Sea Island, GA-Austin Eaton of New London, NH, a resident and top Met Area competitor until two years ago, earned a coveted spot in the field at the 2005 Masters at the Augusta National Golf Club as he captured the 2004 U.S. Mid Amateur Championship topping Josh Dennis 1-up with a par on the difficult 18th hole. Eaton, who made the quarterfinals in 2002 at The Stanwich Club, continues a long streak of  Champions with ties to the Met Area in this event, which includes wins by local residents Jeff Thomas in 1993, Jerry Courville Jr. in 1995, Ken Bakst in 1997 and George Zahringer in 2002. 

Eaton jumped out quickly on his 27-year-old competitor building a 4-up lead and finishing the morning round with a 3-up cushion. The gutty Dennis, a Birmingham, AL native who was playing in his first USGA event, climbed back into the match eventually taking a 1-up lead with a par on the 29th hole of the day. However, Eaton quickly squared the match then claimed a one up advantage with consecutive pars. The match came to the difficult par 4, 470 yard 18^th, all square, and Dennis came undone making a double bogey 6, losing to Eaton’s par. 

Eaton, known as “Ace”, battled all week with the help of his wife Pamela as his caddie. Pamela and Ace became engaged just two years ago while Ace was competing in an MGA international competition, The French American Challenge, which was being held at Joyenval Golf Club outside Paris in mid October.  He proposed in the gardens of the Palace at Versailles one afternoon and announced the engagement at a team dinner at the Eiffel Tower that evening.

Other local players had strong showings as well. Mark Thompson of Plandome and Roger Hoit of Baltusrol each won two matches and advanced to the third round of match play. Mike Reardon of Tuxedo and Bryan Pendrick of Mill River (LI) each earned spots in match play but lost hard fought 19 hole battles, Rearson with 1994 U.S. Am runner-up Trip Kuehne and Pendrick with William Johnson of San Francisco, CA. 2004 Jerry Courville Sr. MGA Player of the Year points leader Peter Meurer of Silver Lake just missed qualifying for match play after posting a 149 (75-74) missing by a single stroke. 2002 champion George Zahringer was exempt but had to withdraw due to a nagging leg injury. 

As for Eaton October has proved to be a great month. In addition to the Masters invitation, Eaton also earns exemptions into the 2005 U.S. Amateur at Merion and the U.S. Public Links.

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