By: Steve Derderian
sderderian@massgolf.org
OSTERVILLE, Massachusetts (June 11, 2026) – What a rare and refreshing experience it is, at this level, to make a championship-winning round of golf feel almost weightless.
From the little hop step he took before striking his opening tee shot to the moment his final par putt dropped into the cup on the 18th hole of the 116th Massachusetts Open at Oyster Harbors Club, Evan Harmeling played with the scoreboard mostly out of sight and out of mind, trusting he would make birdies and let the numbers sort themselves out later.
Clearly, the freewheeling approach Harmeling and his caddie, Chris LoDolce, joked about as “straight vibes” a day earlier never really changed.
“I didn’t know where I stood, which kind of added to the suspense for me,” said Harmeling, who earned his second Mass Open title, 13 years removed from his first, with a three-day total of 11-under-par 205. “It was kind of like, let’s just try and make birdies here and figure the rest out later.”
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The Clarence G. Cochrane Memorial Trophy has returned to the hands of the North Reading native, but hardly the same place in life. When Harmeling first won the Mass Open in 2013, he was a 24-year-old professional still chasing his place in the game, weeks removed from the Boston Marathon bombing and inspired to donate his entire $15,000 winner’s check to One Fund Boston. This time, 13 years later, he returned at 37 as a husband, a father of two young daughters, and a player still drawn back by the same simple pull that hooked him then: the chance to compete.
That freedom showed early Thursday. Harmeling stuck his approach on the par-5 2nd hole to about four feet for eagle, birdied the next, and suddenly the field had no choice but to try to hang with him.
Harmeling, who began the day three strokes back, made the turn in 4-under 32, but the final round was far from settled. Former University of Florida standout Ryan Celano (The International) remained firmly in the hunt, while Connecticut’s Chris Fosdick (Middlefield, CT), a former University of Virginia standout, was producing the round of the championship.
Fosdick, who opened the week with a bogey-free 66, birdied Nos. 13 and 14 to move into a share of the lead at 9-under. Moments later, he nearly took firm control, narrowly missing an eagle putt from inside 10 feet on the par-5 16th before tapping in for birdie to reach 10-under.
On the 17th, his birdie attempt to get to 11-under spun halfway around the cup before staying out, drawing an audible reaction of disbelief. On the 18th, another lip-out denied him a par that would have broken the Oyster Harbors course record outright. Still, Fosdick’s 7-under 65 matched the course record shared by Ken Venturi and Paul Heffernan and left him two strokes off the winning total.
Celano, meanwhile, kept answering. After moving to 9-under with a birdie at the turn, he gave a shot back with a costly three-putt bogey on the 13th. But he responded with consecutive birdies on Nos. 14 and 15 to pull back within one of Harmeling.
In the middle of all that movement came one of Harmeling’s most important swings of the day, and it wasn’t a birdie putt. On the 12th hole, Harmeling chose a 7-wood off the tee and hooked it into the trees. There was no panic, though. He took his medicine, wedged his third shot below the slope of the green and calmly rolled in the putt to save par and remain tied for the lead.
“That was huge,” Harmeling said. “It wasn’t the best punch out, and then I actually hit a pretty good little wedge. Long was dead, so I wanted to err on the short side, and it came out a little bit softer than I thought. But I was walking up, and I’m like, ‘Hey, five’s fine here. Let’s just keep moving forward and stay smart.’ But that was just a massive bonus to make that putt. I putted really well all week, and that was huge.”
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The save preserved the round’s spirit, too. A day earlier, Harmeling had talked about trying to keep the game playful, even joking about hitting a big slice around Oyster Harbors’ restored corridors. Under final-round pressure, that looseness became harder to maintain, but not impossible.
“It’s hard to keep that mentality when you know you’re kind of in the hunt,” Harmeling said. “But that is important. You gotta just continue having fun. That’s kind of what it’s all about.”
His final birdie came on the par-5 16th, where he reached the right edge of the green and converted a two-putt birdie. Celano, needing a response, instead found the greenside bunker on the same hole and had to settle for par.
By the time Harmeling reached the 18th, the path was clear. He ripped his drive down the fairway to about 35 yards short of the front-right hole location, hit a comfortable wedge onto the green and two-putted for par. The closing 66, his second consecutive of the championship, eventually secured a one-shot victory over Celano.
Celano’s final chance came minutes later. After finding the left rough off the 18th tee, he hit his approach onto the green, leaving a downhill, slippery, and must-make birdie putt to force a playoff. It slid just past the cup, and the trophy was officially back in Harmeling’s hands.
But Harmeling, now long removed from his junior golf days at Indian Ridge Country Club in Andover, seemed almost as taken by the feeling of the round itself as the prize waiting at the end.
“Playing this place is just fun,” Harmeling said. “Anytime a course is as pure as this, you just want to keep playing. I’ve had that feeling all week. I just want to stay out here and keep playing.”
Low amateur honors went to Oyster Harbors member Alan Rose III, whose rounds of 74-69-67 left him tied for fifth at 6-under-par 210. The rising Georgetown University junior improved his score each day despite enduring a difficult stretch early in the championship that included five consecutive bogeys and a double bogey on the 16th hole during the opening round.
For Rose, the finish carried extra meaning at the club where he grew up playing. Even with years of experience at Oyster Harbors, he said the championship setup presented a version of the course unlike any he had previously seen. Having his father, Alan Rose Jr., on the bag for all 54 holes made the week even more memorable.
“Walking 54 holes with your dad, carrying your bag is pretty special,” Rose said. “And then I’ve never seen it play as hard as it did in the first two rounds. I love seeing new challenges out here. You’re never playing the same golf course twice.”
Evan Harmeling became the 17th player to win multiple Mass Open titles, and his 13-year wait between victories is the longest stretch between Mass Open wins without another title in between, surpassing Jim Browning, who won his two titles 12 years apart (1953-1965). Mass Golf Hall of Famer Bob Crowley owns the longer overall span, with 16 years between his first and last victories in 1957 and 1973. The former Pine Brook Country Club head pro also won in 1962 and 1966.
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