James Bradley, an East Hampton High School freshman, became Suffolk County's individual golf champion Tuesday, winning by three shots over Jack Bruetsch of Center Moriches, a sophomore, at the Smithtown Landing Country Club.
The personable 14-year-old, who is being coached by the Maidstone Club's pro, Eden Foster, shot rounds of 75 and 81 to win it, thus joining Foster's son, Turner, who's now playing at Loyola University in Maryland, and Zach Grossman as the three East Hamptoners to have won county individual golf titles.
It could not immediately be learned whether there have been other freshmen to have won individual county golf championships, but it's probably a rarity.
Grossman, who returned to East Hampton in his senior year after having lived several years in South Carolina, won the championship as a senior in 2010. Foster won it in 2016, as a sophomore. He was the runner-up in his junior and senior years.
The course, Bradley said on his return here, was "not long, but tricky, with tight fairways and fast, undulating greens. And the pins were in tough positions."
After the first day's 18-hole round, he led by two strokes, with Bruetsch six shots behind.
"It was neck and neck the whole way today," said Bradley, whose father, Scott, was among the spectators. "I made a 50-foot birdie putt on 13, which definitely helped, and Jack bogeyed. On the 14th, I parred and he bogeyed again. That put me up by three."
But it wasn't entirely over, for he wound up with what golfers call a "snowman" -- an 8 -- on the 18th, a 390-yard par-4 dogleg left.
In reviewing his novel finish, Bradley said, "My drive was good. My iron shot kicked off the green into a small sloped bunker. It took one shot to get out, but it rolled off the green into a hazard, not quite into the water, but near it. It took me two shots to get out of the hazard, and then I three-putted. . . . If it didn't land in the trap, I would have parred."
But that, he agreed, was golf.
While this was all going on, his father, who was in his son's entourage, was suffering silently. "James maintained his composure," the elder Bradley said, "but he didn't know he'd won until he went to the scoring tent." Despite all of the above, his three-stroke lead over Bruetsch had held up.
"It was the worst par-4 I've ever played in my life," he said, with a sigh.
And now? Now he would continue to practice, would continue his flexibility and strength workouts, and would continue to play in junior tournaments throughout the tristate area this summer.
Bradley and his teammates, Trevor Stachecki, J.P. Amaden, Nico Horan-Puglia, Juan Palacios, and Aiden Cooper, finished third in the team competition.
Asked if he intended to win three more county titles, Bradley said he did.