Cole, Hunt claim Gannon club championships

LYNN – It was set to be a mano-a-mano battle for the men’s club championship at Gannon Golf Course this weekend. And that’s what it turned out to be.After gapping the field by seven shots over the first two days of the 72-hole stroke play competition, Mike Cole and John Lynch Jr. found themselves in what turned out to be a 36-hole showdown between the veteran and the up-and-coming star.In the end, it was the consistent play of Cole that won out as he claimed a second consecutive title – and ninth in all – with a two-shot victory over Lynch.”John is going to win many, many club championships up here,” Cole said. “So it’s nice to get another one with these young guys on the way up.”In the women’s championship, Mary Hunt, Tara Friedman and Jane Fiste came into Sunday’s final round separated by only four shots. And though Friedman cut the margin to one with nine holes to play, Hunt’s consistency won out as she took a four-shot win to claim her second title to go with her 2007 crown.Click here for a photo gallery.”It really was a battle out there,” Hunt said. “I made a quadruple bogey eight on the third and was able to come back from it.”On Saturday, Cole and Lynch pretty much made sure that it would be a two-horse race over the final 18 holes. Each birdied two of the final three holes on Saturday to shoot 67 and 68, respectively, to take 14 and 11 shot gaps into Sunday over third-place Ben Friedman.John Boland shot rounds of 67-70 over the final two days to finish fourth alone, one shot behind Friedman. But Cole’s steady play found him holding a three-shot lead coming up the final hole.Lynch nearly hit the green on the 588-yard par-5 finishing hole in two and gave Cole a momentary scare when his eagle chip grazed the cup. But the tap-in birdie was followed by a Cole par to polish off the championship.”Winning something like this never gets old and you never take it for granted,” Cole said. “They are never easy to acquire. You have to earn them, and it’s special to be a guy like John because he is such an all-around good player.”The women also did their best to make it an interesting finish on Sunday.After coming into the weekend tied with Jane Fiste, Hunt shot 82 on Saturday to take a three-shot lead over Friedman and a four-shot advantage over Fiste. After seeing her lead cut to one through nine, Hunt extended the lead back to three on the par-3 16th when Friedman drained a 25-foot birdie putt to make things interesting down the stretch.But steady nerves got Hunt through the final two holes and her second title in as many weekends. Hunt won the women’s senior club championship last weekend.”It’s nice to get another one so it doesn’t seem like the first one was a fluke,” Hunt said.In the men’s net flight competition, Art Cusack blitzed the field over the final two days, carding two rounds of 70 to take a seven-shot victory over Matt DeBenedictis. Joe Crowley was third.The women’s net flight also proved to be a runaway as Julie Lombara shot rounds of 72-75-76-75 for a 298 total and an eight-stroke victory over Cathy Breslow. Nancy Gheringhelli was third with Colleen Richards and Gina Mantino sharing fourth.