he was thinking, it certainly worked.

He eagled the par 5 third, made birdie on No. 5 then made an incredible up-and-down from 90 yards to save par on No. 6. His only blemish came at No. 8 when his tee shot just went through the green. He wound up making a double bogey, but bounced back to birdie No. 9.

Teammate Mike Miller had a tough time on the greens with 19 putts, but still managed a 38. Mark Delzio added a 41 as the Bears stayed undefeated at 10-0 with a 217 to 221 win.

Both teams were missing players due to Spring Break, but the match turned out how it probably would if both teams were at full strength.

Eighth-grader Michael Ditursi led Harrison (5-3) with a 39 and Andrew Lichtenauer tossed in a roller-coaster 41. The senior had three birdies and no pars.

Brewster will now head into a huge tri-match with Rye and Horace Greeley at Mount Kisco Country Club Monday. Rye defeated Brewster and Harrison in last year’s Section 1 Championship so it should be a good one.

I will be in attendance so check back for details.

In going to Pelham Country Club to see the Fordham Prep vs. Iona Prep match, I got a little bonus golf in the fact that Pelham was also playing Eastchester. Let’s start with Fordham Prep:

The Rams took a pretty good challenge from their rival before winning 3-2. Fordham was led by sophomore Paul Toohey, who tied for medalist honors with Iona’s Kyle Keelan by posting a 2-over 37. Toohey has been red-hot of late, finishing as the medalist for Fordham in each of the past three matches. That fact is made even more impressive by the fact the Rams still have Jon Renza, the defending CHSAA state champ, and John Hough on the team.

Speaking of Renza, he suffered the first defeat since joining Fordham’s varsity team last season. Iona Prep freshman Shane Malloy was able to keep his record perfect by defeating Renza on the second extra hole.

Although neither played extremely well, it was a tightly-contested match throughout. Malloy went in front after an incredible birdie on No. 7, but Renza’s par on No. 9 tied it up. With neither wanting to end in a tie, they went back to No. 1 for a sudden-death playoff. Renza’s 15-foot birdie kept the match going, but he was unable to get up-and-down for par on No. 2. Expect to hear plenty more from these two over the next few years.

John Hough and David Bush also won matches for Fordham, which improved to 4-0.

Keelan and Malloy won for Iona Prep (3-1-1).

As for the other match, Pelham easily defeated Eastchester 222-264. These two teams have had some fantastic matches the past couple seasons, but the Eagles have almost an entirely new team this year.

Pelham lost two all-section players, but the Pelicans still have Andrew Emerson. Yesterday, the junior shot a 38 that included birdies on the 8th and 9th holes. It would be tough to find a player in the entire area playing better, as Emerson hasn’t broken 40 just once in his eight matches thus far.

While waiting for the final group to come in, I got into a little putting competition with Pelham coach Tom Roksvold and Eastchester coach Joe Cirasella. Let’s just say I need to start practicing … a lot.

There was also one match that got reported last night, which I wanted to point out. Harrison defeated Scarsdale 195 to 205 at Willow Ridge to give the Huskies a very impressive win. The two teams will play again May 13 at Fenway Golf Club.

After watching the best players in the world play what is probably the most beautiful course in the world, it’s time to refocus on high school golf. My flight arrived this morning, I took a nap and now I’m about to head off to one of my favorite area courses, Pelham Country Club, to see Iona Prep take on Fordham Prep.

First though, here are the links to our Winter High School All-Star sections for both Westchester/Putnam and Rockland counties. As the boys swimming writer for the first time, it was exciting to cover Rye’s Ryan Feeley, the first boys swimmer to ever win our Athlete of the Season award.

Check out the top athletes in all the sports. A lot of hard work by our staff goes into making these teams so I hope you enjoy. Back later with some thoughts on the match.

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If you’ve been following this Paul Azinger-Nick Faldo saga, in which Azinger described his Ryder Cup captain counterpart in unflattering terms in an interview and then said the words were taken out of context, it gets even better.

Now the Daily Mail of London has produced an audio file of that interview. It’s a bit grainy, but it does counter Azinger’s contention that he was just goofing around.

I like Paul Azinger, always have. When I first started covering golf in the late 90s, he was the tour player I got to know the best. But one of the reasons I’ve liked him is he’s always been brutally honest, which is what may have been his problem here.