GAP Team Matches: Always A Close Call

  "It ain’t over till it’s over."

  Yogi Berra made the saying famous during his tenure with the New York Yankees. He might as well have been talking about the GAP Team Matches. So many times the final result of a match or the year-end standings are decided by the smallest of margins.

  For example, last season, in Week One alone, 28 matches were decided by a point or less. And in the final standings, in Division B, Edgmont 1 defeated Chester Valley 1 by a quarter point and Blue Bell 1 nipped Tavistock 2 by a point to earn the two teams an opportunity to challenge up. Edgmont 1 took advantage of that chance and will compete in Division A this spring.

  Edgmont’s team captain Ben Sack said his team’s win came as a bit of a surprise.

  "Since we didn’t know how the other teams were fairing, we knew we needed every point we could get," said Sack, 67, of Rosemont, Pa. "Our win bumped us up into Division A, which is pretty exciting."

  However, the best example of every swing counting, came in the 2003 GAP Team Matches playoff. Merion Golf Club 1 defeated Llanerch Country Club 1 by the slimmest margin possible, 70 1/4-70, for the overall title. With that minimal discrepancy determining a winner and loser, every hole is a potential difference maker and an all-important quarter point.

  Michael McDermott of Merion Golf Club, a two-time Player of the Year and member at Llanerch Country Club back then, said the contest is the ultimate team event.

  "Even though a guy may be down late and has little or no shot of winning his match, he can still help his team win by taking one hole," said McDermott, 30, of Havertown, Pa.

  Golf may be primarily an individual sport, but the GAP Team Matches make each person’s actions count for his team. In the GAP Team Matches points are awarded based on In, Out and Total with quarter-point bonuses awarded to the match’s winner. For each hole ahead at the conclusion of the match, the winner receives a quarter-point bonus. In the end, the difference in a match’s outcome or final standings becomes one hole that often becomes lost in the shuffle when teams are either leading or losing by a seemingly insurmountable amount.

  "We have seen countless matches where teams are either up by a comfortable margin and shut it down because their win is in-hand, or give up because there is no way they could come back to win," said Mark Peterson, Executive Director of the Golf Association of Philadelphia and member of Philadelphia Cricket Club’s first team. "Since each hole counts for a quarter of a point towards the bonus, teams can really hurt themselves down the road by not playing hard through the end of a match."

  As Yogi Berra so eloquently put it, "It ain’t over till it’s over."