Headline: Bay State Junior Amateur Dan Slavin Featured in Recent Issue of Boston Globe... Will Compete in the 2010 U.S. Junior Amateur Championship
For Immediate Release: July 9, 2010
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Junior standout Dan Slavin was one of two Bay State golfers who qualified for the 2010 U.S. Junior Amateur Championship. |
Norton, MA — Junior amateur standout Dan Slavin (Waban, MA), who helped Team Massachusetts to a fourth-place finish at the 2009 New England Junior Amateur Championship, was featured in a recent issue of the Boston Globe.
Here is a copy of the story — written by sports reporter Marvin Pave — about Slavin's journey to the 2010 U.S. Junior Amateur Championship.
Slavin will take on the nation's top junior amateurs on July 19-24 at Egypt Country Club in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Slavin tees off as a top US amateur
By Marvin Pave
Globe Correspondent / July 8, 2010
Rather than play a practice round at the Atkinson Resort & Country Club in southern New Hampshire to prepare for a US Junior Amateur qualifier last month, Dan Slavin took a different approach.
"Normally I would have done it, " said the 17-year-old Newton resident, a golf and basketball captain-elect at the Buckingham Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge.
"But I had asked a few people who had played there and was told it was a tough, narrow course, so I decided to not risk going there and hitting some bad shots that might have affected my confidence."
Slavin, who has won the junior club championship at Belmont Country Club three of the past four years and won all 19 of his matches this spring at BB&N, played the 36-hole (morning and afternoon) qualifier in 2-over-par 146. He posted back-to-back rounds of 73 to tie for second among four young men who punched their tickets to the 2010 US Junior Amateur at Egypt Valley Country Club from July 19-24 in Grand Rapids, Mich.
It was a grueling and testing day for Slavin, who, because he couldn't arrange for a caddy, had to play in humid, high 80s conditions carrying his own bag. He was 4 over par after bogeys on the ninth, 10th, and 11th holes in the morning round and in danger of falling out of contention.
"I was just hoping to record a low number in the first round and not put myself out of the tournament, so after those three straight bogeys, I was able to come back with three birdies to finish one over," said Slavin, who credited a putting lesson prior to his trip to New Hampshire from his instructor, Tom Cavicchi of the Harmon Golf and Fitness Club in Rockland, with helping him turn that part of his game around.
"I really putted lights out after Tom worked with me. I made a few 6- and 7-footers at Atkinson and if any of them had lipped out, I probably would have found myself in a playoff or perhaps not even qualified," said Slavin, who won the 2008 New England PGA Junior title at the Robert T. Lynch Municipal course (Putterham) in Brookline and played on the seven-member Massachusetts team last year in Maine in a New England junior tournament. "I was lining up incorrectly, but Tom corrected me in about two seconds."
After coming back into contention in the morning round and taking a break for lunch, Slavin played the afternoon 18, and "it was the toughest round mentally of my life, but my putting got me through it," he said. "I had bogey on the 17th hole in the afternoon and thought I might have hurt my chances. I had to wait a while to see the final scores and luckily, I got in."
Slavin and Jamison Randall of Cumberland, R.I. — with whom he had been paired with in other tournaments — finished two strokes behind medalist Chris Houston of Gilford, N.H., and one stroke ahead of the final qualifier, Damon Salo of New Ipswich, N.H.
"I took a couple of days off afterwards because I was so worn out," said Slavin, who plays the game left-handed and was also an All-Independent School League pick in basketball as a 5-foot-11 point guard, "and I never take a day off from golf."
Cavicchi, director of instruction at Harmon and a former New England PGA Teacher of the Year, has worked with Slavin weekly for three years.
"It's been a steady maturation process for Dan, who is a talented, skillful, and athletic player with a wonderful short game and nice touch," said Cavicchi. "I think playing other sports has also given him a mental toughness and his love of golf is evident because of his work ethic. He soaks up instruction like a sponge and making it to the US Junior Amateur, the most prestigious tournament for players under the age of 18, is definitely a benchmark moment for his career because when you do that, the college golf coaches take notice."
Slavin, teeing it up in the American Junior Golf Association's Coca-Cola Junior Championship this week in Harbor Springs, Mich., will face 36 holes of stroke play at the US Amateur to make the cut among the low 64 for two days of match play.
"That was my goal this summer, so it's pretty satisfying, especially after how I began my day at Atkinson," said Slavin, who took up the game as a 5-year-old at Belmont Country Club under the tutelage of his father, Peter, the president of Massachusetts General Hospital, who currently carries a 7 handicap.
Scott Whitcomb, director of field operations for the Massachusetts Golf Association and a member of the United States Golf Association Junior Amateur Committee, said he is impressed with Slavin's demeanor and steady improvement.
"He always has a smile on his face," said Whitcomb, "but he's also a fighter out there and he's got a bright future in the game."