Jul. 14—CONCORD — There was a stretch during the 121st New Hampshire Golf Association Amateur Championship final where Rob Henley was scuffling. He was hitting the ball everywhere and seemingly couldn’t sink a putt.
But on the 33rd hole of the 36-hole championship match — the second trip to Concord Country Club’s par-4 15th hole — Henley sunk a 20-foot putt to save par and keep the match even, giving him the spark to take the next two holes and clinch a 2-and-1 match play victory over Stephen Goodridge.
The State Am championship was the first for the New London resident and Lake Sunapee Country Club member.
“I made a bunch of bogeys and a couple doubles,” Henley said. “I had a big up-and-down on 15 that kind of changed the momentum a bit and brought things back around.”
On the 15th, Henley put his fairway shot into the left greenside bunker. The runner-up to Jack Pepin in last year’s State Am, Henley escaped the bunker with a strong chip shot that set up his long par putt.
Henley got up and down on the par-3 16th hole to break the deadlock. Goodridge, a 38-year-old Eastman Golf Links member and Grantham resident, hit a poor tee shot on the 16th hole that landed on the cart path on his way to a bogey.
“That kind of opened things back up again,” Henley said.
Henley earned his sixth birdie of the day on the par-5 17th hole — the 35th overall — to close out the win. He also posted three double-bogeys — all in the second round of 18 holes — and a bogey on the first hole of the match.
Goodridge, in his second State Am appearance, hit a stellar chip shot on the 17th hole from the rough behind the green that just went long and to the right of the hole. He then missed his par putt that would have extended the match.
“I landed it in the exact perfect spot that I wanted to,” Goodridge said of the chip shot. “I thought it was going to break left and go in — or it had the chance to maybe hit the hole but it broke right and then I missed the silly putt.”
Goodridge battled back from being five down through 20 holes to tie the match after 31 holes with his putting. He won Nos. 21-24 to cut Henley’s lead to 1-up and finally tied the match with a par on the par-4 13th hole — the 31st of the match.
“I was being pretty aggressive on some putts,” said Goodridge, who won the 2006 NCAA Division III individual national title as a University of Rochester sophomore. “I felt pretty good over the four-, five-footers … being aggressive with the putts and making a couple of them helped out a lot.”
Goodridge, who reached the Round of 16 last year, finished with five birdies, eight bogeys and two double-bogeys.
Henley, who realized a dream by winning the State Am, received a same-year exemption into the U.S. Amateur, which will be held Aug. 12-18 at Hazeltine National Golf Club and Chaska Town Course in Chaska, Minnesota. This summer’s edition of the State Am is the first in which the winner received a U.S. Am exemption.
Henley, 36, joked it will be fun to play against a bunch of 19-22-year-olds who drive the ball 400 yards.
“I’ve played in two other USGA events but never played in the U.S. Am so it’s kind of a unique privilege,” he said.
