Athlete Of The Week: Matt Swartz

MASHPEE – Dozens of fellow high school golfers hovered around Cape Cod Tech junior Matt Swartz as he made his way down the long fairway at the ninth hole of The Bog course at Willowbend Country Club on Friday.

After 18 holes in the Cape and Islands High School Golf Championship, he and Barnstable’s Colin Gleason tied for the day’s low score with matching 73s, necessitating a playoff at the par-5 ninth to determine the individual winner. Fellow competitors at the tournament followed the two finalists through the one playoff hole, creating pressure shots that Swartz had never hit before. Swartz had already birdied the ninth earlier in the day.

Off the tee, Swartz got a bad bounce as he tried to play his first shot right, just as he had done previously. The ball rested underneath the grass for his second shot. Swartz tried to get under it, to put it over the tree with a little fade. Thereafter, about 180 feet from the pin, Swartz thought about going for the hole but opted to play it safe and laid up, then stuck the approach to about six feet out. Gleason, getting to the green in one less stroke, matched Swartz with an approach that sat 10 feet from the pin.

With the rest of the field grouped around the green, Swartz’s par-putt cut short of the hole, earning him second-place among 47 golfers at the regional championship. The pressure-playoff hole was a situation Swartz had never felt. Even Cape Tech head coach Kevin Furey was nervous.

“I'm sure he felt the nerves, but I thought he handled it really well,” Furey said. “He played the hole smart and safe and gave himself a chance for saving par there. Just didn't go his way, but I think he showed guts there, and to have that many people watching and to see him play the way he did, I was very proud of him.”

Swartz didn’t even play in last year’s championship, after an injury sustained during hockey practice took him out of golf competition at the end of the season. He had played Willowbend a few times previously, according to Furey. He put together a couple great weeks in advance of the tournament, posting good scores in the state vocational and Mayflower Athletic Conference tournaments. 

Swartz’s day at the Cape and Islands High School Championship went perfectly, he said. His approach shots worked for him particularly. 

“I was sticking them real close today, and I was reading the green very well,” he said. “I was just one- or two-putting. I don't think I three-putted today once, but yeah, three-wood and drives going right where I wanted it to.”

Furey knows Swartz, with his confidence plus what he had shown in the last two weeks, is always capable of posting a low score. Swartz also said he definitely knew he could shoot a low number. With some big putts tying together an overall great day in Mashpee, that’s exactly what happened.