Two stroke-play qualifying rounds of the 74th U.S. Junior Amateur Championship were conducted on Monday and Tuesday at Bandon Dunes Golf Resort in Bandon, Ore.
They proved, without a doubt, that the games of the best Massachusetts junior golfers travel very well.
John Broderick (Wellesley, Mass.), an incoming Vanderbilt freshman, and Aidan Emmerich (Swampscott, Mass.), also entering his first year of college at Michigan State, started their 36-hole journey by teeing off at exactly the same time on opposite nines with the same course rotation (first round at Bandon Trails, second at Bandon Dunes).
As if those similarities weren’t enough, Broderick and Emmerich went on to carve out identical 69-72-141 scores over the medal-play competition to comfortably snag a position in the top half of the 64-player match play draw, with 264 competitors having teed off when the tournament opened play on Monday.