In any head-to-head, bracket-style competition, there’s a temptation to hope for an easier draw, for someone else to do your dirty work and knock off a favorite.
In this year’s Mass. Junior Amateur, Carson Erick turned that approach inside-out, successively staring down the iron and defeating four top-notch opponents in a row, with three of those matches going to the final green. It with a masterful combination of long-game precision and deft touch around the greens when he was crowned the champion at GreatHorse (Hampden) earlier this month.
Erick,17, a rising Hingham High senior and the son of Boston Golf Club head pro Boomer Erick, was already trending upward after a strong July.
As it turned out, pundits still considered Erick an underdog in each of his four Mass. Junior matches, simply because that quartet of opponents had enjoyed even better summers.
No championship has ever been won on paper, however. At the Mass. Junior, just surviving stroke play to qualify for match play is an arduous task.
Erick’s amazing Mass. Junior story deserves close examination of the five methodically executed steps that catapulted him into the winner’s circle.