MARLBOROUGH, Massachusetts (July 1, 2024) – The dynamic duo of Megan Buck and Shannon Johnson (Thorny Lea Golf Club) have done it again. A fifth Massachsetts Women’s Four-Ball Championship title was captured after two rain delays casting over Marlborough Country Club. This makes number eight for Megan Buck, and fifth consecutive with best friend Shannon Johnson riding along.
They didn’t prevail without a fight. Early in the day Kristen Henderson and Kim Zenisky carried the top of the leaderboard. On their heels was 2023 runner-up pair Grace Farland and Victoria Veator. A 16th-hole birdie regained Johnson and Buck’s solo lead.
Play was suspended at 2:35 due to dangerous weather in the area. The rain poured and the carts rolled in for a gathering on the back patio that made the occasion joyous in it’s inconvenient timing. At 4:25 the grey skies returned and the rain came falling down once again. A second rain delay brought players back to the clubhouse, eager to finish their rounds. While the rain makes for a long day of golf, the skies cleared in time to finish with beaming sunshine.
“It was definitely a little struggle to start,” Johnson said. “We’ve played a lot of golf recently, we’ve had the New England [Women’s] Amateur at Samoset. And we came back and played in the the Brockton Four-Ball. And so this is our seventh day in a row. So it was a little a little tough to get going out of the gates, but we kind of found a good groove. We made a good birdie on 10 and made another good one on the 11th right after the rain delay. Then we kind of hit a little speed bump on the second rain delay, but we kind of used to it get warmed up. It was overall a good day.”
The greens may have softened as the rain poured over the day, but the duo continued to pick each other up on the course when needed.
“I think that’s what we’re good at both of us,” Buck said. “I think everybody can get on the course and get down so that’s what’s going on. You’re out there with your best friend. So you see that you’re getting a little down makes me stay extra positive and try to pick you back up, but I feel like today we did a good job at that. Almost every time one of us was doing bad we kind of pick them up and then hit a good shot and then you hit a good shot and then it makes everything better, and you’re not as sad anymore. I think we did a good job if we had a low we were able to hit a good shot and kind of recover and move on from there.”
Their speed bump bogey on the 14th had Johnson fired up for the 15th. A mis-hit birdie putt was the gas she needed for a piped drive down the middle of the 156th and a strategy to recover from any blind shots coming in at the end of the round.
“I kind of walked up there and saw that it looks like the green kind of came in a little bit,” Johnson said. “So if I hit it pretty straight I thought I’d had a good number and obviously it was a lot closer than I thought it was. It was a good number in the moment and Megan had too strong holes on 17 and 18 to get us in.”
Johnson made a clean birdie on sixteen and Buck carried the pars through the 17th and 18th to finish out their fifth consecutive four-ball championship title together.
As they rolled back out a little over an hour after the play suspension, Kristen Henderson and Kim Zenisky held the solo lead at 3-under with just two holes play. After a par on the 17th, the duo took on the 18th. A demanding uphill par-3 sitting at roughly 158 yards. Henderson with a tee shot in the left greenside bunker, and Zenisky just short on the left. As it happens when you need it most, the sand got the best of Henderson and it was two-strokes given to the bunker. With Henderson on in three, Zenisky hit a nice flop shot that rolled past the pin. With about 20 feet slightly downhill, Zenisky’s putt fell short of the hole by a mere foot. Closing out their round with a bogey and putting them at 2-under, tied with last year’s champions Shannon Johnson and Megan Buck who still had 7-holes to play.
While the championship ended with Johnson and Buck’s final hole, Henderson and Zenisky will still go home with the net title. They finished with a net 9-under.
“We’re not going home empty handed. If you can’t win gross we can at least win net,” Henderson said.
“Kris and I, we play a lot together and we play well together,” added Zenisky. “We complement each other’s games and we have a lot of fun. It was a great day. Complements to a Mass Golf all the way through to the course superintendent, to a great playing partner.”
Mass Golf is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that is dedicated to advancing golf in Massachusetts by building an engaged community around the sport.
With a community made up of over 125,000 golf enthusiasts and over 360 member clubs, Mass Golf is one of the largest state golf associations in the country. Members enjoy the benefits of handicapping, engaging golf content, course rating and scoring services along with the opportunity to compete in an array of events for golfers of all ages and abilities.
At the forefront of junior development, Mass Golf is proud to offer programming to youth in the state through First Tee Massachusetts and subsidized rounds of golf by way of Youth on Course.
For more news about Mass Golf, follow on Facebook, X, Instagram, and YouTube.
