With wet and windy conditions, the Greenville County Golf Association Spring Two-Man at Greer Golf was a bit of a two-day slog.

You sure couldn’t tell it by the scorecard.

Despite tough conditions, there were some stellar scores in the event, particularly on day two.

First round leaders EJ Blanton and Nick Hughey fired a second-round total of 67 in the two-man scramble format, good enough to get them to 19-under for the tournament. It wasn’t enough.

Carson Joye and Connor Rose did one better, shooting a 63 in the second round to finish at 20-under for the event, taking the title by a single stroke.

Joye and Rose started on the second hole thanks to a shotgun start on Day Two, and had just three birdies on their first 11 holes.

Then, they caught fire. They were six under par on their last seven holes, including four in a rown on holes 13 through 16.

“We kind of endured the first eight or so holes,” Joye said. “We had some pretty heavy rain. And then the skies cleared a little bit, we made a couple of putts, and we got on a pretty good streak of birdies. Once the weather cleared up, we had some green lights on the pins and made some birdies.”

A par at 17 briefly stopped the run, but the pair responded with a birdie at 18. That left the par-5 first hole, their 18th of the day, to try to settle things.

Even that was a bit of an adventure.

“I was just gonna try to put one in the fairway and let him bomb it, which is what we’d been doing all day,” Rose said. “We both blocked our drives right over by No. 4 green, and we were both blind, couldn’t see the pin or anything. We had to kind of line it up and take it over a tree, and Carson hit the middle of the green. I missed the green, but we both ended up making birdie.”

The winners said having the first hole as their last hole actually gave them a scoring opportunity to look forward to for the entire round.

“It was definitely an advantage to have that one late in the round instead of early when it was raining,” Joye said. 

“We were thinking about that all day, having No. 1 to close our round,” Rose agreed.

They needed every shot they could get. First-flight team Andrew Hall and Hunter White caught fire on Sunday and crashed the championship flight, finishing in a tie for second overall with Blanton and Hughey at 19-under.

Hall and White started on No. 12, and by the time they reached the tee at No. 3 they had nine holes behind them and were 10-under for the day. The pair birdied holes 12, 13, 14, 16, 1, and 2, adding eagles on 15 and 18 for an early, gaudy number. They birdied 7 and 8 to finish the day at 12-under and vault into a late lead.

“We were seeing some pretty low scores from them,” Rose said. “That was pretty impressive.”

AJ Stouffer and Garrett Simpson tied Cody Norris and AJ Pierce for second place in the first flight at 15-under, behind Hall and White. Cooper Faust and Will Robinson tied Cory Taylor and Austin Looper for first in the second flight at 11-under, while Bruce Redmon and Oren Wood won the third flight at 7-under.

Scores from the Spring Two-Man Championship https://greenvillecga.bluegolf.com/bluegolfw/greenvillecga23/event/greenvillecga234/contest/10/leaderboard.htm

Ferrell and Biershenk win SCGA Four-Ball at Musgrove Mill

The team of Garland Ferrell and Robbie Biershenk started the week by claiming medalist honors in stroke play qualifying and went on to win the SCGA Four-Ball Championship at Musgrove Mill.

The two upstate golfers shot 11-under par in the two rounds of stroke play qualifying to win the top seed for the match play portion of the championship.

In match play the two never had to play the final hole at Musgrove.

Ferrell and Biershenk won their opening matches by scores of 6&5, 5&4

In the quarter final round, Jay McAllister and Micheal Sims gave the winners their best match of the week as the eventual champions topped the 9th seeded team 2&1.

A semi-final win over the team of Weston Bell and Robert Lutomski set up the finals with the team of Duane Burkhart and Jonathan Brazeal.

Wet and sloppy conditions made the final round more a test of survival than golf.

Burkhart got the first win of the day on the par three second hole making a 12-foot birdie putt to take an early one up lead.

After tying the next three holes, Burkhart and Brazeal faltered making bogies on the par four sixth and the tough par three seventh holes.

 Ferrell and Biershenk maintained their one up lead until a Ferrell birdie on the par five thirteenth gave them a two-up lead. 

A birdie three by Biershenk on the 15th put the team up by their final winning margin as they tied the final hole for 3 & 2 victory.

Scoring from the SCGA Four-Ball at Musgrove Mill https://www.golfgenius.com/pages/3966267