Marc Ehudin couldn’t escape the frustration stemming from falling in the opening round of match play at the 71st U.S. Senior Amateur Championship at Baltimore Country Club in Lutherville. And that’s natural for competitors who are only happy when they succeed.
But regret? That wasn’t in Ehudin’s vocabulary.
“I put aside any angst or disappointment with the way I played Saturday and Sunday,” the Pikesville native and Gilman graduate said. “That was all gone because the goal was to make match play. So if I shot 11-over over two rounds and made match play because of a playoff, that was the goal. The past is irrelevant. I did well enough.”
Ehudin, a Potomac resident who celebrated his 63rd birthday a week ago, was the only golfer with Baltimore area ties left in Monday’s Round of 64. After carding an 11-over 151 in two rounds of stroke play on Saturday and Sunday and surviving a 13-golfer playoff early Monday morning to cement one of the last three berths in the field, the No. 63 seed lost to No. 2 seed Brian Quackenbush, 2 and 1.
Teeing off at 11:10 a.m., Ehudin stumbled to bogeys in four of his first five holes and found himself three holes down. He rebounded to lodge four birdies against two bogeys over the final 12 holes — including a near hole-in-one on the par-3, 170-yard 13th hole that settled just one inch shy of rolling into the cup — but could not extend Quackenbush beyond No. 17 on the club’s East Course.
“I was able to scrape and claw back,” said Ehudin, who was followed by his wife Rachel, sister Kris and family friend Pam Friedman. “But I put myself in a big hole, and you can’t do that in this event against guys that are that good. I didn’t hit the ball very well with my irons. My strength in stroke play is scraping out pars and grinding out pars. That’s not a good formula for match play all the time because Brian is very consistent.”
Quackenbush, a 55-year-old resident of Aiken, South Carolina, carded an even-par 70 by mixing two birdies with two bogeys. By comparison, Ehudin shot a 2-over 72, but Quackenbush said his opponent refused to go away.
“It was a good match. Marc went out there and claimed a spot in that big playoff. So that was probably tough for him. Then he brought it. He went down a little bit early, and I just kind of held him off as best I could, but he hung in there solid.”
Even before match play, Ehudin was forced to earn a berth in the field after finishing in a tie for 62nd after the second round of stroke play ended Sunday. He and 12 other golfers vied for three spots in Monday’s match play round.
On the first hole — the par-3, 175-yard ninth — Ehudin drilled a 5 iron to about 10 feet, but missed his birdie putt. Meanwhile, D Scott Mackesy sank a 20-foot birdie putt to secure one of the three openings.
Ehudin and eight other golfers moved on to the par-4, 385-yard 10th, where Ehudin made an up-and-down to save par. Five competitors were eliminated, meaning Ehudin and three others remained.
On the par-4, 410-yard 11th, Ehudin and Niketan Desai made pars, while Len Komar and Michael McCoy, last year’s U.S. Senior Amateur and the 2013 U.S. Mid-Amateur Champion, ended with bogeys. That cemented the path for Ehudin and Desai to enter the match play portion.
“I did not know what to expect,” Ehudin said after qualifying. “Realistically, didn’t want to think ahead and think that I would be getting one of the three spots because of the odds and the guys who I competed against. So to actually prevail is beyond thrilling.”
Ehudin could not pull off an upset, but others did. Desai of Zambia, the No. 64 seed, stunned No. 1 seed Trae Cassell of Rancho Santa Fe, California, 2 and 1, by holing a 45-foot birdie putt on No. 17. Mackesy, the No. 62 seed from Bronxville, New York, edged No. 3 seed Louis Brown of Marietta, Georgia, 2 and 1, No. 61 seed Joe Sawala of Henderson, Nevada, shocked No. 4 seed Mike Fritz of Portland, Oregon, 3 and 1, and No. 60 seed Danny Nelson of Savannah, Georgia, knocked off No. 5 seed Andy Hydorn of Houston, Texas, 3 and 2.
Quackenbush said he didn’t concern himself with the seeds next to his and Ehudin’s names.
“Stay in the present,” he said of his mindset. “Match play is weird. Just take it one shot at a time.”
Ehudin had played in the 2024 U.S. Senior Amateur at The Honors Course in Ooltewah, Tennessee, but missed match play by one stroke. So qualifying this time around strengthened his hope to use the experience as a building block for the future.
“I want to compete against the best,” he said. “If I don’t beat them, fine, but I want to give them my best shot. I want to be in the mix. I want to challenge myself to get better, to win matches like this instead of lose matches like this. So I think this morning gave me a tremendous boost of confidence.”
Have a news tip? Contact Edward Lee at eklee@baltsun.com, 410-332-6200 and x.com/EdwardLeeSun.
