When Baldwin missed fairways, they were close enough that any weekend hacker would have counted them as hits on their stat card. With his length off the tee, driver wasn’t necessary, so he kept it in the bag.

“She’s like a prodigy.”īaldwin didn’t have the fireworks but still got the results. “She was sticking the pin all the time on her approach shots, but she was very consistent the entire day and she was a real joy to play with,” Santamaria said. The Cranston West All-Stater took the loss in stride. It was the second-straight year Papa had defeated Santamaria, who had dispatched Vincenza Papa in the semifinals, 2 and 1. “I saw it, but when I saw my divot, I thought it was going to roll and it didn’t roll at all.

“I knew it was good,” said Papa, who thought she had her first hole-in-one with the swing. Her six-iron off the tee on the par-3 12th never left the flagstick, landing 18 inches short of the flag, leaving her a kick-in birdie. 11 to dormie Santamaria with seven left before closing the match in style. “They were all just darts at the pin,” the Foster native said. She used it on her approach shots on hole Nos. The final five holes of Papa’s round were her masterpiece, all coming thanks to her trusty 9-iron. “That’s one of my great clubs that I hit, around that distance, but that was probably one of the greatest jobs I’ve ever done.” “They were all mostly within six or nine feet for birdie putts,” Papa said of her five-hole stretch that closed the front nine. As an encore, she stuck her final shot of the day to 18 inches on the par-3 12th and the birdie gave her an 8-and-6 win over Ava Santamaria. Closing the front, she threw 9-irons onto greens with a sniper’s precision, extending a 1-up lead into an insurmountable six-hole lead at the turn. Papa, the defending girls champ, started her match with a bogey and didn’t make an error the rest of the afternoon. “I hit the 2-iron a lot and hit a lot of greens. I just stuck with that same approach,” said Baldwin, who will attend Babson College in the fall and play for the men’s golf team.

“What’s funny is that’s typically not my game. 15 gave him a 4-and-3 win over Harry Dessel for the RIGA boys title. George’s School grad, and his two-putt par on No. Pars were everywhere for the Little Compton resident and recent St. It might sound hard, but when you play the way John Baldwin and Gianna Papa do, it’s anything but.īaldwin stuck to his plan and blistered 2-irons off just about every tee at Alpine Country Club, hitting just about every fairway and green along the way. CRANSTON - Want to know the best way to win a Rhode Island Golf Association Junior Amateur Championship? Just play perfect golf.

Last Flag Down by John Baldwin